Scientists made a major discovery this year linked to Stonehenge — one of humanity’s biggest mysteries — and the revelations keep coming.
The ancient monument of Stonehenge is viewed from a hot air ballon on September 7, 2016 in Wiltshire, England.
“These new insights have significantly expanded our understanding as to what the original purpose of Stonehenge might have been,” said lead study author Mike Parker Pearson, professor of British later prehistory at the University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, in an email.
The Altar Stone is the largest of the bluestones used to build Stonehenge. Today, the Altar Stone lies recumbent at the foot of the largest trilithon and is barely visible peeking through the grass. During the winter, Neolithic people would gather near Stonehenge at the village of Durrington Walls, bringing pigs and cattle with them for a feast, Parker Pearson said. Stonehenge was also the largest burial ground of its time, lending support to the idea that the site may have been used as a religious temple, a solar calendar and an ancient observatory all in one.
Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people would have been needed to help move the stone over land, and the journey may have taken about eight months, the researchers noted in the paper. The Altar Stone is similar in both size and placement to other large horizontal blocks in stone circles found in northeast Scotland, the study authors said. These recumbent stone circles have only been found in that part of Scotland, rather than the rest of England, which suggests that the Altar Stone may have been a gift from the community in northern Scotland to signify a type of alliance.
“Within 16 generations over 400 years it seems that most people had ancestries that were a mix of the two, yet this was a mix of 90% incomer to 10% indigenous farmer,” Parker Pearson said. “The genetic makeup of Britain’s population almost completely changed over half a millennium.” “It’s really gratifying that our geological investigations can contribute to the archaeological research and the unfolding story as our knowledge has been improving so dramatically in just the last few years,” Bevins said. “Our research is like forensic science. We are a small team of scientists, each bringing their own area of expertise; it is this combination of skills that has allowed us to identify the sources of the bluestones, and now the Altar Stone.
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