Ancient, engraved stones may have been buried to summon the sun

As a volcanic eruption darkened the sun roughly 4,900 years ago, a Stone Age culture sacrificed hundreds of decorated stone plaques to try to coax it back.

A trove of engraved stones unearthed from ritual gathering sites on Bornholm, an island in Denmark, display motifs that most commonly represent the sun and croplike plants. What’s more, an analysis of ice cores points to a volcanic eruption around the time the stones were intentionally buried. Taken together, the evidence suggests the stones’ burial may have been linked to the potentially cataclysmic event, archaeologist Rune Iversen and colleagues report January 15 in Antiquity.

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