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Stonehenge is a
prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...
on
Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
in
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, England, west of
Amesbury Amesbury () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is known for the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge which is within the parish. The town is claimed to be the oldest occupied settlement in Great Britain, having been first settle ...
. It consists of an outer ring of vertical
sarsen Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire. Geology ...
standing stones A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be foun ...
, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal
lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. In the case of w ...
stones. Inside is a ring of smaller
bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...
s. Inside these are free-standing
trilithon A trilithon or trilith is a structure consisting of two large vertical stones (posts) supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top (lintel). It is commonly used in the context of megalithic monuments. The most famous trilithons ar ...
s, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the
summer solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer ...
. The stones are set within
earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour * Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), m ...
in the middle of the densest complex of
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
and
Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
monuments in England, including several hundred ''
tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...
'' (burial mounds). Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.
Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...
suggests that the first
bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...
s were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC. One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. It has been a legally protected
scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...
since 1882, when legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
's list of
World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
s in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by
the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...
and managed by
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
; the surrounding land is owned by the
National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
. Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500 years.


Etymology

The ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' cites
Ælfric Ælfric (Old English ', Middle English ''Elfric'') is an Anglo-Saxon given name. Churchmen *Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955–c. 1010), late 10th century Anglo-Saxon abbot and writer *Ælfric of Abingdon (died 1005), late 10th century Anglo-Saxon Archbi ...
's tenth-century glossary, in which ''henge-cliff'' is given the meaning "precipice", or stone; thus, the ''stanenges'' or ''Stanheng'' "not far from
Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
" recorded by eleventh-century writers are "stones supported in the air". In 1740,
William Stukeley William Stukeley (7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765) was an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman. A significant influence on the later development of archaeology, he pioneered the scholarly investigation of the prehistoric ...
notes: "Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire ... I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones."
Christopher Chippindale Christopher Ralph Chippindale, FSA (born 13 October 1951) is a British archaeologist. He worked at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology from 1988 to his retirement in 2013, and was additionally Reader in Archaeology at the University of ...
's ''Stonehenge Complete'' gives the derivation of the name ''Stonehenge'' as coming from the
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
words ''stān'' meaning "stone", and either ''hencg'' meaning "
hinge A hinge is a mechanical bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation: all other ...
" (because the stone
lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. In the case of w ...
s hinge on the upright stones) or ''hen(c)en'' meaning " to hang" or "
gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...
" or "instrument of torture" (though elsewhere in his book, Chippindale cites the "suspended stones" etymology). The "henge" portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as
henge There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ...
s. Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from
antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...
use. Despite being contemporary with true
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
henges and
stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The be ...
s, Stonehenge is in many ways atypical – for example, at more than tall, its extant trilithons' lintels, held in place with
mortise and tenon A mortise and tenon (occasionally mortice and tenon) joint connects two pieces of wood or other material. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at right ...
joints, make it unique.


Early history

Mike Parker Pearson Michael Parker Pearson, (born 26 June 1957) is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles, Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial. A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, he previous ...
, leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project based around
Durrington Walls Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England. It lies north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, just north of Amesbury in Wiltshir ...
, noted that Stonehenge appears to have been associated with burial from the earliest period of its existence: Stonehenge evolved in several construction phases spanning at least 1500 years. There is evidence of large-scale construction on and around the monument that perhaps extends the landscape's time frame to 6500 years. Dating and understanding the various phases of activity are complicated by disturbance of the natural
chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...
by
periglacial Periglaciation (adjective: "periglacial", also referring to places at the edges of glacial areas) describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing of snow in areas of permafrost, the runoff from which refreezes in ice wedges and ot ...
effects and animal burrowing, poor quality early excavation records, and a lack of accurate, scientifically verified dates. The modern phasing most generally agreed to by archaeologists is detailed below. Features mentioned in the text are numbered and shown on the plan, right.


Before the monument (from 8000 BC)

Archaeologists have found four, or possibly five, large
Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
posthole In archaeology a posthole or post-hole is a cut feature used to hold a surface timber or stone. They are usually much deeper than they are wide; however, truncation may not make this apparent. Although the remains of the timber may survive, most p ...
s (one may have been a natural
tree throw In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...
), which date to around 8000 BC, beneath the nearby old tourist car-park in use until 2013. These held pine posts around in diameter, which were erected and eventually rotted ''in situ''. Three of the posts (and possibly four) were in an east–west alignment which may have had
ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
significance. Another Mesolithic astronomical site in Britain is the
Warren Field Warren Field is the location of a mesolithic calendar monument built about 8,000 BCE. It includes 12 pits believed to correlate with phases of the Moon and used as a lunar calendar. It is considered to be the oldest lunar calendar yet found. It ...
site in
Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...
, which is considered the world's oldest
lunar calendar A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gre ...
, corrected yearly by observing the
midwinter solstice The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winte ...
. Similar but later sites have been found in
Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
. A settlement that may have been contemporaneous with the posts has been found at
Blick Mead Blick Mead is a chalkland spring in Wiltshire, England, separated by the River Avon from the northwest edge of the town of Amesbury. It is close to an Iron Age hillfort known as Vespasian's Camp and about a mile east of the Stonehenge ancient ...
, a reliable year-round spring from Stonehenge.
Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
was then still wooded, but 4,000 years later, during the earlier Neolithic, people built a
causewayed enclosure A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. It is an enclosure marked out by ditches and banks, with a number of causeways crossing the ditches. More than 100 examples are recorded in ...
at
Robin Hood's Ball Robin Hood’s Ball is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, approximately northwest of the town of Amesbury, and northwest of Stonehenge. The site was designated as a scheduled monument in 1965. Etymology ...
, and
long barrow Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material repres ...
tombs in the surrounding landscape. In approximately 3500 BC, a
Stonehenge Cursus The Stonehenge Cursus (sometimes known as the Greater Cursus) is a large Neolithic cursus monument on Salisbury plain, near to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. It is roughly long and between and wide. Excavations in 2007 dated the construct ...
was built north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the trees and develop the area. Other previously overlooked stone or wooden structures and burial mounds may date as far back as 4000 BC. Charcoal from the ‘Blick Mead’ camp from Stonehenge (near the Vespasian's Camp site) has been dated to 4000 BC. The
University of Buckingham , mottoeng = Flying on Our Own Wings , established = 1973; as university college1983; as university , type = Private , endowment = , administrative_staff = 97 academic, 103 support , chance ...
's Humanities Research Institute believes that the community who built Stonehenge lived here over a period of several millennia, making it potentially "one of the pivotal places in the history of the Stonehenge landscape."


Stonehenge 1 (c. 3100 BC)

The first monument consisted of a circular bank and ditch
enclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
made of
Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...
(
Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya (million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 mya. The ...
Age) Seaford
chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...
, measuring about in diameter, with a large entrance to the north east and a smaller one to the south. It stood in open
grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...
on a slightly sloping spot. The builders placed the bones of
deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
and oxen in the bottom of the ditch, as well as some worked
flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...
tools. The bones were considerably older than the antler picks used to dig the ditch, and the people who buried them had looked after them for some time prior to burial. The ditch was continuous but had been dug in sections, like the ditches of the earlier causewayed enclosures in the area. The chalk dug from the ditch was piled up to form the bank. This first stage is dated to around 3100 BC, after which the ditch began to silt up naturally. Within the outer edge of the enclosed area is a circle of 56 pits, each about in diameter, known as the
Aubrey holes The Aubrey holes are a ring of fifty-six (56) chalk pits at Stonehenge, named after the seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey. They date to the earliest phases of Stonehenge in the late fourth and early third millennium BC. Despite decade ...
after
John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the ''Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist, ...
, the seventeenth-century
antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...
who was thought to have first identified them. These pits and the bank and ditch together are known as the Palisade or Gate Ditch. The pits may have contained standing timbers creating a
timber circle In archaeology, timber circles are rings of upright wooden posts, built mainly by ancient peoples in the British Isles and North America. They survive only as gapped rings of post-holes, with no evidence they formed walls, making them distinct fro ...
, although there is no excavated evidence of them. A recent excavation has suggested that the Aubrey Holes may have originally been used to erect a
bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...
circle. If this were the case, it would advance the earliest known stone structure at the monument by some 500 years. In 2013 a team of archaeologists, led by
Mike Parker Pearson Michael Parker Pearson, (born 26 June 1957) is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles, Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial. A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, he previous ...
, excavated more than 50,000 cremated bone fragments, from 63 individuals, buried at Stonehenge. These remains had originally been buried individually in the Aubrey holes, exhumed during a previous excavation conducted by William Hawley in 1920, been considered unimportant by him, and subsequently re-interred together in one hole, Aubrey Hole 7, in 1935. Physical and chemical analysis of the remains has shown that the cremated were almost equally men and women, and included some children. As there was evidence of the underlying chalk beneath the graves being crushed by substantial weight, the team concluded that the first bluestones brought from Wales were probably used as grave markers.
Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...
of the remains has put the date of the site 500 years earlier than previously estimated, to around 3000 BC. A 2018 study of the
strontium Strontium is the chemical element with the symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is ex ...
content of the bones found that many of the individuals buried there around the time of construction had probably come from near the source of the bluestone in Wales and had not extensively lived in the area of Stonehenge before death. Between 2017 and 2021, studies by Professor Pearson (UCL) and his team suggested that the
bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...
s used in Stonehenge had been moved there following dismantling of a stone circle of identical size to the first known Stonehenge circle (110m) at the Welsh site of
Waun Mawn Waun Mawn (Welsh for "peat moor") is the site of a possible dismantled Neolithic stone circle in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, Wales. The diameter of the postulated circle is estimated to be , the third largest diameter for a British stone c ...
in the
Preseli Hills The Preseli Hills or, as they are known locally and historically, Preseli Mountains, (Welsh: ''Mynyddoedd y Preseli / Y Preselau'' , ) is a range of hills in western Wales, mostly within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The range stret ...
. It had contained bluestones, one of which showed evidence of having been reused in Stonehenge. The stone was identified by its unusual pentagonal shape and by luminescence soil dating from the filled-in sockets which showed the circle had been erected around 3400-3200 BC, and dismantled around 300–400 years later, consistent with the dates attributed to the creation of Stonehenge. The cessation of human activity in that area at the same time suggested migration as a reason, but it is believed that other stones may have come from other sources.


Stonehenge 2 (c. 2900 BC)

The second phase of construction occurred approximately between 2900 and 2600 BC. The number of postholes dating to the early third millennium BC suggests that some form of timber structure was built within the enclosure during this period. Further standing timbers were placed at the northeast entrance, and a parallel alignment of posts ran inwards from the southern entrance. The postholes are smaller than the Aubrey Holes, being only around in diameter, and are much less regularly spaced. The bank was purposely reduced in height and the ditch continued to silt up. At least twenty-five of the Aubrey Holes are known to have contained later, intrusive,
cremation Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a Cadaver, dead body through Combustion, burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India ...
burials dating to the two centuries after the monument's inception. It seems that whatever the holes' initial function, it changed to become a funerary one during Phase two. Thirty further cremations were placed in the enclosure's ditch and at other points within the monument, mostly in the eastern half. Stonehenge is therefore interpreted as functioning as an
enclosed cremation cemetery Enclosed cremation cemetery is a term used by archaeologists to describe a type of cemetery found in north western Europe during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. They are similar to urnfield burial grounds in that they consist of a concen ...
at this time, the earliest known cremation cemetery in the British Isles. Fragments of unburnt human bone have also been found in the ditch-fill. Dating evidence is provided by the late Neolithic
grooved ware Grooved ware is the name given to a pottery style of the British Neolithic. Its manufacturers are sometimes known as the Grooved ware people. Unlike the later Beaker ware, Grooved culture was not an import from the continent but seems to have dev ...
pottery that has been found in connection with the features from this phase.


Stonehenge 3 I (c. 2600 BC)

Archaeological excavation has indicated that around 2600 BC, the builders abandoned timber in favour of stone and dug two concentric arrays of holes (the Q and R Holes) in the centre of the site. These stone sockets are only partly known (hence on present evidence are sometimes described as forming 'crescents'); however, they could be the remains of a double ring. Again, there is little firm dating evidence for this phase. The holes held up to 80 standing stones (shown blue on the plan), only 43 of which can be traced today. It is generally accepted that the
bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...
s (some of which are made of
dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained ...
, an igneous rock), were transported by the builders from the
Preseli Hills The Preseli Hills or, as they are known locally and historically, Preseli Mountains, (Welsh: ''Mynyddoedd y Preseli / Y Preselau'' , ) is a range of hills in western Wales, mostly within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The range stret ...
, away in modern-day
Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...
in Wales. Another theory is that they were brought much nearer to the site as
glacial erratics A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...
by the
Irish Sea Glacier The Irish Sea Glacier was a huge glacier during the Pleistocene Ice Age that, probably on more than one occasion, flowed southwards from its source areas in Scotland and Ireland and across the Isle of Man, Anglesey and Pembrokeshire. It probab ...
although there is no evidence of glacial deposition within southern central England. A 2019 publication announced that evidence of Megalithic quarrying had been found at quarries in Wales identified as a source of Stonehenge's bluestone, indicating that the bluestone was quarried by human agency and not transported by glacial action. The long-distance human transport theory was bolstered in 2011 by the discovery of a megalithic bluestone quarry at
Craig Rhos-y-felin Craig Rhos-y-felin is a rocky outcrop on the north side of the Preseli Mountains in Wales, which is designated as a RIGS site on the basis of its geological and geomorphological interest. It is accepted by some in the archaeological community tha ...
, near
Crymych Crymych () is a village of around 800 inhabitants and a community (population 1,739) in the northeast of Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated approximately above sea level at the eastern end of the Preseli Mountains, on the old Tenby to Cardiga ...
in Pembrokeshire, which is the most likely place for some of the stones to have been obtained. Other standing stones may well have been small
sarsen Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire. Geology ...
s (sandstone), used later as lintels. The stones, which weighed about two tons, could have been moved by lifting and carrying them on rows of poles and rectangular frameworks of poles, as recorded in China, Japan and India. It is not known whether the stones were taken directly from their quarries to Salisbury Plain or were the result of the removal of a venerated stone circle from Preseli to Salisbury Plain to "merge two sacred centres into one, to unify two politically separate regions, or to legitimise the ancestral identity of migrants moving from one region to another". Evidence of a 110-m stone circle at
Waun Mawn Waun Mawn (Welsh for "peat moor") is the site of a possible dismantled Neolithic stone circle in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, Wales. The diameter of the postulated circle is estimated to be , the third largest diameter for a British stone c ...
near Preseli, which could have contained some or all of the stones in Stonehenge, has been found, including a hole from a rock that matches the unusual cross-section of a Stonehenge bluestone "like a key in a lock". Each monolith measures around in height, between wide and around thick. What was to become known as the
Altar Stone An altar stone is a piece of natural stone containing relics in a cavity and intended to serve as the essential part of an altar for the celebration of Mass in the Catholic Church. Consecration by a bishop of the same rite was required. In the Byza ...
is almost certainly derived from the Senni Beds, perhaps from east of the Preseli Hills in the Brecon Beacons. The north-eastern entrance was widened at this time, with the result that it precisely matched the direction of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset of the period. This phase of the monument was abandoned unfinished, however; the small standing stones were apparently removed and the Q and R holes purposefully backfilled. The
Heel Stone The Heel Stone is a single large block of sarsen stone standing within the Avenue outside the entrance of the Stonehenge earthwork in Wiltshire, England. In section it is sub-rectangular, with a minimum thickness of , rising to a tapered to ...
, a
Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
sandstone, may also have been erected outside the north-eastern entrance during this period. It cannot be accurately dated and may have been installed at any time during phase 3. At first, it was accompanied by a second stone, which is no longer visible. Two, or possibly three, large
portal stones This article describes several characteristic architectural elements typical of European megalithic ( Stone Age) structures. Forecourt In archaeology, a forecourt is the name given to the area in front of certain types of chamber tomb. Forecourts ...
were set up just inside the north-eastern entrance, of which only one, the fallen Slaughter Stone, long, now remains. Other features, loosely dated to phase 3, include the four Station Stones, two of which stood atop mounds. The mounds are known as " barrows" although they do not contain burials.
Stonehenge Avenue Stonehenge Avenue is an ancient avenue on Salisbury plain, Wiltshire, England. It is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site. Discovered in the 18th century, it measures nearly 3 kilometers, connecting Ston ...
, a parallel pair of ditches and banks leading to the River Avon, was also added.


Stonehenge 3 II (2600 BC to 2400 BC)

During the next major phase of activity, 30 enormous
Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...
Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
sarsen stones (shown grey on the plan) were brought to the site. They came from a quarry around north of Stonehenge, in
West Woods West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
,
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
. The stones were dressed and fashioned with
mortise and tenon A mortise and tenon (occasionally mortice and tenon) joint connects two pieces of wood or other material. Woodworkers around the world have used it for thousands of years to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at right ...
joints before 30 sarsens were erected as a diameter circle of standing stones, with a ring of 30 lintel stones resting on top. The lintels were fitted to one another using
tongue and groove Tongue and groove is a method of fitting similar objects together, edge to edge, used mainly with wood, in flooring, parquetry, panelling, and similar constructions. Tongue and groove joints allow two flat pieces to be joined strongly together t ...
joints – a woodworking method, again. Each standing stone was around high, wide and weighed around 25 tons. Each had clearly been worked with the final visual effect in mind: The
orthostat This article describes several characteristic architectural elements typical of European megalithic (Stone Age) structures. Forecourt In archaeology, a forecourt is the name given to the area in front of certain types of chamber tomb. Forecourts ...
s widen slightly towards the top in order that their perspective remains constant when viewed from the ground, while the lintel stones curve slightly to continue the circular appearance of the earlier monument. The inward-facing surfaces of the stones are smoother and more finely worked than the outer surfaces. The average thickness of the stones is and the average distance between them is . A total of 75 stones would have been needed to complete the circle (60 stones) and the trilithon horseshoe (15 stones). It was thought the ring might have been left incomplete, but an exceptionally dry summer in 2013 revealed patches of parched grass which may correspond to the location of missing sarsens. The lintel stones are each around long, wide and thick. The tops of the lintels are above the ground. Within this circle stood five
trilithon A trilithon or trilith is a structure consisting of two large vertical stones (posts) supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top (lintel). It is commonly used in the context of megalithic monuments. The most famous trilithons ar ...
s of dressed
sarsen Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire. Geology ...
stone arranged in a horseshoe shape across, with its open end facing northeast. These huge stones, ten uprights and five lintels, weigh up to 50 tons each. They were linked using complex jointing. They are arranged symmetrically. The smallest pair of trilithons were around tall, the next pair a little higher, and the largest, single trilithon in the south-west corner would have been tall. Only one upright from the Great Trilithon still stands, of which is visible and a further is below ground. The images of a 'dagger' and 14 'axeheads' have been carved on one of the sarsens, known as stone 53; further carvings of axeheads have been seen on the outer faces of stones 3, 4, and 5. The carvings are difficult to date but are morphologically similar to late Bronze Age weapons. Early 21st century laser scanning of the carvings supports this interpretation. The pair of trilithons in the north east are smallest, measuring around in height; the largest, which is in the south-west of the horseshoe, is almost tall. This ambitious phase has been
radiocarbon dated Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...
to between 2600 and 2400 BC, slightly earlier than the Stonehenge Archer, discovered in the outer ditch of the monument in 1978, and the two sets of burials, known as the
Amesbury Archer The Amesbury Archer is an early Bronze Age (Bell Beaker) man whose grave was discovered during excavations at the site of a new housing development () in Amesbury near Stonehenge. The grave was uncovered in May 2002. The man was middle aged ...
and the
Boscombe Bowmen The Boscombe Bowmen is the name given by archaeologists to a group of early Bronze Age people found in a shared burial at Boscombe Down in Amesbury () near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. Discovery The burials were found in 2003 during roadwork ...
, discovered to the west. Analysis of animal teeth found away at
Durrington Walls Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England. It lies north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, just north of Amesbury in Wiltshir ...
, thought by Parker Pearson to be the 'builders camp', suggests that, during some period between 2600 and 2400 BC, as many as 4,000 people gathered at the site for the mid-winter and mid-summer festivals; the evidence showed that the animals had been slaughtered around nine months or 15 months after their spring birth.
Strontium Strontium is the chemical element with the symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is ex ...
isotope analysis Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food web ...
of the animal teeth showed that some had been brought from as far afield as the Scottish Highlands for the celebrations. At about the same time, a large
timber circle In archaeology, timber circles are rings of upright wooden posts, built mainly by ancient peoples in the British Isles and North America. They survive only as gapped rings of post-holes, with no evidence they formed walls, making them distinct fro ...
and a second avenue were constructed at
Durrington Walls Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England. It lies north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, just north of Amesbury in Wiltshir ...
overlooking the River Avon. The timber circle was orientated towards the rising Sun on the
midwinter solstice The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winte ...
, opposing the solar alignments at Stonehenge. The avenue was aligned with the setting Sun on the
summer solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer ...
and led from the river to the timber circle. Evidence of huge fires on the banks of the Avon between the two avenues also suggests that both circles were linked. They were perhaps used as a procession route on the longest and shortest days of the year. Parker Pearson speculates that the wooden circle at Durrington Walls was the centre of a 'land of the living', whilst the stone circle represented a 'land of the dead', with the Avon serving as a journey between the two.


Stonehenge 3 III (2400 BC to 2280 BC)

Later in the
Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
, although the exact details of activities during this period are still unclear, the bluestones appear to have been re-erected. They were placed within the outer sarsen circle and may have been trimmed in some way. Like the sarsens, a few have timber-working style cuts in them suggesting that, during this phase, they may have been linked with lintels and were part of a larger structure.


Stonehenge 3 IV (2280 BC to 1930 BC)

This phase saw further rearrangement of the bluestones. They were arranged in a circle between the two rings of sarsens and in an oval at the centre of the inner ring. Some archaeologists argue that some of these bluestones were from a second group brought from Wales. All the stones formed well-spaced uprights without any of the linking lintels inferred in Stonehenge 3 III. The Altar Stone may have been moved within the oval at this time and re-erected vertically. Although this would seem the most impressive phase of work, Stonehenge 3 IV was rather shabbily built compared to its immediate predecessors, as the newly re-installed bluestones were not well-founded and began to fall over. However, only minor changes were made after this phase.


Stonehenge 3 V (1930 BC to 1600 BC)

Soon afterwards, the northeastern section of the Phase 3 IV bluestone circle was removed, creating a horseshoe-shaped setting (the Bluestone Horseshoe) which mirrored the shape of the central sarsen Trilithons. This phase is contemporary with the
Seahenge Seahenge, also known as Holme I, was a prehistoric monument located in the village of Holme-next-the-Sea, near Old Hunstanton in the English county of Norfolk. A timber circle with an upturned tree root in the centre, Seahenge, along wi ...
site in Norfolk.


After the monument (1600 BC on)

The Y and Z Holes are the last known construction at Stonehenge, built about 1600 BC, and the last usage of it was probably during the
Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
.
Roman coins Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum and copper coinage. From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC, well into Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denomi ...
and
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
artefacts have all been found in or around the monument but it is unknown if the monument was in continuous use throughout British prehistory and beyond, or exactly how it would have been used. Notable is the massive Iron Age
hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...
known as Vespasian's Camp (despite its name, not a Roman site) built alongside the Avenue near the Avon. A decapitated seventh-century
Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
man was excavated from Stonehenge in 1923. The site was known to scholars during the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
and since then it has been studied and adopted by numerous groups.


Function and construction

Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records. Many aspects of Stonehenge, such as how it was built and for what purposes it was used, remain subject to debate. A number of myths surround the stones. The site, specifically the great trilithon, the encompassing horseshoe arrangement of the five central trilithons, the heel stone, and the embanked avenue, are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice. A natural landform at the monument's location followed this line, and may have inspired its construction. The excavated remains of culled animal bones suggest that people may have gathered at the site for the winter rather than the summer. Further astronomical associations, and the precise astronomical significance of the site for its people, are a matter of speculation and debate. There is little or no direct evidence revealing the construction techniques used by the Stonehenge builders. Over the years, various authors have suggested that supernatural or anachronistic methods were used, usually asserting that the stones were impossible to move otherwise due to their massive size. However, conventional techniques, using Neolithic technology as basic as
shear legs Shear legs, also known as sheers, shears, or sheer legs, are a form of two-legged lifting device. Shear legs may be permanent, formed of a solid A-frame and supports, as commonly seen on land and the floating sheerleg, or temporary, as aboard a ...
, have been demonstrably effective at moving and placing stones of a similar size. The most common theory of how prehistoric people moved megaliths has them creating a track of logs which the large stones were rolled along. Another megalith transport theory involves the use of a type of sleigh running on a track greased with animal fat. Such an experiment with a sleigh carrying a 40-ton slab of stone was successfully conducted near Stonehenge in 1995. A team of more than 100 workers managed to push and pull the slab along the journey from the
Marlborough Downs The North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is located in the English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. The name ''North Wessex Downs'' is not a traditional one, the area covered being better kno ...
. Proposed functions for the site include usage as an astronomical observatory or as a religious site. In the 1960s
Gerald Hawkins Gerald Stanley Hawkins (20 April 1928– 26 May 2003) was a British-born American astronomer and author noted for his work in the field of archaeoastronomy. A professor and chair of the astronomy department at Boston University in the Unit ...
described in detail how the site was apparently set out to observe the sun and moon over a recurring 56-year cycle. More recently two major new theories have been proposed.
Geoffrey Wainwright Geoffrey Wainwright (1939 – 17 March 2020) was an English theologian. He spent much of his career in the United States and taught at Duke Divinity School. Wainwright made major contributions to modern Methodist theology and Christian liturgy, ...
, president of the
Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...
, and Timothy Darvill, of
Bournemouth University Bournemouth University is a public university in Bournemouth, England, with its main campus situated in neighbouring Poole. The university was founded in 1992; however, the origins of its predecessor date back to the early 1900s. The univer ...
, have suggested that Stonehenge was a place of healing—the primeval equivalent of
Lourdes Lourdes (, also , ; oc, Lorda ) is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for the Château ...
. They argue that this accounts for the high number of burials in the area and for the evidence of trauma deformity in some of the graves. However, they do concede that the site was probably multifunctional and used for ancestor worship as well. Isotope analysis indicates that some of the buried individuals were from other regions. A teenage boy buried approximately 1550 BC was raised near the Mediterranean Sea; a metal worker from 2300 BC dubbed the "
Amesbury Archer The Amesbury Archer is an early Bronze Age (Bell Beaker) man whose grave was discovered during excavations at the site of a new housing development () in Amesbury near Stonehenge. The grave was uncovered in May 2002. The man was middle aged ...
" grew up near the Alpine foothills of Germany; and the "
Boscombe Bowmen The Boscombe Bowmen is the name given by archaeologists to a group of early Bronze Age people found in a shared burial at Boscombe Down in Amesbury () near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. Discovery The burials were found in 2003 during roadwork ...
" probably arrived from Wales or Brittany, France. On the other hand, Mike Parker Pearson of
Sheffield University , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...
has suggested that Stonehenge was part of a
ritual landscape Ritual landscapes or ceremonial landscapes are large archaeological areas that were seemingly dedicated to ceremonial purposes in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Most are dated to around 3500–1800 BC, though a mustatil in Arabia has been dated to ...
and was joined to Durrington Walls by their corresponding avenues and the River Avon. He suggests that the area around Durrington Walls Henge was a place of the living, whilst Stonehenge was a domain of the dead. A journey along the Avon to reach Stonehenge was part of a ritual passage from life to death, to celebrate past ancestors and the recently deceased. Both explanations were first mooted in the twelfth century by
Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiograph ...
, who extolled the curative properties of the stones and was also the first to advance the idea that Stonehenge was constructed as a funerary monument. Whatever religious, mystical or spiritual elements were central to Stonehenge, its design includes a celestial observatory function, which might have allowed prediction of eclipse, solstice, equinox and other celestial events important to a contemporary religion. There are other hypotheses and theories. According to a team of British researchers led by Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, Stonehenge may have been built as a symbol of "peace and unity", indicated in part by the fact that at the time of its construction, Britain's Neolithic people were experiencing a period of cultural unification. Stonehenge megaliths include smaller bluestones and larger sarsens (a term for silicified sandstone boulders found in the chalk downs of southern England). The bluestones are composed of dolerite, tuff, rhyolite, or sandstone. The igneous bluestones appear to have originated in the Preseli hills of southwestern Wales about from the monument. The sandstone Altar Stone may have originated in east Wales. Recent analysis has indicated the sarsens originated from
West Woods West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
, about from the monument. Researchers from the Royal College of Art in London have discovered that the monument's igneous bluestones possess "unusual acoustic properties" – when struck they respond with a "loud clanging noise". Rocks with such acoustic properties are frequent in the Carn Melyn ridge of Presili; the Presili village of
Maenclochog Maenclochog () is a village, parish and Community (Wales), community in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales. It is also the name of Maenclochog (electoral ward), an electoral ward comprising a wider area of four surrounding communities. Maenclocho ...
(Welsh for bell or ringing stones), used local bluestones as church bells until the 18th century. According to the team, these acoustic properties could explain why certain bluestones were hauled such a long distance, a major technical accomplishment at the time. In certain ancient cultures, rocks that ring out, known as lithophonic rocks, were believed to contain mystic or healing powers, and Stonehenge has a history of association with rituals. The presence of these "ringing rocks" seems to support the hypothesis that Stonehenge was a "place for healing" put forward by Darvill, who consulted with the researchers.


DNA studies clarify the historical context

Researchers studying DNA extracted from Neolithic human remains across Britain determined that the ancestors of the people who built Stonehenge were
early European farmers Early European Farmers (EEF), First European Farmers (FEF), Neolithic European Farmers, Ancient Aegean Farmers, or Anatolian Neolithic Farmers (ANF) are names used to describe a distinct group of early Neolithic farmers who brought agriculture to E ...
who came from the Eastern Mediterranean, travelling west from there, as well as
Western hunter-gatherers In archaeogenetics, the term Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG), West European Hunter-Gatherer or Western European Hunter-Gatherer names a distinct ancestral component of modern Europeans, representing descent from a population of Mesolithic hunter-gat ...
from western Europe. DNA studies indicate that they had a predominantly Aegean ancestry, although their agricultural techniques seem to have come originally from
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. These Aegean farmers then moved to
Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
before heading north, reaching Britain in about 4,000 BC.Paul Rincon
Stonehenge: DNA reveals origin of builders.
BBC News website, 16 April 2019
Neolithic individuals in the British Isles were close to Iberian and Central European Early and Middle Neolithic populations, modelled as having about 75% ancestry from Aegean farmers with the rest coming from Western Hunter-Gatherers in continental Europe. They subsequently replaced most of the hunter-gatherer population in the British Isles without mixing much with them. At that time, Britain was inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers who were the first inhabitants of the island after the last Ice Age ended about 11,700 years ago. Despite their mostly Aegean ancestry, the paternal (Y-DNA) lineages of Neolithic farmers in Britain were almost exclusively of Western Hunter-Gatherer origin. This was also the case among other megalithic-building populations in northwest Europe, meaning that these populations were descended from a mixture of hunter-gatherer males and farmer females. This mixture appears to have happened primarily on the continent before the Neolithic farmers migrated to Britain. The dominance of Western Hunter-Gatherer male lineages in Britain and northwest Europe is also reflected in a general 'resurgence' of hunter-gatherer ancestry, predominantly from males, across western and central Europe in the Middle Neolithic. The Bell Beaker people arrived later, around 2,500 BC, migrating from mainland Europe. The earliest British beakers, most likely speakers of
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
whose ancestors migrated from the Pontic–Caspian steppe, were similar to those from the Rhine. There was again a large population replacement in Britain. More than 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool was replaced with the arrival of the Bell Beaker people, who had approximately 50% WSH ancestry. The Bell Beakers also left their impact on Stonehenge construction. They are also associated with the
Wessex culture The Wessex culture is the predominant prehistoric culture of central and southern Britain during the early Bronze Age, originally defined by the British archaeologist Stuart Piggott in 1938.Mycenaean Greece Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in ...
. The wealth from such trade probably permitted the Wessex people to construct the second and third (''megalithic'') phases of Stonehenge and also indicates a powerful form of social organisation. The Bell Beakers were also associated with the
tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
trade, which was Britain's only unique export at the time. Tin was important because it was used to turn copper into bronze, and the Beakers derived much wealth from this.


Modern history


Folklore


"Heel Stone", "Friar’s Heel", or "Sun-Stone"

The
Heel Stone The Heel Stone is a single large block of sarsen stone standing within the Avenue outside the entrance of the Stonehenge earthwork in Wiltshire, England. In section it is sub-rectangular, with a minimum thickness of , rising to a tapered to ...
lies northeast of the sarsen circle, beside the end portion of Stonehenge Avenue. It is a rough stone, above ground, leaning inwards towards the stone circle. It has been known by many names in the past, including "Friar's Heel" and "Sun-stone". At the
Summer solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer ...
an observer standing within the stone circle, looking northeast through the entrance, would see the Sun rise in the approximate direction of the Heel Stone, and the Sun has often been photographed over it. A folk tale relates the origin of the Friar's Heel reference. :The
Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...
bought the stones from a woman in Ireland, wrapped them up, and brought them to Salisbury plain. One of the stones fell into the Avon, the rest were carried to the plain. The Devil then cried out, "No-one will ever find out how these stones came here!" A friar replied, "That’s what you think!", whereupon the Devil threw one of the stones at him and struck him on the heel. The stone stuck in the ground and is still there. ''
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'', sometimes referred to simply as ''Brewer's'', is a reference work containing definitions and explanations of many famous phrases, allusions, and figures, whether historical or mythical. The "New Edit ...
'' attributes this tale to
Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiograph ...
, but though book eight of Geoffrey's ''
Historia Regum Britanniae ''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. I ...
'' does describe how Stonehenge was built, the two stories are entirely different. The name is not unique; there was a monolith with the same name recorded in the nineteenth century by antiquarian Charles Warne at
Long Bredy Long Bredy is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in south-west England, situated approximately west of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in the valley of the small River Bride, beneath chalk hills of the Dorset Downs. In th ...
in Dorset.


Arthurian legend

The twelfth-century ''
Historia Regum Britanniae ''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. I ...
'' ("History of the Kings of Britain"), by
Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiograph ...
, includes a fanciful story of how Stonehenge was brought from Ireland with the help of the wizard
Merlin Merlin ( cy, Myrddin, kw, Marzhin, br, Merzhin) is a mythical figure prominently featured in the legend of King Arthur and best known as a mage, with several other main roles. His usual depiction, based on an amalgamation of historic and le ...
. Geoffrey's story spread widely, with variations of it appearing in adaptations of his work, such as
Wace Wace ( 1110 – after 1174), sometimes referred to as Robert Wace, was a Medieval Norman poet, who was born in Jersey and brought up in mainland Normandy (he tells us in the ''Roman de Rou'' that he was taken as a child to Caen), ending his care ...
's Norman French ''
Roman de Brut The ''Brut'' or ''Roman de Brut'' (completed 1155) by the poet Wace is a loose and expanded translation in almost 15,000 lines of Norman-French verse of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin ''History of the Kings of Britain''. It was formerly known as ...
'',
Layamon Layamon or Laghamon (, ; ) – spelled Laȝamon or Laȝamonn in his time, occasionally written Lawman – was an English poet of the late 12th/early 13th century and author of the ''Brut'', a notable work that was the first to present the legend ...
's Middle English '' Brut'', and the Welsh ''
Brut y Brenhinedd ''Brut y Brenhinedd'' ("Chronicle of the Kings") is a collection of variant Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin ''Historia Regum Britanniae''. About 60 versions survive, with the earliest dating to the mid-13th century. Adaptat ...
''. According to the tale, the stones of Stonehenge were healing stones, which
giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: '' gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...
s had brought from Africa to Ireland. They had been raised on Mount Killaraus to form a stone circle, known as the Giant's Ring or Giant's Round. The fifth-century king Aurelius Ambrosius wished to build a great memorial to the British Celtic nobles slain by the Saxons at Salisbury. Merlin advised him to use the Giant's Ring. The king sent Merlin and
Uther Pendragon Uther Pendragon (Brittonic) (; cy, Ythyr Ben Dragwn, Uthyr Pendragon, Uthyr Bendragon), also known as King Uther, was a legendary King of the Britons in sub-Roman Britain (c. 6th century). Uther was also the father of King Arthur. A few m ...
(
King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...
's father) with 15,000 men to bring it from Ireland. They defeated an Irish army led by Gillomanius, but were unable to move the huge stones. With Merlin's help, they transported the stones to Britain and re-erected them as they had stood. Mount Killaraus may refer to the
Hill of Uisneach The Hill of Uisneach or Ushnagh ( ga, Uisneach or ) is a hill and ancient ceremonial site in the barony of Rathconrath in County Westmeath, Ireland. It is a protected national monument. It consists of numerous monuments and earthworks— prehist ...
. Although the tale is fiction, archaeologist
Mike Parker Pearson Michael Parker Pearson, (born 26 June 1957) is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles, Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial. A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, he previous ...
suggests it may hold a "grain of truth", as evidence suggests the Stonehenge bluestones were brought from the
Waun Mawn Waun Mawn (Welsh for "peat moor") is the site of a possible dismantled Neolithic stone circle in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, Wales. The diameter of the postulated circle is estimated to be , the third largest diameter for a British stone c ...
stone circle on the Irish Sea coast of Wales. Another legend tells how the invading Saxon king
Hengist Hengist and Horsa are Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent. Most modern scholarly consensus now rega ...
invited British Celtic warriors to a feast but treacherously ordered his men to massacre the guests, killing 420 of them. Hengist erected Stonehenge on the site to show his remorse for the deed.


Sixteenth century to present

Stonehenge has changed ownership several times since
King Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...
acquired
Amesbury Abbey Amesbury Abbey was a Benedictine abbey of women at Amesbury in Wiltshire, England, founded by Queen Ælfthryth in about the year 979 on what may have been the site of an earlier monastery. The abbey was dissolved in 1177 by Henry II, who founded ...
and its surrounding lands. In 1540 Henry gave the estate to the
Earl of Hertford Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particular ...
. It subsequently passed to
Lord Carleton Baron Carleton is a title that has been created three times in British history, once in the Peerage of Ireland and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1626 when Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscoun ...
and then the
Marquess of Queensberry Marquess of Queensberry is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. The title has been held since its creation in 1682 by a member of the Douglas family. The Marquesses also held the title of Duke of Queensberry from 1684 to 1810, when it was inh ...
. The Antrobus family of Cheshire bought the estate in 1824. During the First World War an
aerodrome An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...
(
Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...
"No. 1 School of Aerial Navigation and Bomb Dropping") was built on the downs just to the west of the circle and, in the dry valley at Stonehenge Bottom, a main road junction was built, along with several cottages and a cafe. Stonehenge was one of several lots put up for auction in 1915 by Sir Cosmo Gordon Antrobus, soon after he had inherited the estate from his brother. The auction by Knight Frank & Rutley estate agents in Salisbury was held on 21 September 1915 and included "Lot 15. Stonehenge with about 30 acres, 2 rods, 37 perches 2.44 haof adjoining downland." In 1915,
Cecil Chubb Sir Cecil Herbert Edward Chubb, 1st Baronet (14 April 1876 – 22 September 1934), was the last private owner of Stonehenge prehistoric monument, Wiltshire, which he donated to the British government in 1918. Early life and education Chubb was ...
bought the site for £6,600 (£ in ) and gave it to the nation three years later, with certain conditions attached. Although it has been speculated that he purchased it at the suggestion of – or even as a present for – his wife, in fact he bought it on a whim, as he believed a local man should be the new owner. In the late 1920s a nationwide appeal was launched to save Stonehenge from the encroachment of the modern buildings that had begun to rise around it. By 1928 the land around the monument had been purchased with the appeal donations and given to the National Trust to preserve. The buildings were removed (although the roads were not), and the land returned to agriculture. More recently the land has been part of a grassland reversion scheme, returning the surrounding fields to native
chalk grassland Calcareous grassland (or alkaline grassland) is an ecosystem associated with thin basic soil, such as that on chalk and limestone downland. Plants on calcareous grassland are typically short and hardy, and include grasses and herbs such as clove ...
.


Neopaganism

During the twentieth century, Stonehenge began to revive as a place of religious significance, this time by adherents of
Neopagan Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
ism and
New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...
beliefs, particularly the Neo-druids. The historian
Ronald Hutton Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism. He is a professor at the University of Bristol, has written 14 bo ...
would later remark that "it was a great, and potentially uncomfortable, irony that modern Druids had arrived at Stonehenge just as archaeologists were evicting the ancient Druids from it." The first such Neo-druidic group to make use of the megalithic monument was the
Ancient Order of Druids The Ancient Order of Druids (AOD) is the senior neo-druid order in the world, and the oldest in continuous existence. It was formed in London, England, in 1781. It is represented in England, Wales, Scotland and the Commonwealth of Nations. Its ...
, who performed a mass initiation ceremony there in August 1905, in which they admitted 259 new members into their organisation. This assembly was largely ridiculed in the press, who mocked the fact that the Neo-druids were dressed up in costumes consisting of white robes and fake beards. Between 1972 and 1984, Stonehenge was the site of the
Stonehenge Free Festival The Stonehenge Free Festival was a British free festival from 1974 to 1984 held at the prehistoric monument Stonehenge in England during the month of June, and culminating with the summer solstice on or near 21 June. It emerged as the major fre ...
. After the
Battle of the Beanfield The Battle of the Beanfield took place over several hours on 1 June 1985, when Wiltshire Police prevented The Peace Convoy, a convoy of several hundred New Age travellers, from setting up the 1985 Stonehenge Free Festival in Wiltshire, England. ...
between police and
New Age travellers New Age travellers, not completely synonymous with but otherwise shortened to New Travellers (often referred to as "crusties"), are people in the United Kingdom generally espousing New Age beliefs along with the hippie culture of the 1960s (over ...
in 1985, this use of the site was stopped for several years and ritual use of Stonehenge is now heavily restricted. Some Druids have arranged an assembling of monuments styled on Stonehenge in other parts of the world as a form of Druidist worship. The earlier rituals were complemented by the
Stonehenge Free Festival The Stonehenge Free Festival was a British free festival from 1974 to 1984 held at the prehistoric monument Stonehenge in England during the month of June, and culminating with the summer solstice on or near 21 June. It emerged as the major fre ...
, loosely organised by the Polytantric Circle, held between 1972 and 1984, during which time the number of midsummer visitors had risen to around 30,000. However, in 1985 the site was closed to festivalgoers by a High Court injunction. A consequence of the end of the festival in 1985 was the violent confrontation between the police and
New Age travellers New Age travellers, not completely synonymous with but otherwise shortened to New Travellers (often referred to as "crusties"), are people in the United Kingdom generally espousing New Age beliefs along with the hippie culture of the 1960s (over ...
that became known as the
Battle of the Beanfield The Battle of the Beanfield took place over several hours on 1 June 1985, when Wiltshire Police prevented The Peace Convoy, a convoy of several hundred New Age travellers, from setting up the 1985 Stonehenge Free Festival in Wiltshire, England. ...
when police blockaded a convoy of travellers to prevent them from approaching Stonehenge. Beginning in 1985, the year of the Battle, no access was allowed into the stones at Stonehenge for any religious reason. This "exclusion-zone" policy continued for almost fifteen years: until just before the arrival of the twenty-first century, visitors were not allowed to go into the stones at times of religious significance, the
winter Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures ...
and
summer Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...
solstice A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countr ...
s, and the vernal and autumnal
equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...
es. However, following a
European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
ruling obtained by campaigners such as
Arthur Uther Pendragon Arthur Uther Pendragon (born John Timothy Rothwell, 5 April 1954) is a British eco-campaigner, Neo-Druid leader, media personality, and self-declared reincarnation of King Arthur, a name by which he is also known. Pendragon was the "battle c ...
, the restrictions were lifted. The ruling recognized that members of any genuine religion have a right to worship in their own church, and Stonehenge is a place of
worship Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recognition ...
to Neo-Druids,
Pagans Pagans may refer to: * Paganism, a group of pre-Christian religions practiced in the Roman Empire * Modern Paganism, a group of contemporary religious practices * Order of the Vine, a druidic faction in the ''Thief'' video game series * Pagan's ...
and other "Earth based' or 'old' religions. Meetings were organised by the
National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
and others to discuss the arrangements. In 1998, a party of 100 people was allowed access and these included astronomers, archaeologists, Druids, locals, pagans and travellers. In 2000, an open summer solstice event was held and about seven thousand people attended. In 2001, the numbers increased to about 10,000.


Setting and access

When Stonehenge was first opened to the public it was possible to walk among and even climb on the stones, but the stones were roped off in 1977 as a result of serious erosion. Visitors are no longer permitted to touch the stones but are able to walk around the monument from a short distance away. English Heritage does, however, permit access during the summer and winter solstice, and the spring and autumn equinox. Additionally, visitors can make special bookings to access the stones throughout the year. Local residents are still entitled to free admission to Stonehenge because of an agreement concerning the moving of a right of way. The access situation and the proximity of the two roads have drawn widespread criticism, highlighted by a 2006
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
survey. In the survey of conditions at 94 leading World Heritage Sites, 400 conservation and tourism experts ranked Stonehenge 75th in the list of destinations, declaring it to be "in moderate trouble". As motorised traffic increased, the setting of the monument began to be affected by the proximity of the two roads on either side—the A344 to
Shrewton Shrewton is a village and civil parish on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, around west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. It lies on the A360 road between Stonehenge and Tilshead. It is close to the source of the River Till, which flows ...
on the north side, and the
A303 The A303 is a trunk road in southern England, running between Basingstoke in Hampshire and Honiton in Devon via Stonehenge. Connecting the M3 and the A30, it is part of one of the main routes from London to Devon and Cornwall. It is a prim ...
to
Winterbourne Stoke Winterbourne Stoke is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about west of Amesbury and west of the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge. The village is on the River Till at the southern edge of Salisbury Plain, on both sides of a s ...
to the south. Plans to upgrade the A303 and close the A344 to restore the vista from the stones have been considered since the monument became a World Heritage Site. However, the controversy surrounding expensive re-routing of the roads has led to the scheme being cancelled on multiple occasions. On 6 December 2007, it was announced that extensive plans to build
Stonehenge road tunnel The Stonehenge road tunnel is a planned tunnel in Wiltshire, England, drawn up by Highways England to upgrade the A303 road. It would move the A303 into a tunnel under the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, completing the removal of traffic begun ...
under the landscape and create a permanent visitors' centre had been cancelled. On 13 May 2009, the government gave approval for a £25 million scheme to create a smaller visitors' centre and close the A344, although this was dependent on funding and local authority planning consent. On 20 January 2010 Wiltshire Council granted planning permission for a centre to the west and English Heritage confirmed that funds to build it would be available, supported by a £10m grant from the
Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
. On 23 June 2013 the A344 was closed to begin the work of removing the section of road and replacing it with grass. The centre, designed by
Denton Corker Marshall Denton Corker Marshall is an international architecture practice based in Melbourne, Australia. History Denton Corker Marshall was established in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1972. It was founded by architects John Denton, Bill Corker, and Barrie ...
, opened to the public on 18 December 2013.


Archaeological research and restoration


1600–1900

Throughout recorded history, Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments have attracted attention from
antiquarians An antiquarian or antiquary () is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifacts, archaeological and historic si ...
and
archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
.
John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the ''Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist, ...
was one of the first to examine the site with a scientific eye in 1666, and in his plan of the monument, he recorded the pits that now bear his name, the
Aubrey holes The Aubrey holes are a ring of fifty-six (56) chalk pits at Stonehenge, named after the seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey. They date to the earliest phases of Stonehenge in the late fourth and early third millennium BC. Despite decade ...
.
William Stukeley William Stukeley (7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765) was an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman. A significant influence on the later development of archaeology, he pioneered the scholarly investigation of the prehistoric ...
continued Aubrey's work in the early eighteenth century, but took an interest in the surrounding monuments as well, identifying (somewhat incorrectly) the Cursus and the Avenue. He also began the excavation of many of the barrows in the area, and it was his interpretation of the landscape that associated it with the
Druids A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. Whi ...
. Stukeley was so fascinated with Druids that he originally named Disc Barrows as Druids' Barrows. The most accurate early plan of Stonehenge was that made by Bath architect John Wood in 1740. His original annotated survey has recently been computer redrawn and published. Importantly Wood's plan was made before the collapse of the southwest trilithon, which fell in 1797 and was restored in 1958.
William Cunnington William Cunnington FSA (1754 – 31 December 1810) was an English antiquarian and archaeologist. Cunnington was a self-educated merchant, who developed an interest in the rich archaeological landscape around the Wiltshire village of Heytes ...
was the next to tackle the area in the early nineteenth century. He excavated some 24 barrows before digging in and around the stones and discovered charred wood, animal bones, pottery and urns. He also identified the hole in which the Slaughter Stone once stood.
Richard Colt Hoare Sir Richard Colt Hoare, 2nd Baronet Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (9 December 1758 – 19 May 1838) was an English antiquarian, archaeologist, artist, and traveller of the 18th and 19th centuries, the first major figure in the detailed study ...
supported Cunnington's work and excavated some 379 barrows on
Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
including on some 200 in the area around the Stones, some excavated in conjunction with William Coxe. To alert future diggers to their work they were careful to leave initialled metal tokens in each barrow they opened. Cunnington's finds are displayed at the
Wiltshire Museum The Wiltshire Museum, formerly known as Wiltshire Heritage Museum and Devizes Museum, is a museum, archive and library and art gallery in Devizes, Wiltshire, England. The museum was established and is run by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natu ...
. In 1877
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
dabbled in archaeology at the stones, experimenting with the rate at which remains sink into the earth for his book ''
The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms #REDIRECT The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms #REDIRECT The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms {{R from other capitalisation ...
{{R from other capitalisation ...
''. Stone 22 fell during a fierce storm on 31 December 1900.


1901–2000

William Gowland William Gowland FRAI (16 December 1842 – 9 June 1922) was an English mining engineer who carried out archaeological work at Stonehenge and in Japan. He has been called the "Father of Japanese Archaeology". Biography Gowland was born in Sunde ...
oversaw the first major restoration of the monument in 1901, which involved the straightening and concrete setting of sarsen stone number 56 which was in danger of falling. In straightening the stone he moved it about half a metre from its original position. Gowland also took the opportunity to further excavate the monument in what was the most scientific dig to date, revealing more about the erection of the stones than the previous 100 years of work had done. During the 1920 restoration William Hawley, who had excavated nearby
Old Sarum Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, South West England, is the now ruined and deserted site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury. Situated on a hill about north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest re ...
, excavated the base of six stones and the outer ditch. He also located a bottle of
port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...
in the Slaughter Stone socket left by Cunnington, helped to rediscover Aubrey's pits inside the bank and located the concentric circular holes outside the Sarsen Circle called the Y and Z Holes. Richard Atkinson,
Stuart Piggott Stuart Ernest Piggott, (28 May 1910 – 23 September 1996) was a British archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex. Early life Piggott was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, the son of G. H. O. Piggott, and was educated t ...
and John F. S. Stone re-excavated much of Hawley's work in the 1940s and 1950s, and discovered the carved axes and daggers on the Sarsen Stones. Atkinson's work was instrumental in furthering the understanding of the three major phases of the monument's construction. In 1958 the stones were restored again, when three of the standing sarsens were re-erected and set in concrete bases. The last restoration was carried out in 1963 after stone 23 of the Sarsen Circle fell over. It was again re-erected, and the opportunity was taken to concrete three more stones. Later archaeologists, including
Christopher Chippindale Christopher Ralph Chippindale, FSA (born 13 October 1951) is a British archaeologist. He worked at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology from 1988 to his retirement in 2013, and was additionally Reader in Archaeology at the University of ...
of the
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, also known as MAA, at the University of Cambridge houses the university's collections of local antiquities, together with archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world. The museum ...
and Brian Edwards of the
University of the West of England The University of the West of England (also known as UWE Bristol) is a public research university, located in and around Bristol, England. The institution was know as the Bristol Polytechnic in 1970; it received university status in 1992 and ...
, campaigned to give the public more knowledge of the various restorations and in 2004 English Heritage included pictures of the work in progress in its book ''Stonehenge: A History in Photographs''. In 1966 and 1967, in advance of a new car park being built at the site, the area of land immediately northwest of the stones was excavated by Faith and Lance Vatcher. They discovered the Mesolithic postholes dating from between 7000 and 8000 BC, as well as a length of a
palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a fence or defensive wall made from iron or wooden stakes, or tree trunks, and used as a defensive structure or enclosure. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymology ''Palisade' ...
ditch – a V-cut ditch into which timber posts had been inserted that remained there until they rotted away. Subsequent
aerial archaeology Aerial archaeology is the study of archaeological remains by examining them from a higher altitude. In present day, this is usually achieved by satellite images or through the use of drones. Details Aerial Archaeology involves interpretation an ...
suggests that this ditch runs from the west to the north of Stonehenge, near the avenue. Excavations were once again carried out in 1978 by Atkinson and John Evans, during which they discovered the remains of the Stonehenge Archer in the outer ditch, and in 1979
rescue archaeology Rescue archaeology, sometimes called commercial archaeology, preventive archaeology, salvage archaeology, contract archaeology, developer-funded archaeology or compliance archaeology, is state-sanctioned, archaeological survey and excavation car ...
was needed alongside the Heel Stone after a cable-laying ditch was mistakenly dug on the roadside, revealing a new stone hole next to the Heel Stone. In the early 1980s Julian C. Richards led the Stonehenge Environs Project, a detailed study of the surrounding landscape. The project was able to successfully date such features as the
Lesser Cursus The Stonehenge Cursus (sometimes known as the Greater Cursus) is a large Neolithic cursus monument on Salisbury plain, near to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. It is roughly long and between and wide. Excavations in 2007 dated the construc ...
,
Coneybury Henge Coneybury Henge is a henge which is part of the Stonehenge Landscape in Wiltshire, England. The henge, which has been almost completely flattened, was only discovered in the 20th century. Geophysical surveys and excavation have uncovered many of ...
and several other smaller features. In 1993 the way that Stonehenge was presented to the public was called 'a national disgrace' by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. Part of English Heritage's response to this criticism was to commission research to collate and bring together all the archaeological work conducted at the monument up to this date. This two-year research project resulted in the publication in 1995 of the monograph '' Stonehenge in its landscape'', which was the first publication presenting the complex stratigraphy and the finds recovered from the site. It presented a rephasing of the monument.


21st century

More recent excavations include a series of digs held between 2003 and 2008 known as the Stonehenge Riverside Project, led by Mike Parker Pearson. This project mainly investigated other monuments in the landscape and their relationship to the stones — notably, Durrington Walls, where another "Avenue" leading to the River Avon was discovered. The point where the Stonehenge Avenue meets the river was also excavated and revealed a previously unknown circular area which probably housed four further stones, most likely as a marker for the starting point of the avenue. In April 2008,
Tim Darvill Timothy Darvill Order of the British Empire, OBE is an English archaeologist and author, best known for his publications on prehistoric Britain and his excavations in England, Wales, and the Isle of Man. He is Professor of Archaeology in the Facu ...
of the University of Bournemouth and Geoff Wainwright of the Society of Antiquaries began another dig inside the stone circle to retrieve datable fragments of the original bluestone pillars. They were able to date the erection of some bluestones to 2300 BC, although this may not reflect the earliest erection of stones at Stonehenge. They also discovered organic material from 7000 BC, which, along with the Mesolithic postholes, adds support for the site having been in use at least 4,000 years before Stonehenge was started. In August and September 2008, as part of the Riverside Project, Julian C. Richards and Mike Pitts excavated Aubrey Hole 7, removing the cremated remains from several Aubrey Holes that had been excavated by Hawley in the 1920s, and re-interred in 1935. A licence for the removal of human remains at Stonehenge had been granted by the
Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Just ...
in May 2008, in accordance with the ''Statement on burial law and archaeology'' issued in May 2008. One of the conditions of the licence was that the remains should be reinterred within two years and that in the intervening period they should be kept safely, privately and decently. A new landscape investigation was conducted in April 2009. A shallow mound, rising to about was identified between stones 54 (inner circle) and 10 (outer circle), clearly separated from the natural slope. It has not been dated but speculation that it represents careless backfilling following earlier excavations seems disproved by its representation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century illustrations. There is some evidence that, as an uncommon geological feature, it could have been deliberately incorporated into the monument at the outset. A circular, shallow bank, little more than high, was found between the Y and Z hole circles, with a further bank lying inside the "Z" circle. These are interpreted as the spread of spoil from the original Y and Z holes, or more speculatively as hedge banks from vegetation deliberately planted to screen the activities within. In 2010, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project discovered a "henge-like" monument less than away from the main site. This new hengiform monument was subsequently revealed to be located "at the site of Amesbury 50", a round barrow in the
Cursus Barrows The Cursus Barrows is the name given to a Neolithic and Bronze Age round barrow cemetery located mostly south of the western end of the Stonehenge Cursus. The cemetery contains around 18 round barrows scattered along an east-to-west ridge, alth ...
group. In November 2011, archaeologists from University of Birmingham announced the discovery of evidence of two huge pits positioned within the
Stonehenge Cursus The Stonehenge Cursus (sometimes known as the Greater Cursus) is a large Neolithic cursus monument on Salisbury plain, near to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. It is roughly long and between and wide. Excavations in 2007 dated the construct ...
pathway, aligned in celestial position towards midsummer sunrise and sunset when viewed from the Heel Stone.''Discoveries Provide Evidence of a Celestial Procession at Stonehenge''
, ''University of Birmingham Press Release, 26 November 2011
The new discovery was made as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project which began in the summer of 2010. The project uses non-invasive geophysical imaging technique to reveal and visually recreate the landscape. According to team leader Vince Gaffney, this discovery may provide a direct link between the rituals and astronomical events to activities within the Cursus at Stonehenge. In December 2011, geologists from University of Leicester and the National Museum of Wales announced the discovery of the source of some of the
rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...
fragments found in the Stonehenge
debitage In archaeology, debitage is all the material produced during the process of lithic reduction – the production of stone tools and weapons by knapping stone. This assemblage may include the different kinds of lithic flakes and lithic blades, b ...
. These fragments do not seem to match any of the standing stones or bluestone stumps. The researchers have identified the source as a long rock outcrop called
Craig Rhos-y-felin Craig Rhos-y-felin is a rocky outcrop on the north side of the Preseli Mountains in Wales, which is designated as a RIGS site on the basis of its geological and geomorphological interest. It is accepted by some in the archaeological community tha ...
(), near Pont Saeson in north
Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...
, located from Stonehenge. In 2014, the
University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...
announced findings including evidence of adjacent stone and wooden structures and burial mounds near Durrington, overlooked previously, that may date as far back as 4000 BC. An area extending to was studied to a depth of three metres with
ground-penetrating radar Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, asphalt, metals, pipes, cables o ...
equipment. As many as seventeen new monuments, revealed nearby, may be Late Neolithic monuments that resemble Stonehenge. The interpretation suggests a complex of numerous related monuments. Also included in the discovery is that the cursus track is terminated by two wide, extremely deep pits, whose purpose is still a mystery. An announcement in November 2020 stated that a plan to construct a four-lane tunnel for traffic below the site had been approved. This was intended to eliminate the section of the A303 that runs close to the circle. The plan had received opposition from a group of "archaeologists, environmentalists and modern-day druids" according to ''
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'' but was supported by others who wanted to "restore the landscape to its original setting and improve the experience for visitors". Opponents of the plan were concerned that artifacts that are underground in the area would be lost or that excavation in the area could de-stabilize the stones, leading to their sinking, shifting or perhaps falling. In February 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of "vast troves of Neolithic and Bronze Age artifacts" while conducting excavations for a proposed highway tunnel near Stonehenge. The find included Bronze Age graves, late neolithic pottery and C-shaped enclosure on the intended site of the
Stonehenge road tunnel The Stonehenge road tunnel is a planned tunnel in Wiltshire, England, drawn up by Highways England to upgrade the A303 road. It would move the A303 into a tunnel under the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, completing the removal of traffic begun ...
. Remains also contained a shale object in one of the graves, burnt flint in C-shaped enclosure and the final resting place of a baby. In January 2022, archaeologists announced the discovery of thousands of
prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
pits during an electromagnetic induction
field survey Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct fi ...
around Stonehenge. Based on the shape of the pits and the artifacts found inside, the study's lead author, Philippe De Smedt, assumed that six of the 9 large pits excavated were made by prehistoric humans. One of the oldest was about 10000 years old and contained hunting tools.


Origin of sarsens and bluestones

In July 2020, a study led by David Nash of the
University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based on four campuses in Brighton and Eastbourne on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieve ...
concluded that the large sarsen stones were "a direct chemical match" to those found at
West Woods West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
near
Marlborough, Wiltshire Marlborough ( , ) is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the England, English Counties of England, county of Wiltshire on the A4 road (England), Old Bath Road, the old main road from London to Bath, Somerset, Bath. Th ...
, some 15 miles (25 km) north of Stonehenge. A core sample, originally extracted in 1958, had recently been returned. First the fifty-two sarsens were analysed using methods including x-ray fluorescence spectrometry to determine their chemical composition which revealed they were mostly similar. Then the core was destructively analysed and compared with stone samples from various locations in southern Britain. Fifty of the fifty-two megaliths were found to match sarsens in West Woods, thereby identifying the probable origin of the stones. During 2017 and 2018, excavations by Professor Pearson's team at
Waun Mawn Waun Mawn (Welsh for "peat moor") is the site of a possible dismantled Neolithic stone circle in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, Wales. The diameter of the postulated circle is estimated to be , the third largest diameter for a British stone c ...
, a large stone circle site in the Preseli Hills, suggested that the site had originally housed a diameter stone circle of the same size as Stonehenge's original bluestone circle, also orientated towards the midsummer solstice. The circle at Waun Mawn also contained a hole from one stone which had a distinctive pentagonal shape, very closely matching the one pentagonal stone at Stonehenge (stonehole 91 at Waun Mawn / stone 62 at Stonehenge). Soil dating of the sediments within the revealed stone holes, via
optically stimulated luminescence In physics, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) is a method for measuring doses from ionizing radiation. It is used in at least two applications: * Luminescence dating of ancient materials: mainly geological sediments and sometimes fired pott ...
(OSL), suggested the absent stones at Waun Mawn had been erected around 3400–3200 BC, and removed around 300–400 years later, a date consistent with theories that the same stones were moved and used at Stonehenge, before later being reorganised into their present locations and supplemented with local
sarsen Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire. Geology ...
s as was already understood. Human activity at Waun Mawn ceased around the same time which has suggested that some people may have migrated to Stonehenge. It has also been suggested that stones from other sources may have been added to Stonehenge, perhaps from other dismantled circles in the region. Further work in 2021 by Pearson's team concluded that the Waun Mawn circle had never been completed, and of the stones which might once have stood at the site, no more than 13 had been removed in antiquity.


In popular culture


See also

;Historical context * ;Other monuments in the Stonehenge ritual landscape * * * * * * * * ;About Stonehenge and replicas of Stonehenge * * * * * * ;Fiction * ''
Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...
'', novel ;Similar sites * * * *
Carhenge Carhenge is a replica of England's Stonehenge located near the city of Alliance, Nebraska, in the High Plains region of the United States. Instead of being built with large standing stones, as is the case with the original Stonehenge, Carhenge is ...
- replica of Stonehenge near the city of Alliance, Nebraska * *
Goloring The Goloring is an ancient earthworks monument located near Koblenz, Germany. It was created in the Bronze Age era, which dates back to the Urnfield culture (1200–800 BCE.). During this time a widespread solar cult is believed to have existed i ...
- ancient earthworks near Koblenz, Germany * - Calendar circle built circa 4900 BC in Germany * * * *
Nabta Playa Nabta Playa was once a large Endorheic basin, internally drained basin in the Nubian Desert, located approximately 800 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo or about 100 kilometers west of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt, 22.51° north, 30.7 ...
- Calendar circle built circa 5000 BC in Egypt * * * ;Sites with similar sunrise or sunset alignments * * ;Museums with collections from the World Heritage Site * *


Footnotes


References


Bibliography

* Atkinson, R.J.C., ''Stonehenge'' (Penguin Books, 1956) * Bender, B, ''Stonehenge: Making Space'' (Berg Publishers, 1998) * Burl, A., ''Great Stone Circles'' (Yale University Press, 1999) * Aubrey Burl, ''Prehistoric Stone Circles'' (Shire, 2001) (In Burl's ''Stonehenge'' (Constable, 2006), he notes, cf. the meaning of the name in paragraph two above, that "the Saxons called the ring 'the hanging stones', as though they were gibbets.") * Chippindale, C, ''Stonehenge Complete'' (Thames and Hudson, London, 2004) * Chippindale, C, et al., ''Who owns Stonehenge?'' (B T Batsford Ltd, 1990) * Cleal, R. M. J., Walker, K. E. & Montague, R., '' Stonehenge in its landscape'' (English Heritage, London, 1995) * Cunliffe, B., & Renfrew, C, ''Science and Stonehenge'' (The British Academy 92, Oxford University Press, 1997) * Exon et al., Sally Exon, Vincent Gaffney, Ann Woodward, Ron Yortson, ''Stonehenge Landscapes: Journeys Through Real-and-imagined Worlds'', 2000, Archaeopress,
google books
* Godsell, Andrew "Stonehenge: Older Than the Centuries" in "Legends of British History" (2008) * Hall, R, Leather, K., & Dobson, G., ''Stonehenge Aotearoa'' (Awa Press, 2005) * Hawley, Lt-Col W, ''The Excavations at Stonehenge.'' (The Antiquaries Journal 1, Oxford University Press, 19–41). 1921. * Hawley, Lt-Col W., ''Second Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge.'' (The Antiquaries Journal 2, Oxford University Press, 1922) * Hawley, Lt-Col W., ''Third Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge.'' (The Antiquaries Journal 3, Oxford University Press, 1923) * Hawley, Lt-Col W, ''Fourth Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge.'' (The Antiquaries Journal 4, Oxford University Press, 1923) * Hawley, Lt-Col W., ''Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge during the season of 1923.'' (The Antiquaries Journal 5, Oxford University Press, 1925) * Hawley, Lt-Col W., ''Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge during the season of 1924.'' (The Antiquaries Journal 6, Oxford University Press, 1926) * Hawley, Lt-Col W., ''Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge during 1925 and 1926.'' (The Antiquaries Journal 8, Oxford University Press, 1928) * Hutton, R., ''From Universal Bond to Public Free For All'' (British Archaeology 83, 2005) * Hutton, Ronald, ''Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain'' (Yale University Press, London, 2009 * John, Brian, "The Bluestone Enigma: Stonehenge, Preseli and the Ice Age" (Greencroft Books, 2008) * Johnson, Anthony, ''Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma'' (Thames & Hudson, 2008) * Legg, Rodney, "Stonehenge Antiquaries" (Dorset Publishing Company, 1986) * Mooney, J., ''Encyclopedia of the Bizarre'' (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2002) * Newall, R. S., ''Stonehenge, Wiltshire – Ancient monuments and historic buildings'' (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1959) * North, J., ''Stonehenge: Ritual Origins and Astronomy'' (HarperCollins, 1997) * Pitts, M., ''Hengeworld'' (Arrow, London, 2001) * Pitts, M. W., "On the Road to Stonehenge: Report on Investigations beside the A344 in 1968, 1979 and 1980" (''Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society'' 48, 1982) * Richards, J. C., ''English Heritage Book of Stonehenge'' (B T Batsford Ltd, 1991) * Julian Richards ''Stonehenge: A History in Photographs'' (English Heritage, London, 2004) * Stone, J. F. S., ''Wessex Before the Celts'' (Frederick A Praeger Publishers, 1958) * Worthington, A., ''Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion'' (Alternative Albion, 2004) * English Heritage: ''Stonehenge: Historical Background''


Videography

* Spencer, Christopher (dir.) "Stonehenge decoded", New York City : National Geographic, 2008 *


External links


Stonehenge
English Heritage official site: access and visiting information; research; future plans
Skyscape- live webfeed

360° panoramic
English Heritage: interactive view from the centre
Stonehenge Landscape
The National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
– Information about the surrounding area.
Stonehenge Today and Yesterday
By Frank Stevens, at
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
.
Stonehenge, a Temple Restor'd to the British Druids
By William Stukeley
Stonehenge, and Other British Monuments Astronomically Considered
By Norman Lockyer

British Archaeology essay about the bluestones as glacial deposits.
Stonehenge Twentieth Century Excavations Databases
An
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
commissioned report by
Wessex Archaeology Wessex Archaeology is a British company that provides archaeological and heritage services, as well as being an educational charity. Apart from advice and consultancy, it also does fieldwork and publishes research on the sites it surveys. The comp ...
on the twentieth century excavations. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stonehenge
Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...
4th-millennium BC architecture Archaeological sites in Wiltshire Bronze Age sites in England Bronze Age sites in Wiltshire Buildings and structures completed in the 26th century BC Buildings and structures in Wiltshire English Heritage sites in Wiltshire Henges History of Wiltshire Locations associated with Arthurian legend Locations in Celtic mythology Megalithic monuments in England National Trust properties in Wiltshire Ruins in Wiltshire Scheduled monuments in Wiltshire Stone Age sites in England Stone circles in Wiltshire Tourist attractions in Wiltshire World Heritage Sites in England Amesbury