Stonehenge ancient monument, Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom. Stonehenge, prehistoric stone circle monument, cemetery, and archaeological site located on Salisbury Plain, about 8 miles 1. Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It was built in six stages between 3. Neolithic Period New Stone Age to the Bronze Age. As a prehistoric stone circle, it is unique because of its artificially shaped sarsen stones blocks of Cenozoicsilcrete, arranged in post and lintel formation, and because of the remote origin of its smaller bluestones igneous and other rocks from 1. South Wales. The name of the monument probably derives from the Saxonstan hengen, meaning stone hanging or gallows. Along with more than 3. Stonehenge was designated a UNESCOWorld Heritage site in 1. Prehistoric Planet Review' title='Prehistoric Planet Review' />A groundbreaking device is designed to glimpse alternate universes. But when the machine malfunctions and transports a group of observers into a nightmarish dimension. PREHISTORIC AQUARIUM Dare to adventure to the bottom of the sea. Deep below the surface, submerged below time, swam some of the worlds most amazing prehistoric. Speculation and excavation. How To Watch Boruto: Naruto The Movie Movie. Stonehenge has long been the subject of historical speculation, and ideas about the meaning and significance of the structure continued to develop in the 2. English antiquarian John Aubrey in the 1. Prehistoric Planet Review' title='Prehistoric Planet Review' />William Stukeley in the 1. Druid temple. This idea has been rejected by more recent scholars, however, as Stonehenge is now understood to have predated by some 2,0. Druids recorded by Julius Caesar. In 1. 96. 3 American astronomer Gerald Hawkins proposed that Stonehenge had been constructed as a computer to predict lunar and solar eclipses other scientists also attributed astronomical capabilities to the monument. Most of these speculations, too, have been rejected by experts. In 1. 97. 3 English archaeologist Colin Renfrew hypothesized that Stonehenge was the centre of a confederation of Bronze Age chiefdoms. Other archaeologists, however, have since come to view this part of Salisbury Plain as a point of intersection between adjacent prehistoric territories, serving as a seasonal gathering place during the 4th and 3rd millennia bce for groups living in the lowlands to the east and west. In 1. 99. 8 Malagasy archaeologist Ramilisonina proposed that Stonehenge was built as a monument to the ancestral dead, the permanence of its stones representing the eternal afterlife. In 2. 00. 8 British archaeologists Tim Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright suggestedon the basis of the Amesbury Archer, an Early Bronze Age skeleton with a knee injury, excavated 3 miles 5 km from Stonehengethat Stonehenge was used in prehistory as a place of healing. However, analysis of human remains from around and within the monument shows no difference from other parts of Britain in terms of the populations health. The Stonehenge that is visible today is incomplete, many of its original sarsens and bluestones having been broken up and taken away, probably during Britains Roman and medieval periods. The ground within the monument also has been severely disturbed, not only by the removal of the stones but also by diggingto various degrees and endssince the 1. William Camden noted that ashes and pieces of burnt bone were found. A large, deep hole was dug within the stone circle in 1. George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, who was looking for treasure. A century later Stukeley surveyed Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments, but it was not until 1. Flinders Petrie made the first accurate plan of the stones. In 1. 87. 7 Charles Darwin dug two holes in Stonehenge to investigate the earth moving capabilities of earthworms. The first proper archaeological excavation was conducted in 1. William Gowland. About half of Stonehenge mostly on its eastern side was excavated in the 2. William Hawley, in 1. Richard Atkinson, in 1. The results of their work were not fully published until 1. Stonehenge was revised extensively by means of carbon 1. Major investigations in the early 2. Stonehenge Riverside Project led to further revisions of the context and sequence of Stonehenge. Darvill and Wainwrights 2. Stages of Stonehenge. Test Your Knowledge. Shakespearean Plays Fact or Fiction Stonehenge was built within an area that was already special to Mesolithic and Neolithic people. About 8. 00. 07. Mesolithic hunter gatherers dug pits and erected pine posts within 6. Stonehenges future location. It was unusual for prehistoric hunter gatherers to build monuments, and there are no comparable structures from this era in northwestern Europe. Within a 3 mile 5 km radius of Stonehenge there remain from the Neolithic Period at least 1. Between 2. 20. 0 and 1. Bronze Age, the Stonehenge Durrington stretch of the River Avon was at the centre of a concentration of more than 1,0. Salisbury Plain. First stage 3. The oldest part of the Stonehenge monument was built during the period from 3. It consists of a circular enclosure that is more than 3. Aubrey Holes, named after John Aubrey, who identified them in 1. The ditch of the enclosure is flanked on the inside by a high bank and on the outside by a low bank, or counterscarp. The diameters of the outer bank, the ditch, the inner bank, and the circle of Aubrey Holes are equivalent to 2. Deposits in the bottom of the ditch included antler picks, which were used to dig the ditch itself, as well as bones of cattle and deer that were already centuries old when they were placed there. The circular enclosure had two entrances the main access on the northeast and a narrower entrance on the south. Britannica Lists Quizzes. Although it once was believed that the Aubrey Holes served as pits for wooden posts, excavation and archival research by the Stonehenge Riverside Project revealed that they probably held Welsh bluestones. Human cremation burials were found within and around most of the holes, as well as within the encircling ditch and bank. Of an estimated 1. Stonehenge, 6. 4 had been excavated by the first decade of the 2. The great majority of the burials were of adult males, and pieces of unburned human bone were also found scattered around Stonehenge. The area surrounding the Aubrey Holes was used as a place of burial from roughly 3. Britain. A second, smaller bluestone circle, 3. Bluestonehenge, was built on the bank of the River Avon over 1 mile 1. Aubrey Holes. Found by the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2. Welsh bluestones and may have been used for cremating and removing the flesh from the bodies whose remains were buried and scattered at Stonehenge. Bluestonehenges stones were later dismantled and presumably brought to Stonehenge. Most of the surviving 4. Stonehenge are of spotted dolerite also called diabase from southwest Wales, specifically the Preseli Mountains. Other stones of rhyolite, rhyolitic tuff, volcanic ash, and dolerite are believed to be from the same region. A source for one of the rhyolites, however, was identified in 2. Pont Saeson, north of the Preselis. The Altar Stone a toppled upright so called because it looked to the 1. Inigo Jones like an altar at the centre of the monument and another two sandstone monoliths likely came from the Brecon Beacons, a cluster of mountains about 6. Preseli range. Although most experts consider these Welsh stones to have been brought by human agency, some geologists argue that they might have been carried toward the Salisbury Plain thousands of years earlier by ice ageglaciers. The Heelstone, a large unworked sarsen outside the northeastern entrance, also may have been erected during the first stage of Stonehenge, if not earlier. In addition, rows of timber post holes within the northeastern entrance to the circular enclosure are thought to date to this period the posts that they contained may have served to mark the movement of the moon toward its northern major limit. Second stage 2. 64. Except for human burials, there is no evidence of activity between Stonehenges first and second stages of construction. About 2. 50. 0 bce the sarsen stones were brought from the Avebury area of the Marlborough Downs, about 2. Outside the northeastern entrance of Stonehenge they were dressed smooth by pounding with sarsen hammers.