Unlocking Stonehenge: Structure, Purpose and Mysteries

Overview of Stonehenge

• Stonehenge attracts a million visitors annually, raising questions about its builders, construction, and purpose.
• Archaeologists employ advanced methods to study Stonehenge.
• Colin Richards (University of Manchester) views Stonehenge's construction as an unprecedented achievement, likening it to a space program.
• Mike Parker Pearson (University of Sheffield) suggests Stonehenge relates to eternity, life, and death.
• Mike Pitts (British Archaeology) notes the presence of numerous bones.
• Jacqueline McKinley (Wessex Archaeology) identifies a fibula and anticipates finding over 50 individuals.
• The Secrets of Stonehenge is revealed on NOVA.
• Stonehenge, a prehistoric icon in Britain, predates the Egyptian pyramids and is an ancient engineering marvel.

Stonehenge's Structure and Materials

• The monument includes a circular ditch and bank.
• Upright stones are over 20 feet tall and weigh up to 45 tons.
• Horizontal lintels crown the upright pillars.
• Sarsen, a local sandstone, forms the monument's large stones.
• The stones are carefully carved and fitted in a woodworking style.
• Tapered uprights feature knobs that fit into the hollows of the lintels.
• Curved lintels use tongue-and-groove joints to create a circle, level to within inches.
• Bluestones, smaller but significant, were transported from Wales, over 150 miles away.
• A new era of understanding about who built Stonehenge, how, and why is beginning.
• An archaeological team is currently investigating Stonehenge.
• The Stonehenge Riverside Project has nearly 200 members, including scientists and students.
• Mike Parker Pearson leads an archeological project to answer key questions about Stonehenge, calling it a quest.
• The research strategy involves extensive excavation around Stonehenge.
• Stonehenge was extensively excavated in the 20th century, revealing it was built in stages.
• Around 3000 B.C., prehistoric people created a ditch, bank, and 56 pits in the Salisbury Plain chalk.
• The 56 pits likely held bluestones transported from Wales.
• Approximately 500 years later, sarsen stones were erected, and bluestones were rearranged.

Cremation Burials and Discoveries

• Excavations in the 20th century uncovered cremated remains in the Aubrey Holes.
• In the 1920s, nearly 60 human burials were excavated, but these findings were disregarded due to the burials being cremations.
• In 1935, the bones were reburied in Aubrey Hole Number 7 because British museums were uninterested in cremated remains.
• The reburied cremation cemetery was largely forgotten.
• The undisturbed bones are now being retrieved for analysis by Mike Parker Pearson.
• Analysis of the cremated remains can determine age, sex, and standard of living.
• Records from 1935 indicate the bones were placed in burlap bags and buried with a commemorative plaque.
• An Aubrey Hole is seen for the first time in 80 years.
• Investigation focuses on what lies beneath the surface.
• Burlap bags have rotted away, leaving loose cremated bone.
• A plaque states "Most of these bones were dug up in the years 1921, 1922, 1923, reburied in 1935.".
• Archeologists uncover a jumbled mess of bones from numerous people, revealing a jigsaw puzzle for the lab.

Neolithic World and Lifestyle

• Around 3000 B.C., the Age of the Pharaohs began in Egypt and cities flourished in the Near East.
• The Stone Age in Britain was in its final Neolithic phase.
• Stone axes were used to clear forests and build homes.
• Settlements were small and scattered, focused on livestock, barley, and wheat cultivation.
• Neolithic life isn't necessarily grim, as people were well-nourished and sophisticated.
• Stone tools and pottery survived, providing insights into daily life, customs, and beliefs through the remains of the dead.
• Jacqueline McKinley identifies a fibula, molar, and male skull at Aubrey Hole Number 7.
• Over 50 individuals are expected to be found in the area, with sex and age determined by skeletal element separation.
• 35 pounds of cremated bone are sent to the University of Sheffield for analysis.
• Graduate student Christi Cox is working on the Stonehenge remains piece by piece.
• Thousands of bone pieces are found during excavation.
• McKinley identifies mandible joins, indicating an older individual.

Burials and Society

• Burial at Stonehenge was reserved for a select group.
• Most cremated remains were from adult males, between 25 and 40 years old.
• Skeletal analysis indicates the individuals were healthy, fairly robust males.
• The cremation of mostly males suggests specific individuals were chosen for burial.
• Those buried are suspected to be of high political status or from royal lineages.
• Stonehenge may represent an aristocratic, male-based society.
• A single royal family might have organized the construction of Stonehenge.
• Other families also constructed stone circles across the British Isles, approximately a thousand of which still stand today.
• Neolithic people also constructed timber circles.
• Traces of postholes indicate the size of the timber circles, with some posts being 15 feet high and weighing several tons.
• Enormous pits held timbers and standing stones within the circles.
• Many circles were surrounded by a ditch and bank, forming a "henge".

Construction Methods and Theories

• A red deer antler pick was discovered in a prehistoric ditch carved into the chalk of Salisbury Plain and used for excavation during the Neolithic.
• These tools were used to extract chalk, which was then moved in baskets.
• Giant sarsens weighed up to 45 tons.
• Raised lintels formed gate-like structures called trilithons.
• Mike Pitts suggests that process involved manpower and myth, with sarsens sourced about 20 miles north of Stonehenge.
• Skilled stone masons sought the right sarsen, which resembled an arrowhead enlarged to a huge scale.
• Sarsens were roughly shaped at the quarry with pounding stones, but the exact methods for moving and raising them remain unclear.
• Stone Age Britain lacked the wheel.
• Stones may have been moved on rollers made of tree trunks over timber tracks lubricated with grease.
• A wooden sled with a keel could have kept stones centered.
• Raising stones could have involved tipping them into holes or using ramps and levers for lintels.
• Andrew Young's new theory involves carved stone balls identical in size, used as Stone Age ball-bearing technology.
• Andrew Young tested his Stone Age ball-bearing tech theory at a farm close to Stonehenge trying to move 25 tons of gravel.
• Douglas fir rails were built, each having a channel cut to hold granite balls of a precise 75-millimeter diameter, and wooden balls.
• A platform or crib was constructed to straddle the rails.
• Loading 3.3 tons of bluestone resulted in the Douglas fir rails compressing.

Transport Experiments

• Using soft wood resulted in compression of the rails and increased friction.
• Wooden inserts were placed in the grooves to offset compression.
• Six tons was loaded, causing a quick division of labor.
• As the structure gained speed they switched to wooden balls.
• 13 tons was a final run; heavier than some sarsens, and a third of the monument's largest stones.
• The wood bent but the trial worked.
• Mike Pitts believes the ball-bearing based method is too sophisticated and complex.
• The team uncovered a ditch and eroded bank of a henge.
• A triangular stone hole was discovered.
• A ring of large holes was discovered that likely held bluestones.

Bluestonehenge

• The area was selected as a special place to build a stone circle.
• Antler picks were used to dig holes and flint nodules were used to form a base to support stones.
• Stones would have formed a mini-Stonehenge without lintels, standing approximately three meters high.
• The complete circle likely contained 25 stones, named "Bluestonehenge".
• A distinctive type of arrowhead found in the stone holes indicates that Bluestonehenge may have been constructed around 3000 B.C.
• The Bluestonehenge construction occurred at the same time as the first Stonehenge construction with a ring of 56 bluestones.
• The two monuments may have been connected from the start.
• The two monuments may have been set up as two separate stone circles, one by the river and another at Stonehenge.
• The sites may have provided two ends of a ceremonial route.
• The bluestones were moved to Stonehenge around 2500 B.C. when the giant sarsens were installed.
• Bluestones were pulled from Aubrey Holes and the riverside, rearranged, and enshrined inside sarsens.

Purpose and Alignment

• Descendants of Britain's first farmers in Whales transported bluestones to Salisbury Plain.
• Moving a stone plants identity and ancestry into the ground.
• Around 2500 B.C., Stonehenge then became a monument and a symbol of the Stone Age.
• Stonehenge is one of the last monuments of its kind, created before copper, gold, and bronze reached the land.
• Metal lead to new the use of personal wealth and status during this time.
• The dead were then laid to rest with their riches, in individual burial mounds.
• The age Stonehenge passes due to a new technology.
• Stonehenge, dates back to a time before Egypt's pyramids, Stone Age Britain, features upright stones over 20 feet high and weighing 45 tons.
• Stonehenge faces the rising sun on the summer solstice.
• The entrance to Stonehenge faces the sunrise on the summer solstice, as noted by 18th-century scholars.
• By the 1960s, some believed Stonehenge was an ancient astronomical observatory.
• Only one alignment at Stonehenge is confidently identified, which points to the sunrise on the summer solstice around June 21st.
• The main axis of Stonehenge points at the sunset on the shortest day of the year (midwinter sunset).
• Stonehenge aligns with the solstices, suggesting their importance to its builders.
• Stonehenge's alignment with the cosmos suggests solstices were key times for people to have ceremonials at the right time in order to remain in harmony with the cosmos.
• Mike Parker Pearson studied burial practices in Madagascar, where stone monuments are built for the dead, with stone for ancestors and wood for the living.
• In 1998, archaeologist Ramilisonina suggested Stonehenge connected to ancestors. -Stone was linked to ancestors and the dead. -Constructions in timber were linked to the living.
• Durrington Walls' timber circle is nearly identical in size to Stonehenge.
• Durrington Walls represented the realm of the living while Stonehenge represented the realm of the dead possibly being linked by the River Avon.
• Durrington Walls should have an avenue to the river and evidence of settlement and evidence of the living.
• The team uncovered an avenue 30 feet wide, from Durrington Walls to the River Avon and evidence of Neolithic houses built around 2500 B.C., when the sarsens were erected.
• Mike Parker Pearson says this was the largest village at that time.
• Evidence show people came for special occasions they feasted on pig and cattle.
• On the winter solstice, Durrington Walls' timber circle pointed to the rising sun, and Stonehenge framed the setting sun while on the summer solstice, the directions reversed.
• Crowds may have traveled between the realm of the living at Durrington Walls and Stonehenge, possibly casting ashes into the river as devotion or holding royal burials.
• Grooves in the landscape that aligned with the solstices were the inspiration to build Stonehenge.
• The team uncovered a ditch forming a complete circle marking off a venerated space with a standing stone.

Explore Stonehenge's mysteries: its construction, builders, and purpose. The monument features massive upright stones, horizontal lintels, and a circular ditch. Archaeologists use advanced methods to study Stonehenge.