The discovery that a stone from Stonehenge was brought from Scotland supports the theory that the stone circle was born as a monument to unite the first farmers British 5,000 years ago.
In a research paper published in the journal Archeology International, scientists from University College London (UCL) and Aberystwyth University analyze the importance of the recent discovery of the Scottish origin of the six-tonne Altar Stone, which confirmed that all stones that make up Stonehenge were brought to Salisbury Plain from many kilometers away.
In their study, the researchers say the megalithic circle’s long-distance links add weight to the theory that the Neolithic monument may have had some unifying purpose in ancient Britain.
“The fact that all its stones originated in distant regions, making it unique among more than 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may also have had a political meaning. like a religious purpose“, as a monument of unification for the peoples of Great Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos,” explains a statement from the lead author of the research, Professor Mike Parker Pearson, from the UCL Institute of Archaeology.
The study was published coinciding with the winter solsticewhen the setting sun sinks below the horizon over the center of the Altar Stone and between the two largest upright stones (one of which is now fallen). During this winter period, Neolithic people feasted near Stonehenge, in the large village of Durrington Walls, and the winter solstice was probably pivotal to these events.
Stonehenge is famous for these solar alignments on the solstice and still today attracts large crowds to the site on the shortest and longest days of the year. Furthermore, he was also the cemetery largest of its time. Some archaeologists think it could have been a religious temple, an ancient observatory and a solar calendar, and this new research adds a political dimension.
The Solstice Feast
Parker Pearson, professor of British Late Prehistory, adds: “We have known for some time that people came from many different parts of Britain with their pigs and cattle to feast at Durrington Walls, and almost half of the people buried at Stonehenge “They had lived somewhere other than Salisbury Plain.”
“The similarities in architecture and material culture between the Stonehenge area and northern Scotland now make more sense. Has helped solve the riddle “Why these distant places had more in common than we ever thought.”
Transport these huge monoliths It was an extraordinary feat. Although the wheel had been invented, it had not yet reached Britain, so moving these enormous stones must have required the efforts of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
The researchers point out how the horizontal Altar Stone at Stonehenge is similar in size and location to the large horizontal stones of the stone circles of northeastern Scotland. These “lying stone circles” are found only in that area, so there may have been close links between the two regions. The megalithic stones had ancestral meaninguniting people with their place and their origins. The people of northern Scotland may have brought the Altar Stone as a gift to represent some form of alliance or collaboration.
Construction stages
It is difficult to pinpoint a precise date when the stone was brought to Stonehenge, but it probably arrived around 2500 BC c. This is the period when Neolithic builders erected the large sarsen stones that formed a outer circle and the interior horseshoe of trilithons (paired vertical stones connected by horizontal “lintels”) that is present today.
The Altar Stone sits at the foot of the largest trilithon, which frames the winter solstice sunset to the southwest. This was the second stage of construction at Stonehenge, long after the first stage (around 3000 BC), when the Bluestones of Wales were thought to have been erected.
This second version was built at a time of increasing contact between the people of Great Britain and those who arrived from Europe, mainly from what are today the Netherlands and Germany. Researchers suggest that this period of contact may have been what prompted this second stage of reconstruction, and the monument was a reaction to these newcomers intended to unite the indigenous British.
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