Left Side of the Aisle #80 - Part 6

And Another Thing 4: 5500 year old tomb found in Sweden

Archaeologists have found a 5,500-year-old tomb possibly belonging to a Stone Age chieftain. They found it at a megalithic monument known as Ales Stenar, or Ale's Stones. It has 59 massive boulders which are arranged in the shape of a 220-foot-long ship. The site has sometimes been called the Swedish Stonehenge.

The thing is, the Ale's Stones site is only about  1400 years old and so likely dates from the end of Sweden's Iron Age. But cut marks on the stones are strikingly similar to ones found in Stone Age technology. So researchers thought for a long time that these stones were actually taken from some other monument.

Now they believe they have found it - a little over 40 yards away. Imprints of large boulders that apparently had been removed marked the site of what appears to have been a neolithic burial chamber called a dolmen, which consists of several upright stones with a horizontal boulder on top in which a body would be placed.

Based on the layout, the dolmen may be up to 5,500 years old - which, if it's confirmed, could make the source of the Swedish Stonehenge older than the actual Stonehenge.


Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/swedish-stonehenge-tomb-ales-stenar-chieftan_n_2000936.html