Wessex culture

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The Wessex culture is a name given to the predominant prehistoric culture of southern Britain during the Bronze Age. It should not be confused with the later Saxon kingdom of Wessex.

Active during the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, knowledge of the Wessex people comes from their burial practices as no settlement evidence has yet been positively identified. They buried their dead under barrows using inhumation at first but later using cremation and always with rich grave goods. It has been argued that they were an immigrant race, replacing the earlier Beaker people.

They appear to have had wide ranging trade links with continental Europe, importing amber from the Baltic, jewellery from modern day Germany, gold from Brittany as well as daggers and beads from Mycenaean Greece and vice versa. The wealth from such trade probably permitted the Wessex people to construct the second and third (megalithic) phases of Stonehenge and also indicates a powerful form of social organisation.