The Unknown Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page A

surface and a small hole containing the tip of a flint arrowhead, the rest of which was found lying by the right arm. The eleventh (left) and ninth (right) ribs also have cut grooves in them, probably resulting from a sharp projectile passing through the ribcage, and the back of the mesosternum had an embedded flint arrowhead tip. Overall, the evidence seems to suggest that ‘the man was probably shot at close range as none of the injuries show the penetration downwards that would be expected from an arrow falling in an arc’ (Evans et al. , 1984: 17). A radiocarbon date (BM–1582) was obtained from the left femur of the man, a result of 2170 ± 110 BC being obtained ( ibid. : 22).
    A further question arises from this burial. Stonehenge was still an important monument in the Early Bronze Age, as demonstrated by satellite pictures showing the profusion of round barrows in the vicinity. Was this man, provided with rich burial goods, of high importance to the society that buried him – after all, he was within the bounds of the great ceremonial site, something that had not been achieved even by the ‘Bush Barrow Chieftain’, who had been buried close to Stonehenge, accompanied by lavish grave goods?
    A stone archer’s wristguard or ‘bracer’, 110mm by 28mm, was found with the burial, with a circular perforation at either end to allow the item to be strapped to the arm or affixed to a leather backing. Three largely complete barbed and tanged flint arrowheads were also retrieved – the tip of one embedded in a rib, as we have seen. It is tempting to suggest that all three arrowheads were fired into the individual prior to death, with two of them causing soft tissue injuries hence they were lying loose on excavation. This seems especially pertinent given the presence of the other (fourth) arrow tip in the sternum. If we assume that all the arrows were embedded in the victim, he would only have been provided with a wristguard in burial. He would not have been given arrowheads, a copper dagger, gold items, or even the eponymous Beaker, and would thus have been quite poorly apparelled for someone buried in what was presumably a prestigious location. Was the fact that this man appears to have been killed in combat significant, and that his burial was one of a warrior hero in a sacred location to which his deposition might have added even more power, and was the wristguard worn by him in the fatal engagement? This is, of course, speculation, but it is a tempting scenario.
    UNKNOWN WARRIOR 1
    The Beaker burial from Stonehenge in Wiltshire
    This is the body of a young man shot several times from behind by flint arrowheads. There is no evidence to suggest that the man was executed; he was either murdered or died in combat. His presence in a burial at Stonehenge might suggest the latter – a further indication of a martial nature being his wristguard. The man was killed at the start of the Bronze Age when representation in death as a warrior was of great importance.
    UNKNOWN WARRIOR 2
    In 1968 a gas pipeline was cut through fields in Tormarton, South Gloucestershire, uncovering a series of human bones. On closer examination these bones were thought to represent the remains of three individuals and were seen to have weapon injuries, including the presence of bronze spears transfixing some of the skeletal elements:
    Skeleton No. 1 has in the pelvis a hole made by a lozenge-sectioned spearhead which must have been driven into the body by an attacker from the right side when the victim was either falling or had already fallen …
    Skeleton No. 2, about a foot away, and in the same ditch or pit, exhibits features of even greater interest. Two of the lumbar vertebrae are stained blue-green by contact with a small Bronze Age spearhead, the blade of which was found, but the end containing the socket had broken off at the point of weakness behind the blade. This spear had pierced the spinal cord and