Then check out our fascinating Stonehenge facts… What is Stonehenge? When was Stonehenge built? How was Stonehenge built? Brand new discovery! It seems that Stonehenge may have originally been built in Wales! Evidence of a stone circle suspiciously similar to Stonehenge has just been discovered in Wales, very near to the quarry where some of the bluestones originate from. It looks like these huge stones may have stood in Wales for many years, before they were uprooted and dragged to Wiltshire to form the Stonehenge we know today.
Phew — that sounds like hard work! What was Stonehenge used for? But the stones themselves give us a few clues, which have given rise to many different theories… Each year, on 21 June the longest day of the year , the sun always rises over the Heel Stone at Stonehenge — a single large sarsen stone which stands outside of the main monument.
They also think that important funeral ceremonies would have been performed at the site — though why the dead were laid to rest there, no one knows… Did you know…?
Each year, around 20, people gather at Stonehenge to celebrate the Summer Solstice , when the sun is at its highest point in the sky all year. It makes for a spectacular sunrise! What do you think of our Stonehenge facts? How, then, did prehistoric builders without sophisticated tools or engineering haul these boulders, which weigh up to 4 tons, over such a great distance?
They then transferred the boulders onto rafts and floated them first along the Welsh coast and then up the River Avon toward Salisbury Plain; alternatively, they may have towed each stone with a fleet of vessels. More recent hypotheses have them transporting the bluestones with supersized wicker baskets or a combination of ball bearings, long grooved planks and teams of oxen. As early as the s, geologists have been adding their voices to the debate over how Stonehenge came into being.
Challenging the classic image of industrious Neolithic builders pushing, carting, rolling or hauling the craggy bluestones from faraway Wales, some scientists have suggested that glaciers, not humans, did most of the heavy lifting.
The globe is dotted with giant rocks known as glacial erratics that were carried over long distances by moving ice floes. Most archaeologists have remained cool toward the glacial theory, however, wondering how the forces of nature could possibly have delivered the exact number of stones needed to complete the circle.
According to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose tale of King Arthur and mythical account of English history were considered factual well into the Middle Ages , Stonehenge is the handiwork of the wizard Merlin. In the mid-fifth century, the story goes, hundreds of British nobles were slaughtered by the Saxons and buried on Salisbury Plain. The soldiers successfully defeated the Irish but failed to move the stones, so Merlin used his sorcery to spirit them across the sea and arrange them above the mass grave.
In the 17th century, archaeologist John Aubrey made the claim that Stonehenge was the work of the Celtic high priests known as the Druids, a theory widely popularized by the antiquarian William Stukeley, who had unearthed primitive graves at the site.
Even today, people who identify as modern Druids continue to gather at Stonehenge for the summer solstice. However, in the midth century, radiocarbon dating demonstrated that Stonehenge stood more than 1, years before the Celts inhabited the region, eliminating the ancient Druids from the running. Many modern historians and archaeologists now agree that several distinct tribes of people contributed to Stonehenge, each undertaking a different phase of its construction.
Bones, tools and other artifacts found on the site seem to support this hypothesis. The first stage was achieved by Neolithic agrarians who were likely indigenous to the British Isles. Later, it is believed, groups with advanced tools and a more communal way of life left their stamp on the site.
Some have suggested that they were immigrants from the European continent, but many scientists think they were native Britons descended from the original builders. If the facts surrounding the architects and construction of Stonehenge remain shadowy at best, the purpose of the arresting monument is even more of a mystery.
While historians agree that it was a place of great importance for over 1, years, we may never know what drew early Britons to Salisbury Plain and inspired them to continue developing it. There is strong archaeological evidence that Stonehenge was used as a burial site, at least for part of its long history, but most scholars believe it served other functions as well—either as a ceremonial site, a religious pilgrimage destination, a final resting place for royalty or a memorial erected to honor and perhaps spiritually connect with distant ancestors.
In the s, the astronomer Gerald Hawkins suggested that the cluster of megalithic stones operated as an astronomical calendar, with different points corresponding to astrological phenomena such as solstices, equinoxes and eclipses.
Charred remains were unearthed in holes around the site, known as the Aubrey Holes, that once held small standing stones. Analysis of the bones suggests they were buried during this year period.
After 2, BC, the people who used Stonehenge stopped burying human remains in the stone circle itself and began burying them in ditches around the periphery, suggesting a shift in the cultural significance of Stonehenge. From studying the remains of those buried at the site, we know that the bodies of the dead were transported from far and wide to be buried at Stonehenge; some appeared to have lived more than miles km away in Wales. Carbon dating of the remains suggests they were cremated off-site, transported to Stonehenge and buried there around 4,, years ago.
These burial mounds are unique for their dense, grouped distribution across the landscape, and are frequently within sight of the stone circle itself. Archaeologists also discovered evidence of a large settlement of houses nearby, suggesting that Stonehenge was at the centre of a large ancient ceremonial complex that ran along the River Avon.
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