Gender equality existed in the Third Millennium B.C.! History books have been proven wrong! Stonehenge was not just a bastion for important men but also included women. Recent discoveries show that in Druid culture, women were equal to men in status and importance.
Archaeologists have previously theorized that Stonehenge functioned, in part, as a cemetery for members of prominent families, religious and political leaders, and those who possessed special skills. According to the latest edition of British Archaeology, they now have exciting new evidence that women were were part of the cultural elite.
Mike Pitts, an archaeologist and editor at British Archaeology and author of the book “Hengeworld” says,
In almost every depiction of Stonehenge by artist and TV re-enactors we see lots of men, a man in charge, and few or no women.
Those depictions may now need to be updated. It appears from recent excavations that more women than men are buried at Stonehenge, a rarity at other Neolithic burial mounds studied in southern Britain. Archaeologists uncovered the cremated remains of 14 females and nine males, all young adults or older. They were found at Aubrey Hole 7, one of 56 chalk pits dug outside the circle of stones. Yes, the females outnumbered the men!
Radiocarbon dating, CT scanning, and painstaking bone analysis on the buried cremated remains and long bone pins, believed to be hairpins, confirmed the presence of women. The discovery is bringing the roles of women, and their equality with men in the Neolithic period to the forefront.
Christie Willis of the University College London Institute of Archaeology, who worked on the project says,
(The role of women) probably declined again towards the 3rd millennium B.C. … Both archeological and historical evidence has shown that women‘s status has gone up and down quite noticeably at different times in the past
Are we due for a downward trend? Should modern women be concerned?
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