This discovery has had tremendous impact on how Stonehenge has been interpreted. For Stukeley in the 18th century and Sir Norman Lockyer in the first years of the 20th century, this alignment implied a ritualistic connection with sun worship and it was generally concluded that Stonehenge was constructed as a temple to the sun. More recently, though, the astronomer Gerald Hawkins has argued that Stonehenge is not merely aligned with solar and lunar astronomical events, but can be used to predict other events such as eclipses.
In other words, Stonehenge was more than a temple, it was an astronomical calculator. It was argued that the summer solstice alignment cannot be accidental. The sun rises in different directions in different geographical latitudes. The alignment, therefore, must have been fundamental to the design and placement of Stonehenge.
The most visited and well known of the British stone rings, Stonehenge is a composite structure built during three distinct periods. The circle, feet in diameter, had a single entrance, 56 mysterious holes around its perimeter with remains in them of human cremations , and a wooden sanctuary in the middle.
The circle was aligned with the midsummer sunrise, the midwinter sunset, and the most southerly rising and northerly setting of the moon. The Bluestones, eighty in number and weighing as much as four tons, are of two different mineral types. One type, known as spotted dolerite , is from the Mynydd Preseli range in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The other type, known as rhyolite , has been traced to an area north of the Mynydd Preseli range, in the vicinity of Pont Saeson.
The exact method of transporting the giant stones to Stonehenge, approximately miles to the southeast, is uncertain. Most probably they were dragged across the land using a combination of human and animal power, and it has been suggested that large wooden logs may have been used as rollers to move the stones over flat areas of terrain.
These stones, averaging eighteen feet in height and weighing twenty-five tons, were transported from near the Avebury stone rings twenty miles to the north. Sometime between and BC, approximately sixty of the Bluestones were reset in a circle immediately inside the Sarsen circle, and another nineteen were placed in a horseshoe pattern, also inside the circle.
It has been estimated that the three phases of the construction required more than thirty million hours of labor. Recent studies indicate it unlikely that Stonehenge was functioning much after BC.
Recent studies conducted by the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project have revealed that Stonehenge was not an isolated structure on the edge of Salisbury Plain, but the center of a complex and widespread arrangement of ritual monuments that had grown and expanded over time. Using magnetometer measurements, ground penetrating radar, and airborne laser scanning, the geophysical survey covered an area of 12 square kilometers and penetrated to a depth of three meters.
Seventeen previously unknown wooden or stone structures as well as dozens of burial mounds were discovered. Most of the one million visitors who visit Stonehenge every year believe they are looking at untouched 4,year-old remains. But nearly every stone was re-erected, straightened or embedded in concrete between and The first restoration project took place in when a leaning stone was straightened and set in concrete to prevent it from falling.
It is widely believed that they were brought from Marlborough Downs, a distance of 20 miles 32 kilometers to the north. Smaller stones, referred to as "bluestones" they have a bluish tinge when wet or freshly broken , weigh up to 4 tons and come from several different sites in western Wales , having been transported as far as miles km. It's unknown how people in antiquity moved them that far. Recent experiments show that it is possible for a one-ton stone to be moved by a dozen people on a wooden trackway, but whether this technique was actually used by the ancient builders is uncertain.
Scientists have also raised the possibility that during the last ice age glaciers carried these bluestones closer to the Stonehenge area and the monument's makers didn't have to move them all the way from Wales.
Water transport by raft is another idea that has been proposed but researchers now question whether this method was viable. Stonehenge is just one part of a larger sacred landscape that contains many other stone and wooden structures as well as burials. Archaeologists have also found evidence for widespread prehistoric hunting and a road that may have led to Stonehenge. From what scientists can tell, Salisbury Plain was considered to be a sacred area long before Stonehenge itself was constructed.
As early as 10, years ago, three large pine posts, which were totem poles of sorts, were erected at the site. Hunting played an important role in the area. Researchers have uncovered roughly animal bones and 12, flint tools or fragments, just a mile away from Stonehenge, the finds dating from B. The presence of abundant game may have led people to consider the area sacred. Dozens of burial mounds have been discovered near Stonehenge indicating that hundreds, if not thousands, of people were buried there in ancient times.
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