Archaeologists have said that Stonehenge may not have been the original structure in the UK. An unexpected find in Wales allowed them to assume that it was from there that the famous monument was transported to the territory of modern England.
The study was published in Antiquity and briefly featured in Heritage Daily. A new hypothesis about the origin of Stonehenge arose after archaeologists discovered traces of a prehistoric monument in Wales.
They were excavating in the hills of Preseli and found the remains of a stone circle.
The study showed that vast boulders of bluestone were located in prehistoric times at this place. It was this building material that was used in the construction of Stonehenge.
Archaeologists have said that Stonehenge may not have been the original structure in the UK. An unexpected find in Wales allowed them to assume that it was from there that the famous monument was transported to the territory of modern England.
Mysterious 4,500-year-old item found near Stonehenge
The study was published in the journal Antiquity and is briefly featured in Heritage Daily. A new hypothesis about the origin of Stonehenge arose after archaeologists discovered traces of a prehistoric monument in Wales.
They were excavating in the hills of Preseli and found the remains of a stone circle.
The study showed that vast boulders of bluestone were located in prehistoric times at this place. It was this building material that was used in the construction of Stonehenge.
Further analysis of the stone circle in Wales showed that it was from here that ancient people could borrow stones for the construction of Stonehenge. This allows us to say that the world-famous English monument was actually simply transported from another place. Roughly speaking, in Wales it was dismantled and transported about 200 km to the territory of the modern English county of Wiltshire, where the stone circle was reassembled.
Recent discoveries support this hypothesis. For example, another research group reliably determined that the blue stones used to build Stonehenge were delivered from Wales. But it was assumed that they were brought from several different quarries.
In this case, traces of the stone circle were found right next to the bluestone quarry, located at the prehistoric site of Vaun Maun. Moreover, the found circle turned out to be one of the largest of its kind in the UK. It is second in size only to the monoliths of Avebury in Wiltshire and Stanton Drew in Somerset.
By the way, the excavations at Vaung Maun started in 2018. It was then that scientists discovered the first pits, in which huge boulders were installed in ancient times. Only four stones remain from that circle to this day.
Dating has shown that the Vaun Maun stone circle was built around 3400 BC. This means that it is almost a thousand years older than Stonehenge. Calculations made showed that the diameter of the circle in Vaun Maun was 110 meters, that is, it was equal to the diameter of the outer ditch that surrounds Stonehenge.
This is not the only element of similarity noticed by the researchers. They found that both the circle in Wales and Stonehenge were identically aligned following astronomy - they were oriented to sunrise on the day of the summer solstice.
In addition, one of Stonehenge's bluestones has an unusual cross-section. The comparison showed that the section of this stone perfectly matches one of the pits found in Vung Maun. The rock type of this boulder also matches the rock type found at Wown Maun.
According to Mike Parker Pearson of University College London, the modern area of Preseli in Wales was a densely populated part of Neolithic Britain. It was characterized by quarrying and the construction of monoliths. However, as excavations show, around 3000 BC, the local population suddenly disappeared.
"It's like they just disappeared," says Mike Pearson. "Maybe most people migrated and took their stones, their ancestral relics, with them."
