Neolithic people sprinkled the crystals over burials.
Hundreds of fragments of a rare transparent type of quartz called"rock crystal" suggest Neolithic people used the mineral to decorate graves and other structures at a ceremonial site in western England, archaeologists say.
Overton is the lead author of a study published in July in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal that describes the discovery of more than 300 of these quartz crystal fragments at a 6,000-year-old ceremonial site at Dorstone Hill in western England, about a mile south of the monument known as Arthur's Stone. As well as being almost as transparent as water, several of the crystal fragments are prismatic, splitting white light into a visible rainbow spectrum.
Local legends link Arthur's Stone to the mythical King Arthur, although it would have already been thousands of years old by his time, if he ever existed. Dorstone Hill is the site of the"Halls of the Dead," three timber buildings that were deliberately burned down and replaced by three earthen burial mounds in Neolithic times, possibly after a local leader had died.
"It looked like glass, but then we noticed it was a different color," Overton said."And we started to think, 'Blimey, maybe this is something else.' So that really got us in the mindset of looking for the stuff."
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