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Like the famous stone circle in southern England, the sanctuary
- which was as big as at least three soccer fields and built
with soil and wood - was built to align with the sun on the
solstices.
The archaeologists also discovered offerings, including animal
skeletons, human skulls and valuable items such as a bronze
spearhead, at the spots where the sun shone through the
openings, according to a statement from the municipality of Tiel,
a town around 70 km (45 miles) east of Rotterdam where the site
was excavated.
"The largest mound served as a sun calendar, similar to the
famous stones of Stonehenge in England," said the statement.
"This sanctuary must have been a highly significant place where
people kept track of special days in the year, performed rituals
and buried their dead. Rows of poles stood along pathways used
for processions."
While excavating the site in 2017, archaeologists also
discovered several graves. One grave was of a woman buried with
a glass bead from Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq.
It's the oldest bead ever found in the Netherlands and
researchers said it proved people of this area were in contact
with people almost 5,000 km away.
The archaeologists took six years to research more than a
million excavated objects dating from the Stone Age, the Bronze
Age, the Iron Age, the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages.
After the excavation was finished, the site was covered again to
allow construction work.
Some of the discoveries will be showcased in a local museum in
Tiel and in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities.
(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Alex
Richardson)
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