Impossibly huge and implausibly ancient, for countless generations Stonehenge has inspired awe in those who have cast eyes upon it.
Where is Stonehenge?
Stonehenge is sited on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
How big are the stones of Stonehenge?
Each stone is pretty big, being about 4 metres high, 2.1 metres wide, and weighing approximately 25 tons.
How old is Stonehenge?
Stonehenge is thought to date back to around 2500 BC. Since Stonehenge was begun around 3000BC, with additions occurring over the next two millennia, it has become one of the planet’s most famous and most puzzling pre-historic constructions.
Why was Stonehenge built?
Although we know that the stones are aligned with the sunrise and sunset at the summer and winter solstice respectively – and that burials took place here – the precise motivations of those who built it might never be fully understood.
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And just when you think the monument can’t get any more bamboozling, Stonehenge tosses out another mystery. A group of archaeologists writing in Nature magazine has just announced that the monument’s Altar Stone is not from the Brecon Beacons as previous believed but was quarried in the far north-east of Scotland.
It was then transported either by land (over 450 miles) or sea (over 600 miles), all the way to south-west England. This astonishing feat has caused academics to reassess the capabilities and organisational nous of our Neolithic forebears.
According to the University College of London’s Mike Parker Pearson, who has been involved in many excavations around Stonehenge, ‘No other circle [in Britain] was made entirely of distantly-sourced stones... This has to be one of the biggest clues about its purpose – a monument to unite people on a grand scale.’
However, this latest discovery is just one of a clutch made about the totemic monument – now in the care of English Heritage – over the past couple of decades.
6 spectacular Stonehenge discoveries
The bluestone quarry
Before the revelation about Stonehenge’s Scottish connections, it was believed that the furthest flung elements of Stonehenge were the so called bluestones that came from the Preseli Hills, a mere 150 miles away in south-west Wales.
In 2015, by careful study of the dolerite and rhyolite in those stones, geologists were able to locate the exact outcrops from which they originated. Remarkably, when those outcrops – Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin – were excavated, Stone Age quarrying tools were unearthed. Carbon-dating of wood and hazelnuts at the site showed that the quarry had been in use from about 3400BC.
A Welsh Stonehenge?
At Waun Mawn, another site in the Preseli Hills, a standing stone and three recumbent stones have led researchers to declare that a stone circle similar to Stonehenge may once have stood there.
Excavations pointed to the possibility that half a dozen bluestones had been removed from the site and that at least three of them had found their way to Stonehenge.
However, this has since been disputed by Dr Brian John, who lives near the Waun Mawn site. In early 2024, he published findings that suggest that no stone was ever transported to Stonehenge from Waun Mawn and, furthermore, that no such circle ever existed. It’s unlikely that we’ve heard the last of this one...
A sarsen stone quarry
Closer to home, scientists made a geochemical analysis of the composition of the enormous sarsen stones that make Stonehenge so impressive. Their findings pointed to a place called West Woods on the fringes of the Marlborough Downs as the likely source of the rock. That’s only about 15 miles away. However, given that the monoliths weigh between 20 and 30 tonnes, dragging them all even that distance must have been a major undertaking.
The expanding world of Stonehenge
Stonehenge is far more than the iconic stone circle. A 1.7-mile stretch of banks and ditches known as The Avenue runs between the stones and the River Avon. Added to this is an array of round barrows and long barrows dotted about the landscape like constellations.
Then there’s the timber circle known as Woodhenge, two miles distant, which was discovered nearly a century ago.
However, much more recent finds have shown the area to have been even more complex and widespread. The Stonehenge Riverside Project, a six-year study begun in 2003, concentrated its efforts on Durrington Walls, a henge over 400 yards in diameter surrounded by a bank and ditch.
The researchers found not only evidence of a group of houses but also an avenue that linked Durrington Walls to the Avon. The connection to Stonehenge could then be completed by travelling along the river and up The Avenue.
In 2008, archaeologists unearthed a small prehistoric stone circle on the banks of the Avon which is now known as West Amesbury Henge. Nine years later, during the construction of army housing at Larkhill to the north of Stonehenge, a causewayed enclosure was revealed.
Wiltshire’s Neolithic builders and diggers were a busy lot and it seems highly unlikely that we’ve found everything they created yet.
Europe’s cemetery
Another discovery from 2008 cast new light on the identity of some of those buried in the vicinity of Stonehenge. DNA testing was carried out on the cremated remains of more than 50 people buried in the early days of the monument – somewhere between 3000 and 2800 BC.
The results showed that some of them had not come from the local area. They were genetically similar to Bronze Age people buried in local mounds who were known to have come from other parts of Europe. This suggests that those found at Stonehenge may well have died far away and been cremated, only to have their charred remains carried to this important ritual site for burial.
One choice example was unearthed three miles to the south-east of Stonehenge in 2002. The Amesbury Archer – so called because he was dug up near the village of Amesbury – had lived in Continental Europe and had been buried with various objects, presumably to aid him in the next life. Dating from the dawn of the Bronze Age, these remain the oldest gold items unearthed in Britain.
Romans and St Paul’s
There are two names that you might not think had any connection at all with Stonehenge: the Romans and St Paul’s Cathedral.
In 2008, the Strumble-Preseli Ancient Communities and Environmental Study (SPACES) project, led by Professor Tim Darvill and the late Geoffrey Wainwright, undertook a small-scale excavation.
Surprisingly, they discovered what had been a shaft or a pit dug sometime during the late Roman period. There was also evidence of further activity in medieval times. If nothing else, this reminds us that interest in Stonehenge is not a modern phenomenon. No doubt Roman and medieval Britons who encountered Stonehenge were just as fascinated by the stone circle as we are today.
And that St Paul’s cathedral connection? Over the centuries, the stones have unfortunately been subjected to a good deal of vandalism, including the inscribing of names by visitors seeking a measure of immortality.
One such seeker carved his name – WREN – on Stone 52. It’s believed that this was done by none other than architect Sir Christopher Wren, whose family owned a house close to Stonehenge.
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- And the revelations keep coming. Given all those that diligent archaeologists and researchers have brought to light just this century, it would be a foolhardy person indeed who declared that Stonehenge has no more secrets to reveal.
Who knows? Perhaps something even more surprising than the Altar Stone's Scottish origins is just around the corner...
