Stonehenge mystery is SOLVED after 5,000 years – as scientists finally crack why the mysterious monument was built

Why the mighty Stonehenge was built around 5,000 years ago has long been one of the great mysteries.

But according to a new study, we may finally have an answer.

Scientists say the famous Wiltshire stone circle was built as a symbol of unification between three distinct corners of Britain.

We know that the rock slabs from Stonehenge were transported to places as far away as south-west Wales and north-east Scotland.

So the scientists, from the university college London and Aberystwyth University, theorize that The Scots and Welsh brought their own local stones to Wilshire as a well-intentioned contribution to the assembly of the structure.

In that sense, it represented a powerful – and very early – symbol of British unity.

The builders of Stonehenge had attempted to establish “political unification and shared identity across much or even all of Britain,” the authors say in their paper, published in Archeology International.

They add: “Bringing together these extraordinary and strange rocks…symbolizes and embodies distant and distant communities within a complex material.”

“(Stonehenge was a) monumental expression of unity between people, land, ancestors and heavens.”

In the paper, the researchers say Stonehenge’s long-distance links add weight to the theory that the Neolithic monument may have served some unifying purpose in ancient Britain, along with its symbolic value.

“The fact that all its stones came from distant regions, making it unique among the more than 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose,” the author said. principal, Professor Mike Parker Pearson at UCL Institute of Archaeology.

“(It was) a monument to the unification of the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”

Although England, Scotland and Wales did not exist as concepts when Stonehenge was built around 5,000 years ago, we know that the structure is representative of all three countries.

Stonehenge is famous for its large slabs of sandstone, known as sarsens, which were sourced locally, probably quarried from the West Woods in Wiltshire, about 15 miles to the north.

But in addition to the tall Sarsen stones that make up Stonehenge’s distinctive appearance, the world-famous site is also home to around 80 ‘blue stones’, smaller stones that have a bluish tint when freshly broken or when wet.

Among Stonehenge experts, there is general agreement that the bluestones came from Craig Rhos-y-Felin in the Preseli Hills of south-west Wales (although how exactly they arrived in Wiltshire is hotly debated).

However, the Altar Stone, the largest blue stone at the center of Stonehenge, actually came from northern Scotland, up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away, scientists revealed earlier this year.

Located in the heart of Stonehenge, the six-tonne, five-meter-long rectangular Altar Stone is a greenish-gray sandstone, much larger and different in its composition from the other blue stones.

At that time, the research team (which included two authors of this new paper) analyzed the age and mineral chemistry of fragments of the Altar Stone.

They found a striking similarity to the ancient red sandstone of the Orcadian Basin in northeastern Scotland.

The team concluded “with 95 per cent accuracy” that the stone came from this area, which covers parts of Inverness, Thurso, Orkney and parts of Shetland, although they have since ruled out Orkney as the location.

In this new follow-up article, the team says that the Altar Stone was brought by the Neolithic people of northern Scotland as a contribution or gift to southerners.

“(This was) perhaps to cement an alliance or participate in the extraordinary long-distance collaboration that the construction of Stonehenge represented and embodied,” the authors say.

Likewise, the bluestones could have been transported by people from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales as their own contribution, illustrating “a political unification or sacred peace.”

This follow-up document now identifies the construction of Stonehenge “as a monument of island-wide unification, embodied in part through the distant and diverse origins of its stones.”

“Unusually strong similarities in the floor layout of Late Neolithic houses in Orkney and the Durrington Walls settlement near Stonehenge also provide evidence for close connections between Salisbury Plain and northern Scotland,” the team says.

Stonehenge was used as a cremation cemetery for men and women, mostly adults, for about five centuries in its early history.

Almost half of the people buried at Stonehenge had lived somewhere other than Salisbury Plain, experts say, showing that historically people came there from afar.

“The similarities in architecture and material culture between the Stonehenge area and northern Scotland now make more sense,” Professor Pearson added.

“It has helped solve the puzzle of why these distant places had more in common than we might have ever thought.”

The new research comes a day before the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year when thousands of people flock to Stonehenge.

During the winter solstice, 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).

For thousands of years, it is believed that people gathered at Stonehenge on the summer and winter solstices to perform rituals and ceremonies related to the changes of seasons, the sun and the sky.

During the winter, Neolithic people also celebrated near Stonehenge, in the nearby village of Durrington Walls.

Largely because it is 5,000 years old, the origins of Stonehenge, including why and how it was built, remain a source of frenetic debate.

Professor Timothy Darvill, a Bournemouth University archaeologist who died earlier this year, said Stonehenge served as an ancient solar calendar, helping people track the days of the year.

The British researcher said each of the sarsens represented a single day of a month, turning the entire site into a huge timekeeping device.

Other theories include that it was a cult center for healing, a temple, a place where ancestors were worshiped, or even a cemetery.