Boy buried near Stonehenge 3,550 years ago 'was from Mediterranean Sea'

A chemical test of the teeth of a boy, who was buried with around 90 amber beads at Stonehenge 3,550 years ago, has revealed that he had grown up around the Mediterranean Sea.

An analysis of different forms of the elements oxygen and strontium in the teenager's tooth enamel showed that he was from that region.

Tooth enamel forms in a child's first few years, so it stores a chemical record of the environment in which the individual grew up.

The "Boy with the Amber Necklace", as archaeologists know him, was found in 2005, about 5km south-east of Stonehenge on Boscombe Down next to a Bronze Age burial mound, during road works for military housing.

"He's around 14 or 15 years old and he's buried with this beautiful necklace," the BBC quoted Professor Jane Evans, head of archaeological science for the British Geological Survey, as saying.

"The position of his burial, the fact he's near Stonehenge, and the necklace all suggest he's of significant status," she stated.

Professor Evans also likened Stonehenge in the Bronze Age to Westminster Abbey today - a place where the "great and the good" were buried.

Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, has backed Evans' theory, saying that the amber necklace was not common and that only people of some importance wear them.

The findings will be discussed at a science symposium in London to mark the 175th anniversary of the British Geological Survey (BGS).