What's the secret history of Stonehenge? New dig sheds light on this ancient site

Archaeologists from the University of Buckingham in England discovered a 6,000-year-old settlement that they believe may have been home to those who lived in the British isles prior to the construction of Stonehenge.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The settlement was found at Blick mead in Wiltshire, and carbon dating showed that this site is much older than the famous monument just a mile-and-a-half away.

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Excavations at the site have revealed evidence of what could be permanent structures, as well as some charcoal and burned animal bones, which could be from cooking or religious rituals.

"It's the first indication of a settlement, not just people passing through and dropping tools," a spokesman for the University, which heads the project, said.

David Jacques, the archaeologist who is head of the site said that further study of the site could actually "rewrite British history."

"This is the latest dated Mesolithic encampment ever found in the U.K." he said. "Blick Mead site connects the early hunter gatherer groups returning to Britain after the Ice Age to the Stonehenge area, all the way through to the Neolithic in the late fifth Millennium BC."

Jacques admits that the new site could provide some sorely sought after answers, but will also pose new questions to the archaeological community in Britain.

"Was Stonehenge built in part as a monument to the ancestors from the deepest part of Britain's past?" He asked.

"Blick Mead could explain what archaeologists have been searching for for centuries-an answer to the story of Stonehenge's past."

A natural spring runs at Blick Mead, and could explain why people found the site to be so attractive for settling.

A dig site in nearby Amesbury has shown to the longest continually-occupied place in Great Britain, and has shown evidence of burnt frogs' legs from 7,000 years ago. Numerous Mesolithic burnt flints and tools have also been found at the Amesbury site, in fact it has the highest density of these artifacts anywhere in the British isles.

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