Boscombe Bowmen
Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates The Boscombe Bowmen is the name given by archaeologists to a group of early Bronze Age (Bell Beaker) people found in a shared burial at Boscombe Down in Amesbury ({{#if:SU16384105|[[Ordnance Survey National Grid|{{#if:Template:Yesno|Grid|grid}} reference]] {{#invoke:Ordnance Survey coordinates|oscoord|SU16384105_region:GB_scale:25000|SU16384105|name=}}}}<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>) near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England.
Discovery
The burials were found in 2003 during roadworks being carried out on behalf of Qinetiq, the contractor that operates the Boscombe Down military airfield. The site is near a group of houses (known as Lower Camp) in Amesbury which are associated with the airfield (which lies to the east).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The burials
The grave contained the remains of at least nine individuals including several juveniles, five adult males and the cremated remains of an infant.<ref name=":0" /> Analysis of the skulls suggests that the men and the teenager were related to each other. The eldest man was buried in a crouched position with the bones of the others scattered around him, and their skulls resting at his feet. They became known as the Bowmen because several flint arrowheads were placed in the grave. Other grave goods included a boar's tusk, a bone toggle, flint tools, and eight Beaker vessels; an unusually high number.
The burials are thought to date from around 2500 - 2200 BCE,<ref name=":0" /> making them broadly contemporary with the Amesbury Archer who had been found the year before about half a kilometre to the south.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> The broad date range is an artefact of the ranges of radiocarbon dates for different remains and archaeologists believe the grave was in use over a much shorter timescale of 25–50 years.<ref name=":0" />
Analysis
Lead isotope analysis of the men's teeth has indicated that they grew up in the areas either of modern Wales or in the Lake District, but left in childhood. This was at first thought to be contemporary with the major building work of erecting the sarsen circle and the trilithons at Stonehenge but research published in 2007 indicates that these burials occurred shortly after Stonehenge Phase 3ii.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Display
The finds are on display at the Wessex Gallery of Archaeology, which opened at the Salisbury Museum in 2014.Template:Citation needed
In popular culture
The bowmen feature as characters in Mark Patton's novel Undreamed Shores,<ref>Patton, M. A. 2012 Undreamed Shores, Edinburgh, Crooked Cat Publications. Template:ISBN; Template:ISBN.</ref> and part of the storyline is based on the circumstances of their burial.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>