Scientists May Have Finally Solved the Mystery of Stonehenge

Scientists may have finally solved the legend of Stonehenge, a joint study by University College London and Aberystwyth University posits (via The Guardian).

It’s been known for several centuries that the large rocks, or sarsens, which comprise Stonehenge were transported from at least 12 miles away and that some of its stones originated in Wales; but earlier this year, the scientific community was rocked by the revelation that its central sarsen had been moved roughly 430 miles before it was placed at the sight. The study, published Dec. 19 in the journal Archaeology International and co-authored by Mike Parker Pearson, proposes that Stonehenge was erected as a type of communal project to show the alliance between neighboring regions.

“Stonehenge stands out in being a material and monumental microcosm of the entirety of the British Isles,” said Parker Pearson, a professor of later prehistory at University College. “It’s not a temple — that has been a major stumbling block for hundreds of years. It’s not a calendar, and it’s not an observatory,” he continued. “I think we’ve just not been looking at Stonehenge in the right way. You really have to look at all of it to work out what they’re doing. They’re constructing a monument that is expressing the permanence of particular aspects in their world.”

While some believe Stonehenge is the base of a structure which fell at some point over history, Park Pearson dispels this notion due to how some of the stones were set flat on the ground rather than standing erect. “Given what we now know about where it’s from, it seems all the more likely that it was deliberately set as a recumbent stone,” Parker Pearson explained. He said it’s “highly unlikely” that the central sarsen of Stonehenge was part of an earlier structure. “These stones are not just plucked out of anywhere,” he added.

Researchers believe that the so-called Altar Stone was added to Stonehenge around 2,500 B.C., around which time the structure underwent a bit of a renovation. At the same time, people from Eastern Europe were arriving on Britain’s shores. “There’s obviously some kind of interaction—you might call it first contact,” Parker Pearson said. “That is the moment that Stonehenge is built, and I wonder if it is that moment of contact that serves, in whatever way, as the catalyst for this really impressive second stage of Stonehenge. It’s an attempt to assert unity, quite possibly integrating the newcomers—or not.”

Parker Pearson concluded: “That said, Stonehenge is adopted [as a monument] by those beaker-using people whose descendants become the dominant population of Britain. So despite the change in population, Stonehenge continues to exert its significance in the wider world.”