What makes this event truly mind-boggling is the fact that the people alive during this time were still using stone tools. Archaeologists believe that the bluestones were transported by natural waterways and dragged over land. Sarsen itself is a type of hard sandstone only found at certain locations around England. The gigantic Sarsen Stones found at Stonehenge are originally from a site 20 miles 32km north of Stonehenge on the Marlborough Downs in North Wiltshire.
Transportation by water would have been impossible due to the immense weight of the stones, and they could therefore only have been moved using sledges, ropes and an awful lot of manpower. Around this time, the bluestones are re-erected into the familiar formations that we see today; an oval perimeter around the inside of the outer sarsen stone circle, and a horseshoe shape within the trilithons at the centre.
A day trip to Stonehenge is the perfect way to explore this ancient and mysterious Neolithic site. Travel from London to Stonehenge in one of our luxurious coaches with free Wi-Fi and USB charging onboard and stop off at other famous locations along the way, including Bath, Oxford and more. Each year, on 21 June the longest day of the year , the sun always rises over the Heel Stone at Stonehenge — a single large sarsen stone which stands outside of the main monument.
And the sun always sets over the Heel Stone on the shortest day of the year. But one thing is for sure — Stonehenge was used as a cemetery. Experts estimate that about people are buried on the grounds.
They also think that important funeral ceremonies would have been performed at the site — though why the dead were laid to rest there, no one knows…. While you wait for it to be checked and approved why not to add a pre-selected message and a cool badge. The Facts which were mentioned were absolutely informative and very interesting. My Thanks to the Nat Geo team. Good Work :.
There is lots of information about Stonehenge on the internet but this is a good website for children — click here […]. Over the years, academics and archaeologists alike have attempted to explain why Stonehenge was built. Plenty of theories have been put forward, but here we will focus on the most commonly accepted theories.
Charred remains were unearthed in holes around the site, known as the Aubrey Holes, that once held small standing stones. Analysis of the bones suggests they were buried during this year period. After 2, BC, the people who used Stonehenge stopped burying human remains in the stone circle itself and began burying them in ditches around the periphery, suggesting a shift in the cultural significance of Stonehenge. Concerns about the security of the stones led to a renewed phase of excavation and stone straightening.
Another campaign of excavation took between and , together with a programme of stabilisation, repair and stone re-erection. Although reconstruction of the monument has helped ensure the long-term survival of Stonehenge, the results of these excavations were not published until In , two smaller, targeted archaeological excavations took place within the circle.
The first which I took part in , designed to investigate the date, nature and settings of the internal smaller stones, recovered significant evidence for late- and post-Roman use of the monument. The second, which focused on retrieving cremation burials from the earliest phase of the site, demonstrated that men, women and children had all been buried there between and BC.
Research published in August revealed that some of the prehistoric cremations recovered were of individuals who were not local to the monument, possibly — although this is yet to be confirmed — originating from western Wales, Ireland or northern Scotland. Archaeological investigation, limited although it has been to date, has proved helpful in establishing a building chronology for Stonehenge.
No single phase of the monument, it is fair to say, was probably ever completed; it is likely that it was an ongoing building project throughout much of its existence. If we assume that the outer ring of sarsens was finished, then it would have contained 30 uprights and 30 lintels. Add to this the five trilithons in the central horseshoe, that gives us 75 sarsens in total. Beyond the centre there are four additional sarsens standing today, but there are recorded holes, for those moved or taken away, for at least another ten.
In addition to the sarsens, there is the large sandstone monolith now fallen known as the Altar Stone, and an unknown number of bluestones. The outer circle of bluestones may originally have contained 60 uprights, although there is only certain evidence for 28 and, of those, only seven are still standing. The inner bluestone horseshoe may have contained 19, of which only six still stand.
A conservative guess would suggest something in the region of stones on the site at any one time. Today, Stonehenge is managed by English Heritage, while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust members of either organisation get free entry to the site, as do local residents.
A new visitor and exhibition centre was opened in 1. Inside the visitor centre, you can enjoy a virtual tour of Stonehenge. Book your ticket to visit Stonehenge with English Heritage. Geologically speaking, two discrete sources can be identified for the stones used in the construction of Stonehenge. The most impressive uprights, the sarsens, were sourced locally, possibly from somewhere near the Marlborough Downs, approximately 20 miles to the north.
Here, naturally occurring sarsen can still be found and, although none are today as big as those recorded from Stonehenge, it was probably from here that they were originally dug out of the ground — quite an effort considering most weigh between 30 and 40 tonnes.
From Marlborough, it is likely that the roughly shaped blocks were transported across the undulating landscape of Wiltshire to their resting place on Salisbury Plain.
Quite how this was achieved, given the technology and resources available to Neolithic people, continues to perplex, intrigue and annoy academics to this day. The smaller bluestone dolerite and rhyolite pillars are of volcanic and igneous origin.
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