STONEHENGE is one of the biggest archaeological mysteries in the world – here’s what we do know.
Located in the southwest of England, the prehistoric monument Stonehenge has been baffling researchers since the Middle Ages.
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The landmark consists of a ring of standing stones that measure around 13 feet high and seven feet wide and weigh roughly 25 tons each.
Experts believe that the monument, which was first excavated in the 1620s, was erected between 3000 and 2000 BC.
Still, figuring out the “when” has proved to be a much easier task than the “who,” “why,” and “how.”
Now, after nearly 400 years of research and many advances in technology, archaeologists may finally have some answers to these questions.
Who erected Stonehenge?
Part of what makes Stonehenge so mysterious is that it was produced by a prehistoric culture with no written records.
Many archaeologists agree that several distinct tribes contributed to the erection of Stonehenge, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.
Ancient artifacts, tools, and bones were unearthed at the site indicate that each tribe constructed a different phase of the building process.
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The first stage appeared to be constructed by Neolithic agrarians who experts believe were likely indigenous to the British Isles, according to History.
Then the Beaker people and the Wessex peoples are said to have finalized the site into what we see today.
Some historians have proposed that it was immigrants from the European continent who constructed the megaliths, but most believe they were native Britons who descended from the original builders.
A new technology, known as aDNA (or ancient DNA), may soon help us learn more about these ancient peoples, including what they ate and how far they moved around.
“That’s going to really change the knowledge of the people who built monuments like Stonehenge, and what we can say about them,” Neil Wilkin, lead curator of a new exhibition at the British Museum on Stonehenge, told the New York Times.
How was Stonehenge built?
The prehistoric monument took Neolithic builders an estimated 1,500 years to erect, but how did they do it?
Experts have suggested a number of methods for both raising the stones and transporting them from nearby Marlborough Downs and Preseli Hills, in southwest Wales.
According to one experiment conducted by a former construction worker, it was possible that the builders rolled the megaliths into formation by placing walnut-sized rocks underneath the stones, per History.
The construction worker found that a man could transport a single 1-ton concrete block 300 feet per hour using this technique, while a team could move much bigger objects at even quicker rates.
Another technique, often proposed by experts, includes the builders creating sledges and rollers out of tree trunks to haul the stones.
To raise the stones into a standing position, it was likely that the constructors used weights and leverage made from materials such as plant fiber and wood.
Why was Stonehenge built?
Scientists have long proposed that the monument was used as a sort of calendar (after all, it perfectly aligns with the winter and summer solstices), but now new research explains how it may have worked.
In a new study, Professor Timothy Darvill concludes the site was designed as a calendar based on a solar year of 365.25 days to help people keep track of the days, weeks, and months.
“The clear solstitial alignment of Stonehenge has prompted people to suggest that the site included some kind of calendar since the antiquarian William Stukeley,” Prof Darvill said.
Recent research showed that Stonehenge’s sarsens (the smaller bluestones) were added during the same phase of construction around 2500 BC to work a single unit with the stones.
After analyzing these stones, Prof Darvill identified a solar calendar in their layout designed to serve as a physical representation of the year, even accounting for a leap day.
“The proposed calendar works in a very straightforward way. Each of the 30 stones in the sarsen circle represents a day within a month, itself divided into three weeks each of 10 days,” he said.
“The four Station Stones outside the Sarsen Circle provide markers to notch up until a leap day,” Prof Darvill said.
“Such a solar calendar was developed in the eastern Mediterranean in the centuries after 3000 BC and was adopted in Egypt as the Civil Calendar around 2700 BC and was widely used at the start of the Old Kingdom about 2600 BC,” he added.
This raises the possibility that the calendar tracked by Stonehenge may stem from the influence of one of these other cultures.
This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
