The Amesbury Archer - an evening lecture

7pm - Wednesday 14 March: another opportunity to hear this excellent lecture by Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex Archaeology. Early booking recommended.

Just a few miles from Stonehenge the graves of the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen date to the 24th century BC and are two of the earliest Bell Beaker graves in Britain.

The Boscombe Bowmen grave contained the collective burial of five adult males, a teenager (probably also male) and one, possibly two, children, together with objects made of flint (including a group of finely made arrowheads), seven Beakers, an antler pendant and a boars’ tusk. The Amesbury Archer was the single burial of a 35-45 year old man, who had lived with impaired mobility because of the absence of his left knee cap. The grave contained an unusually large number and variety of objects, including Beakers, several caches of flint, barbed and tanged arrowheads, bracers, copper knives/daggers, a pair of gold basket ornaments, boar’s tusks and a stone tool for metalworking. A third grave, the so-called ‘Companion’, was found close to that of the Amesbury Archer and was that of a 20-25 year old man. A rare trait in their feet shows that the two men were related.

Andrew Fitzpatrick is head of communications at Wessex Archaeology and leads the Public Engagement Team, responsible for disseminating the company’s archaeological results to as wide an audience as possible. He is a respected authority on Roman and early prehistoric Europe, as well as being one of the country’s leading authorities on the integration of archaeology in highways schemes. He is the author of the recently published Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen: Bell Beaker burials at Boscombe Down, Amesbury, Wiltshire (Wessex Archaeology, 2011).

Booking available online or by contacting the Bookings Secretary on 01380 727369.