STONEHENGE
The stones of Stonehenge have endured centuries of weathering and erosion.
Key Points
Stonehenge is a large stone monument located on a chalky plain north of the modern city of Salisbury, England. Research shows that the site has constantly developed over a duration of about 10,000 years. The shape that we name “Stonehenge” used to be built between roughly 5,000 and 4,000 years ago and was once one part of a larger sacred landscape that included a big stone monument that was 15 times the size of Stonehenge.
The biggest of Stonehenge’s stones, known as sarsens, are up to 30 toes (9 meters) tall and weigh 25 tons (22.6 metric tons) on average. It is widely believed that they were brought from Marlborough Downs, a distance of 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the north.
Smaller stones, referred to as “bluestones” (they have a bluish tinge when wet or freshly broken), weigh up to 4 tons and come from several unique sites in western Wales, having been transported as a long way as 140 miles (225 km). It’s unknown how people in antiquity moved them that far. Recent experiments show that it is possible for a one-ton stone to be moved by a dozen people on a wood trackway, but whether this technique was actually used by the ancient builders is uncertain.
Scientists have additionally raised the opportunity that during the final ice age glaciers carried these bluestones closer to the Stonehenge place and the monument’s makers did not have to move them all the way from Wales. Water transport through raft is another notion that has been proposed however researchers now question whether this method was once viable.
Building Stonehenge
Stonehenge is just one part of a large sacred landscape that contains many different stone and timber buildings as nicely as burials. Archaeologists have also observed evidence for sizeable prehistoric hunting and a road that may have led to Stonehenge.
From what scientists can tell, Salisbury Plain used to be considered to be a sacred area lengthy before Stonehenge itself was constructed. As early as 10,500 years ago, three giant pine posts, which were totem poles of sorts, have been erected at the site.
Stonehenge is the most mysterious place in the Earth.
Hunting played an important position in the area. Researchers have uncovered roughly 350 animal bones and 12,500 flint equipment or fragments, just a mile away from Stonehenge, the finds courting from 7500 B.C. to 4700 B.C. The presence of abundant game may additionally have led humans to consider the region sacred.
Dozens of burial mounds have been found near Stonehenge indicate that hundreds, if not thousands, of people, have been buried there in ancient times. At least 17 shrines, some in the structure of a circle, have additionally been discovered near Stonehenge. A “House of the Dead” was once these days found near Stonehenge that dates to 3700 B.C.-3500 B.C.
Around 5,500 years in the past two earthworks recognized as Cursus monuments have been erected at Stonehenge, the longest of which ran for 1.8 miles (3 km). By 5,300 years in the past two large eyeglass-shaped wood palisades, which had been set ablaze during ceremonies, were constructed at Avebury, near Stonehenge.
At Stonehenge, more construction occurred around 5,000 years in the past with postholes indicating that both bluestones or upright trees posts were propped up on the site. Then, around 4,600 years ago, a double circle made the use of dozens of bluestones was created at the site.
By 4,400 years ago, Stonehenge had changed again, having a collection of sarsen stones erected in the structure of a horseshoe, with each pair of these large stones having a stone lintel connecting them. In turn, a ring of sarsens surrounded this horseshoe, their tops connecting to every other, giving the look of a giant interconnected stone circle surrounding the horseshoe.
By 4,300 years ago, Stonehenge had been improved to consist of the addition of two bluestone rings, one internal the horseshoe and any other between the horseshoe and the outer layer of interconnected sarsen stones.
Construction at Stonehenge slowed down around 4,000 years ago. As time went on the monument fell into forgetting about and disuse, some of its stones fell over whilst others have been taken away.
There is an interesting connection between the earlier Cursus monuments and the later Stonehenge. Archaeologists observed that the longest Cursus monument had two pits, one on the east and one on the west. These pits, in turn, align with Stonehenge’s heel stone and a processional avenue.
“Suddenly, you’ve received a link between [the long Cursus pit] and Stonehenge through two huge pits, which appear to be aligned on the sunrise and sunset on the mid-summer solstice,” said University of Birmingham archaeologist Vincent Gaffney, who is mainly a project to map Stonehenge and its environs.
Some of the people who constructed Stonehenge may also have lived near the monument at a sequence of houses excavated at Durrington Walls. Recently, archaeologists observed evidence that humans who lived in these houses feasted on meat and dairy products. The rich diet of the people who may also have built Stonehenge gives evidence that they were no longer slaves or coerced, stated a crew of archaeologists in an article posted in 2015 in the journal Antiquity.
Why was once Stonehenge constructed?
Many theories have been put forward so to why Stonehenge was constructed.
“It’s part of a much extra complex landscape with professional and ritual activities that go around it,” Gaffney told Live Science, noting that human beings might also have traveled great distances to come to Stonehenge.
Stonehenge facts and Theories.
One theory about Stonehenge, released in 2012 by way of contributors of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, is that Stonehenge marks the “unification of Britain,” a point when human beings across the island labored together and used a similar style of houses, pottery, and other items.
It would explain why they have been capable to convey bluestones all the way from west Wales and how the labor and resources for the construction have been marshaled.
“Stonehenge itself was a massive undertaking, requiring the labor of thousands to move stones from as far away as west Wales, shaping them and erecting them. Just the work itself, requiring anyone actually to pull together, would have been an act of unification,” said Professor Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield in an information release.
