Clues hint Stonehenge started in Wales
Origins of the prehistoric Stonehenge remain a mystery 5,000 years later, but new research suggests that its bluestones may actually be a dismantled Welsh stone circle.
Archaeologists at University College London recently found that Waun Mawn – an even older stone circle in Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, Wales – has a diameter of about 361 feet, the same as the enclosing ditch of Stonehenge in Salisbury Plain, England.
The recent discovery was connected to Stonehenge because one of its bluestones fits into a hole left by the Welsh circle. Both circles were built so the summer solstice will shine onto the center, researches say, but the exact purpose of the monument remains a mystery.
Mike Parker Pearson, the lead researcher of the university’s “Stones of Stonehenge” team who has been leading projects for nearly 20 years, called this “one of the most important discoveries I’ve ever made.”
Only four stones remain at the
Waun Mawn site, leading researchers to believe that as people migrated, they took the stones with them.
“This extraordinary event may also have served to unite the peoples of east and west Britain,” Parker Pearson said in a news release.
Cremated human remains unearthed in 2018 first linked Stonehenge to Wales. A 2019 study then provided more insight, finding the bluestones were actually moved 180 miles from Wales.
Researchers theorized that the stones ended up so far away because they were relatively easy to remove – a unique characteristic as other Neolithic monuments in Europe used stones from no more than 10 miles away.
Since the bluestones are natural vertical pillars, the joints between them were easily broken apart with wood mallets. Then, quarry workers lowered the 2-ton stones onto wooden sledges and dragged or carried them to the present location, the 2019 study said.
But researchers aren’t sure exactly why they were moved.
“It’s as if they just vanished,” Parker Pearson said.
Some believe the stones may have ties to the migrants’ ancestral identities, which may have prompted them to bring them along as they “start again in this special place,” according to Parker Pearson.
Stonehenge is built with of two types of stones: smaller bluestones that date back to 5,000 years ago and morerecent massive sarsen stones, which all 15 of the monument’s central horseshoe are made from and can weigh up tens of thousands of pounds.
Stonehenge’s massive sarsen stones, however, are from Marlborough, England, just 15 miles away, researchers found last year.
With Stonehenge and the nearby Bluestonehenge comprising nearly 80 stones, researchers say Waun Mawn may not be the only contributing stone circle and there’s more discoveries to be made.
“Someone might be lucky enough to find them,” Parker Pearson said.
The study was published Friday in Antiquity, a peer-reviewed journal.
Contributing: Doyle Rice and Joshua Bote, USA TODAY