An observatory, or an alien structure - what on earth is Stonehenge?

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The 20th-century archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes said each generation "has the Stonehenge it deserves – or desires". These are some of the explanations for one of the most spectacular monuments of the ancient world


Stonehenge in Wiltshire has been a mystery to a succession of experts who have tried to guess its original purpose. Photograph: Richard T Nowitz/Corbis

• Geoffrey of Monmouth, a 12th-century historian, said giants originally brought the stones from Africa to Ireland, where they were used for healing, and then Merlin brought them to Britain

• John Aubrey, a 17th-century antiquary, discovered the row of barely visible pits now named after him that may have held the first wooden posts. He believed the structure was a druid temple

• John Wood the elder, an 18th-century architect, carried out the first accurate measured survey of Stonehenge in 1740. It directly influenced his designs for the Circus in Bath

• William Stukeley, an 18th-century antiquary who worked with the astronomer Edmund Halley, said Stonehenge was completed in 460BC and was aligned with magnetic north

• Joseph Norman Lockyer, a scientist and astronomer, suggested in 1906 that Stonehenge was a giant astronomical observatory

• Gerald Hawkins, an American astronomer, suggested in Stonehenge Decoded in 1966 that the monument was a prehistoric computer, capable of complex predictions of planetary alignments and eclipses

• Erich von Daniken, a 20th-century Swiss hotelier-turned-mystery writer, sold 60m copies of his 1968 book Chariot of the Gods, which said Stonehenge - like the pyramids and the Easter Island heads - was built by extraterrestrials

• 2007: Archaeologists Timothy Darvil and Geoffrey Wainwright suggest Stonehenge was a healing centre - the Lourdes of prehistoric Europe

http://spiderednews.com/UnitedKingdo...ss&feed=uknews

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· Evidence points to belief in healing properties
· Charcoal fragments at site are dated to 7000BC

A handful of scraps of charred wood and a little pile of stone chips - finds from the first excavation at Stonehenge in more than 40 years - have added thousands of years to the history of one of the world's most famous prehistoric monuments.

There was no gold or bronze, but to the archaeologists who led the excavation, Professors Tim Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright, the unlovely heap of finds is real treasure. They are convinced the stone chips are evidence of belief in the healing power of the "bluestones" brought 150 miles from south Wales, which endured long after the monument was thought to have been abandoned.

The magical bluestone, spotted dolomite which when newly quarried is a dark blue speckled with brilliant white stars of quartz, made Stonehenge into the Lourdes of prehistoric Europe, they believe, or as Darvill put it yesterday, "the accident and emergency unit of southern England".

The charcoal fragments also add haunting new evidence to the Stonehenge story. Darvill and Wainwright revealed yesterday, at the Society of Antiquaries in London, that the earliest has been dated to 7,000BC, and the most recent to medieval times, suggesting that the site was already important 4,000 years before the oldest stone circle, and continued to draw visitors for centuries after it was believed to have been abandoned.

Although they concede Stonehenge was probably "multifunctional", possibly also serving as a giant calendar marking the solstices, as well as a site of ancestor worship, they are convinced its true importance came from the modest bluestones, the size of a man or smaller, dwarfed by the awesome sarsens.

Two of the original bluestones were broken, many chipped into fragments, and some survive only as stumps underground after being broken up to serve as healing talismans.

Organic remains, including a few specks of grain and seed, have allowed secure dating for the first time of the bluestone circle: around 2,300BC, three centuries later than previously thought.

The stones were repeatedly moved and rearranged, and the enormous sarsen trilithons added, before the final outer circle of sarsen uprights and lintels was created around 1,900BC, creating the world-famous profile of the monument.

Although the double-decker bus height sarsens are undoubtedly the most impressive, Darvill and Wainwright believe they were essentially an architectural framework for the bluestones, just as towering medieval cathedrals grew over the shrines of saints. The stone comes from only one place, an outcrop of the Preseli hills near Wainwright's home in Pembrokeshire. The crags are full of springs, many still regarded as healing holy wells, and ancient decorated stones prove they were important from prehistoric times.

Their theory, which they said yesterday was borne out by their excavation results, was that they were brought to Stonehenge by stupendous human effort because of the belief in their healing power. They completely dismiss the rival theory that the stones were carried by glaciers. "The one tiny flaw in the theory is that there is absolutely no evidence for glaciation of Wiltshire," Wainwright said.

By re-examining old records they have now found evidence of chips of bluestone buried with many bodies in the Stonehenge area - including that of the Amesbury Archer, one of the richest finds in decades, who died around 2,300BC - and they believe further research will uncover many more.

Bluestone fragments have also been found at other monuments, including the summit of nearby Silbury Hill.

Many of the bodies bear the marks of horrible illness or injury, supporting the theory that they came to Stonehenge in futile search of a cure or at least respite from excruciating pain.

The Archer, whose grave was found in 2002 just three miles from Stonehenge, came like the much younger man buried near him - who may have been a son or nephew - from modern Switzerland. The skeleton suggests he spent years in agony from a shattered kneecap, and may eventually have died poisoned by an abscess which rotted a hole through his jaw.

Archaeologists had believed that by the time the Romans arrived in Britain, Stonehenge was just a towering enigma, its ritual importance entirely forgotten.

The latest finds imply a much more complex story: they include a Roman coin among stone fragments, suggesting the Romans also believed in and sought out the healing magic. The later charcoal deposits suggest to Darvill and Wainwright annual gatherings, perhaps for feasting and ceremony at the winter solstice, continuing as late as the 17th century.

The modern-day druids and pagans who assemble bearing green boughs for the winter and summer solstices may not be so far off the mark after all.

The last excavation at Stonehenge was in 1964. Although in April Darvill and Wainwright only won permission from English Heritage for a trench the size of a large hearthrug - "a little piece of keyhole surgery" as Darvill described it - it was the first excavation at which the whole armoury of modern scientific archaeology could be fired. "This is very much work in progress," Wainwright said yesterday. "There are more surprises to come, I'm sure of that."

Next season they will be back in Preseli, looking for more evidence of ritual practice at the home of the bluestones.

"I'm sure we'll find the Welsh architect of Stonehenge yet," Wainwright said.

The excavation was funded by BBC Timewatch and Smithsonian Networks and a documentary on the findings will be screened on BBC2 at 8pm on Saturday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...ology.heritage

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Why are we asking this now?

Archaeologists have recently excavated a small area within Britain's most famous Stone Age site and found evidence to suggest that Stonehenge was once a centre of healing, a sort of "Neolithic Lourdes" where people would come from far and wide in the hope of being cured of their ills. The scientists have also been able to date the construction of the first stone circle to between 2600BC and 2400BC. This would mean that the ring's original bluestones, carried to the site on Salisbury Plain from a quarry in South Wales, were put up about 300 years later than previously thought.

What is the evidence that Stonehenge was a healing centre?

It is not very straightforward, but then again nothing ever is with this mysterious ancient monument. The two archaeologists, Professor Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright, first of all noted the abnormal number of corpses found in tombs nearby Stonehenge that display signs of serious physical injury or disease. One of the most famous of these is the "Amesbury Archer" buried about two miles from Stonehenge. He is known to have originated from the Alps and had suffered a serious knee injury and a potentially fatal dental problem before he died.

His history seemed to match many of the other bodies found near the site. Analysis of the mineral isotopes found in human teeth show that about half of these people where not native to the Stonehenge area. Taken together, this could suggest that some people came to the site in order to benefit from some kind of healing powers that the bluestones were perhaps supposed to have.

The two archaeologists also found that about three times as many stone chipping were taken from the bluestones compared to the Sarsen stones. "It could be that people were flaking off pieces of bluestones, in order to create little bit to take away... as lucky amulets," Prof Wainwright said.

Are there any other speculations about Stonehenge?

Lots, but we won't go into the more outlandish ones. What is obvious is that Stonehenge was built to celebrate or mark the summer and winter solstices, when the Sun reaches its furthest point north and south of the equator, respectively, which is denoted by the point at which the Sun rises or sets on the horizon. The alignment of the stones are designed to mark the two solstices, and hence the points at which summer and winter reach their mid-points.

Some scholars have gone further to suggest that Stonehenge was a far more sophisticated astronomical instrument that could, for instance, be used to predict lunar eclipse, when the Earth passes in between the Sun and the Moon. They believe that the inner "horseshoe" of 19 bluestones at the centre of the circle acted as a long-term calendar to calculate when the next lunar eclipse would occur – when, in other words, the shadow of the Earth would fall upon the Moon.

Another theory is that Stonehenge was an elaborate burial site for important people. Professor Mike Parker Pearson, an archaeologist at Sheffield University, believes that the stone structure was the "domain of the dead", whereas the nearby "wooden henge" structure at Durrington Wells a couple of miles away was the "domain of the living".

So was there more than one ancient structure in the vicinity?

Yes. In fact the stone circles came after an even earlier wooden structure which of course has not survived. But in addition to this, the Durrington Wells site nearby also had a wooden henge, a circular structure that also marked the solstices. Durrington Wells was also the site of a large, 300-house seasonal village, according to Prof Parker Pearson.

This would have made it one of the biggest, if not the biggest, settlement in north-west Europe at that time. It would probably have been used as temporary accommodation for people attending Stonehenge in mid-winter and mid-summer, he said. No human burials have been found at Durrington Wells, although 29 cremation burials have been found at Stonehenge during excavations that took place in the 1920s. Some archaeologists believe there may have been 240 people buried at Stonehenge during prehistoric times and that they may be the descendents of a single family who over several generations were awarded the privilege of having their remains interred at the sacred site.

"I don't think it was the common people getting buried at Stonehenge," Prof Parker Pearson said. "It was clearly a special place at that time. One has to assume rthat anyone buried there had some good credentials. The people buried here must have been drawn from a very small and select living population. Archaeologists have long speculated about whether Stonehenge was put up by prehistoric chiefs, perhaps even ancient royalty. The new results suggest that not only is this like to have been the case, but it also was the resting place of their mortal remains."

Who built Stonehenge and when?

It is now accepted that the monument was built in three stages by three different groups of people over a period of about 800 years. The first stage was a circle of timbers surrounded by a ditch and bank and was constructed by what archaeologists have called the Windmill Hill people, named after their earthworks at the site of the same name. They used animal bones and antlers to dig the trench and the circle of 56 "Aubrey" holes to hold the wooden posts of the first structure. Radiocarbon dating of these utensils have recorded a date of 3100BC.

The next stage was built by the Beaker Folk, who came from Europe at the end of the Neolithic Period, and began about 2500BC. They brought the bluestones from Prescelli Mountains in Pembroke, some 245 miles away. It was an impressive operation given that some of these stones weighed five tons and had to be hauled over land and floated up rivers.

The final, third phase of the construction occurred about 2300BC by the Wessex People, who were Bronze Age pioneers. They dug up and re-arranged the bluestones and brought in even bigger stones from Marlborough Downs some 20 miles away. These giant sandstones, called Sarsen stones, were hammered to size and shaped with carpenter's joints so that they could sit on top of each other to form the classic lintels that have made Stonehenge so unique. The hauling and erection of the Sarsen stones is an engineering miracle – some of them weigh 45 tons.

What else is known about the site?

It was almost certainly a gathering place for many years for people from all over southern Britain and possibly Europe. Jane Evans of the British Geological Survey has found evidence for instance that people brought their own cattle to Stonehenge from as far away as Wales, or even further afield. Isotope analysis on the cattle teeth found at Durrington Wells shows that the animals were reared in a different geological place to where they were slaughtered. Dr Evans suggests it shows that there was a "bring-your-own beef barbeque" at Stonehenge which was probably a centre for grand feasts long before the construction of the ancient stone circle.

Why was this site chosen?

We may never know the answer to this. Why this particular part of southern England was deemed so important remains one of the most enduring mysteries of Stonehenge.

Will we ever be able to know the truth about Stonehenge?

Yes...

* Dating technology gets better all the time, giving more accurate estimates of when something happened.

* Tests, such as teeth analysis, are being refined and allow scientists to draw better conclusions.

* Much of the site has not been properly excavated, so there are many things still to be discovered.

No...

* The site took so long to construct that it will be virtually impossible to decipher its true purpose.

* Terrible damage over the past few centuries has made the site only a poor version of what it was once.

* Stonehenge will always be a mystery because it represents what was in the minds of people long dead.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...ge-940209.html