Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, two miles

(3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of a ring of standing stones, each around
13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons. The
stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex
of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several
hundred tumuli (burial mounds).

Archaeologists believe it was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. 

Stonehenge’s Multiphase Construction

BEFORE STONEHENGE

The earliest structures known in the immediate area are four or five pits,
three of which appear to have held large pine ‘totem-pole like’ posts erected in
the Mesolithic period, between 8500 and 7000 BC. It is not known how these
posts relate to the later monument of Stonehenge.

At this time, when much of the rest of southern England was largely
covered by woodland, the chalk downland in the area of Stonehenge may have
been an unusually open landscape. It is possible that this is why it became the
site of an early Neolithic monument complex.

THE EARLIEST MONUMENT

It is possible that features such as the Heel Stone and the low mound
known as the North Barrow were early components of Stonehenge, but the
earliest known major event was the construction of a circular ditch with an
inner and outer bank, built about 3000 BC. It was an early form of henge
monument.

Within the bank and ditch were possibly some timber structures and set
just inside the bank were 56 pits, known as the Aubrey Holes.

Within and around the Aubrey Holes, and also in the ditch, people buried
cremations. About 64 cremations have been found, and perhaps as many as
150 individuals were originally buried at Stonehenge, making it the largest late
Neolithic cemetery in the British Isles.
 THE STONE SETTINGS

In about 2500 BC the stones were set up in the centre of the monument.
Two types of stone are used at Stonehenge – the larger sarsens and the smaller
‘bluestones’. The sarsens were erected in two concentric arrangements – an
inner horseshoe and an outer circle – and the bluestones were set up between
them in a double arc.

One of the last prehistoric activities at Stonehenge was the digging

around the stone settings of two rings of concentric pits, the so-called Y and Z
holes, radiocarbon dated by antlers within them to between 1800 and 1500 BC.

Who Built Stonehenge?

According to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose tale
of King Arthur and mythical account of English history were considered factual
well into the Middle Ages, Stonehenge is the handiwork of the wizard Merlin.

Many modern historians and archaeologists now agree that several

distinct tribes of people contributed to Stonehenge, each undertaking a
different phase of its construction. Bones, tools and other artifacts found on
the site seem to support this hypothesis.

Stonehenge’s Function and Significance

There is strong archaeological evidence that Stonehenge was used as a
burial site, at least for part of its long history, but most scholars believe it
served other functions as well—either as a ceremonial site, a religious
pilgrimage destination, a final resting place for royalty or a memorial erected to
honor and perhaps spiritually connect with distant ancestors.

More recently, signs of illness and injury in the human remains

unearthed at Stonehenge led a group of British archaeologists to speculate that
it was considered a place of healing, perhaps because bluestones were thought
to have curative powers.

Stonehenge Today
One of the most famous and recognizable sites in the world, Stonehenge
draws more than 800,000 tourists a year, many of whom also visit the region’s
numerous other Neolithic and Bronze Age marvels. In 1986 Stonehenge was
added to UNESCO’s register of World Heritage sites.