Joey Michilli
For centuries, historians and archaeologists have wondered how the Stonehenge prehistoric monument took Neolithic builders an estimated 1,500 years to create. Located in southern England, it is made up of roughly 100 large upright stones placed in a circular layout. Many modern scholars now agree that Stonehenge was a burial ground, they have yet to determine what other purposes it served and how it even was constructed due to a lack of resources. Its construction is baffling because, while the sandstone slabs of its outer ring are from local quarries, scientists have traced the bluestones that make up its inner ring all the way to the Preseli Hills in Wales, some 200 miles from where Stonehenge sits on Salisbury Plain.
Archaeologists believe Englands most iconic prehistoric ruin was built in several stages, starting over 5,000 or more years ago. First, Neolithic Britons used tools possibly made from deer antlers to dig a massive circular ditch and bank, or henge, on Salisbury Plain. Deep pits dating back to that era and located within the circle known as Aubrey holes after John Aubrey, the 17th-century antiquarian who discovered them may have once held a ring of timber posts. Several hundred years later, it is thought, Stonehenge’s builders had an estimated 80 non-indigenous bluestones, 43 of which remain today, into standing positions and placed them in either a horseshoe or circular formation. During the third phase of construction, which took place around 2000 B.C., sarsen sandstone slabs were arranged into an outer ring; some were assembled into the iconic three-pieced structures called trilithons that stand tall in the center of Stonehenge. Some 50 sarsen stones are now visible on the site, which may once have contained many more. Radiocarbon dating shows that work continued at Stonehenge until roughly 1600 B.C., with the bluestones in particularly being re-positioned over and over again.
Stonehenge’s sarsens, of which the largest weighs more than 40 tons and rises 24 feet, were likely sourced from quarries 25 miles north of Salisbury Plain and brought with the help of sledges and ropes; they may even have already been scattered in the immediate vicinity when the monument’s Neolithic architects first broke ground there. The smaller bluestones, on the other hand, have been traced all the way to the Preseli Hills in Wales, some 200 miles away from Stonehenge. According to one theory, Stonehenge’s builders made sledges and rollers out of tree trunks to lug the bluestones from the Preseli Hills. They transferred the boulders onto rafts and floated them first along the Welsh coast and then up the River Avon toward Salisbury Plain; alternatively, they may have towed each stone with a fleet of vessels. More recent hypotheses have them moving the bluestones with supersized wicker baskets or a combination of ball bearings, long grooved planks and teams of oxen. Neolithic builders pushing, carting, rolling or hauling the bluestones from faraway Wales, some scientists have suggested that glaciers, not humans, did most of the heavy lifting. The globe is dotted with giant rocks that were carried over long distances by moving ice floes. Perhaps Stonehenge’s mammoth slabs were snatched from the Preseli Hills by glaciers during one of the Ice Ages and deposited a stone’s throw away at least comparatively from Salisbury Plain.
According to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose tale of King Arthur and mythical account of English history were considered factual. Stonehenge is the handiwork of the wizard Merlin. In the mid-fifth century, the story goes, hundreds of British nobles were killed by the Saxons and buried on Salisbury Plain. Hoping to erect a memorial to his fallen subjects, King Aureoles Ambrosias sent an army to Ireland to retrieve a stone circle known as the Giants’ Ring, which ancient giants had built from magical African bluestones. The soldiers successfully defeated the Irish but failed to move the stones, so Merlin used his sorcery to spirit them across the sea and arrange them above the mass grave.It is known that Ambrosias and his brother Uther, King Arthur’s father, are buried there as well.
Facts surrounding the architects and construction of Stonehenge remain shadowy at best, the purpose of the arresting monument is even more of a mystery. While historians agree that it was a place of great importance for over 1,000 years, we may never know what drew early Britons to Salisbury Plain and inspired them to continue developing it. There is strong archaeological evidence that Stonehenge was used as a burial site, at least for part of its long history, but most scholars believe it served other functions as well either as a ceremonial site, a religious destination, a final resting place for royalty or a memorial erected to honor and perhaps spiritually connect with distant ancestors.
Stonehenge draws more than 800,000 tourists a year In 1986 Stonehenge was added to UNESCO’s register of World Heritage sites.Stonehenge has undergone several restorations over the years, and some of its boulders have been set in concrete to prevent collapse. Meanwhile, archaeological excavations and development of the surrounding area to facilitate tourism have turned up other significant sites nearby, including other henges.
Sources- (The story of stonehenge)-Patricia Southern
