British archaeologists believe they have traced the origins of the 5,000-year-old prehistoric Stonehenge ruin.
A team of scientists, led by Mike Parker Pearson, University College London, reported in Antiquity magazine on Friday that they had excavated a ring of rocks in Preseli Hills in Wales that they believe had been demolished and moved 175 miles to Salisbury Plain and reconfigured as Stonehenge.
MYSTERIOUS MONOLITH WRITING NEAR TURKEY WORLDS HERITAGE
It was found that the site “Waun Mawn”, which had been neglected over the years, arranged only four large blue stones in an arch. Pearson and his researchers discovered evidence of another six holes that originally held a stone in 2018, leading to the theory that people took it when they migrated.
When measuring the diameter of the circular ditch at Waun Mawn, the group found that the ditches around both sites shared the same diameters of about 360 feet wide.
In this file photo from Tuesday 17 December 2013, visitors take photos of the world heritage site Stonehenge, England.
(AP Photo / Alastair Grant, file)
Waun Mawn – which is apparently the third largest rock circle in Britain – and Stonehenge are the only two Neolithic monuments in Britain that meet the specifications and the exploration for charcoal and sediment in the holes suggested that the creation of Waun Mawn can be traced back to about 3,400 BC
In addition, the dimensions of the 43 bluestones at Stonehenge – many of which are buried – correspond to the dimensions of the four at Waun Mawn and are the same type of rock as three of them.
One of the Stonehenge bluestones also has a cross section corresponding to one of the gaps at Waun Mawn.
To further prove their commitment, Pearson found that the entrance to both circles was in line with the midsummer sunrise – though, the purpose of the circle remains secret.
Stonehenge was built in phases from about 3000 BC
The Wiltshire Excavation Monument was built using both bluestone and newer and larger sarsen sandstones.
Previous research over the past few decades has shown that while the sarsen bricks were brought just 15 miles further into Marlborough, the bluestone pillars were removed from the Preseli Hills.
In 2019, Pearson and his team provided evidence of the locations of two of the bluestone quarries, which prompted them to look over Waun Mawn again.
Scientific analysis of human remains at Stonehenge indicated that some of them could have come from Wales, and there are plans to try to understand further excavations.
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Pearson hypothesized that Stonehenge was made to commemorate the ancestors of those who built it, and that Stonehenge’s first phase could possibly unite the inhabitants of southern Britain.
“Perhaps most people migrated and took their stones – their ancestral identity – with them to start again in this other special place,” he said in a news release. “This extraordinary event may have also united the people of eastern and western Britain.”