LONDON – Over the weekend, thousands gathered at Stonehenge on the Salisbury plain to mark the December solstice and the shortest day in the in the northern hemisphere. As expected, the crowd was composed to Pagans, Druids, and Witches as well as tourists and onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunrise on the famous stones.
Stonehenge, of course, is not the only monument aligning with the solstice, Newgrange in Ireland, Maeshowe in the Orkney Islands, the Karnak Temple in Egypt, Goseck Circle in Germany, The Sun Dagger at Fajada Butte in New Mexico and Machu Pichu in Peru are among those other locations.
Stonehenge. though, goes get much of the attention. For centuries, Stonehenge has captivated the imagination of the world. Its massive stones, some transported from hundreds of miles away, continue to evoke questions about its origins and purpose. New research suggest that the monument’s construction was not only remarkable engineering feats but also a political maneuver to unite ancient peoples.
Earlier this year in August, researchers writing in the prestigious science journal, Nature, revealed groundbreaking insights about the origins of Stonehenge’s Altar Stone. Geologists traced the six-tonne monolith to northeast Scotland, over 750 kilometers from its current location on Salisbury Plain. The study’s authors emphasized the monumental effort required to move the stone southward, writing, “The Altar Stone was anthropogenically transported to Stonehenge from northeast Scotland… Rivers, topographical barriers, and a heavily forested landscape of prehistoric Britain would have posed formidable obstacles for overland megalith transportation.”
Stonehenge (Photo Credit: Manny Tejeda y Moreno)
While some have speculated that glaciation might have carried the stone closer to the site, geologists dispute this theory. Ice sheets in that era moved northward, making human transport far more likely. Heather Sebire, senior curator at English Heritage, remarked, “My gut feeling is that it came over land… You can think of it as a pilgrimage. Experiments have been done trying to bring the equivalent of the bluestones on rafts across the Severn. I’m afraid none of them have been successful. They sank.”
Researchers now are now suggesting a new dimension to the origins of Stonehenge. Scholars from University College London and Aberystwyth University published this past week in Archaeology International suggest that Stonehenge served not just religious purposes but also as a political statement unifying people across the regions from modern-day Scotland to modern-day Germany. Lead author Professor Mike Parker Pearson of the UCL Institute of Archaeology highlighted its unique character among Britain’s 900 stone circles. “The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions… suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose – as a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos,” he said.
The researchers believe that the Altar Stone underscores the ties between the people living on the now Salisbury Plain and present-day Scotland. Not only was the Altar Stone likely a symbolic gift representing an alliance, but the horizontal monolith mirrors the design of “recumbent stone circles” unique to northeast Scotland.
Mid-winter sunrise – simonwakefield – https://www.flickr.com/photos/simonwakefield/3149066878/ ), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6029740
The construction of Stonehenge spanned generations, with different groups contributing stones from disparate regions. The 43 bluestones were transported from the Preseli Hills in Wales, 140 miles away, during the monument’s first phase around 3000 BCE. In its second phase, around 2500 BCE, builders added the massive sarsen stones from sources 15 miles away and reconfigured the structure into its iconic horseshoe and circle.
This second stage coincided with increasing contact between indigenous Britons and European arrivals. The new settlers, known as the Beaker people, brought advanced technologies, including metalworking and the wheel. Professor Parker Pearson suggests that this period of cultural exchange may have influenced the redesign of Stonehenge, transforming it into a monument of unity amid social and demographic change.
“This second iteration of Stonehenge was built at a time of increasing contact between the people of Britain and arrivals from Europe, mainly from what are today the Netherlands and Germany. The researchers suggest that this period of contact may have been what spurred this second-stage rebuilding, and the monument was a reaction to these newcomers meant to unite indigenous Britons,” the researchers write in a statement.
Stonehenge’s alignment with celestial events remains a cornerstone of its mystique. It clearly had religious significance for Neolithic peoples. Professor Parker Pearson noted, “We’ve known for a while that people came from many different parts of Britain with their pigs and cattle to feast at Durrington Walls, and nearly half the people buried at Stonehenge had lived somewhere other than Salisbury Plain.” These gatherings, he argues, reinforce the idea that Stonehenge was a site of unification for diverse communities.
Transporting massive stones across great distances must have been a spectacle. And doing so without the wheel underscores the ingenuity of Stonehenge’s builders. Co-author Professor Richard Bevins of Aberystwyth University described the geological research as “forensic science,” adding, “It’s really gratifying that our investigations can contribute to the archaeological research… Our knowledge has been improving so dramatically in just the last few years.”
The Wild Hunt is not responsible for links to external content.
To join a conversation on this post:
Visit our The Wild Hunt subreddit! Point your favorite browser to https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Wild_Hunt_News/, then click “JOIN”. Make sure to click the bell, too, to be notified of new articles posted to our subreddit.