Archaeology & History

Major discovery upends what we know of Stonehenge's origins

By T.K. Randall
August 15, 2024

Image: Stonehenge, Wiltshire
Credit: Udit Kapoor / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Sitting isolated among the green fields of the Wiltshire countryside, Stonehenge - which dates back many thousands of years, remains one of the world's most enduring and intriguing monuments.

Now a "jaw-dropping" new study has turned what we know about the structure's origins on its head while demonstrating that there is still a great deal about Stonehenge that we don't yet understand.

The study concerns the largest bluestone - a huge piece of rock that did not originate from the immediate vicinity but was thought to have been taken from a site around 125 miles away in Wales.

Exactly how and why the ancient builders of Stonehenge managed to move this enormous stone over such a long distance with only primitive tools has long remained a topic of debate.Now, though, this mystery has deepened even further still with the revelation that the bluestone didn't actually come from Wales at all, it came from Scotland - over 450 miles away.

This means that it had to be moved almost four times as far as previously thought.

It also suggests that people across the British Isles must have co-operated to make this happen.

"[This] doesn't just alter what we think about Stonehenge, it alters what we think about the whole of the late Neolithic," said Rob Ixer of University College London.

"It completely rewrites the relationships between the Neolithic populations of the whole of the British Isles. The science is beautiful and it's remarkable, and it's going to be discussed for decades to come."

Source: The Guardian

Tags: Stonehenge