Archaeology & History

Stonehenge builders used 'stone highway'

By T.K. Randall
June 30, 2018

Image: Stonehenge, Wiltshire
Credit: Udit Kapoor / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) For thousands of years Stonehenge has dominated the Wiltshire countryside, yet there remains much we still don't know - especially with regard to how it was built without the advantages of modern tools.

Now though, researchers have revealed that the stones - which originated 100 miles away in Wales - were most likely transported to the site over what has been referred to as the 'stone highway'.

To begin with, the stones would have been placed on wooden rollers and hauled along using animals. Once the route brought them to the River Avon, rafts would have been used to carry the stones to within a mile or so of the construction site.The findings seem to rule out a previous theory by geologist H Thomas suggesting that the builders loaded the stones on to boats and transported them along the coast by sea.

"New analytical techniques, alongside transmitted and reflected light microscopy, have recently prompted renewed scrutiny of Thomas' work," study authors Richard Bevins and Rob Ixer wrote.

The researchers have also cast doubt on Thomas' sourcing of the Stonehenge bluestones.

"While respectable for its time, the results of these new analyses, combined with a thorough checking of the archived samples consulted by Thomas, reveal that key locations long believed to be sources for the Stonehenge bluestones can be discounted in favour of newly identified locations at Craig-Rhos-y-felin and Carn Goedog," they wrote.

Source: New Zealand Herald

Tags: Stonehenge