Stonehenge’s massive rocks came from Wales

Scientists discovered the exact location of the quarries where dozens of Stonehenge’s massive stones came from, a study released Tuesday said.

In addition to pinpointing the location of the quarries – in western Wales, about 180 miles away from Stonehenge – archaeologists said they know how and when the stones were quarried.

“What’s really exciting about these discoveries is that they take us a step closer to unlocking Stonehenge’s greatest mystery – why its stones came from so far away,” said study lead author Mike Parker Pearson of University College London. “Every other Neolithic monument in Europe was built of megaliths brought from no more than 10 miles away.”

The answer? They were relatively “easy” to remove, Pearson theorized, since they were natural vertical pillars. Using wood mallets, workers only had to bash wedges into the ready-made joints between the pillars to break them apart, according to the study.

The 2-ton stones were lowered onto wooden sledges and dragged to their new location in present-day England.

The quarried stones are the interior rocks of Stonehenge, separate from the larger outer ring.

Unlike stone quarries in ancient Egypt, where obelisks were carved out of solid rock, the Welsh quarries were easier to exploit, the study says.

Though geologists have long known that many of Stonehenge’s smaller stones came from present-day Wales, the new study identifies the exact locations of two of these quarries: the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, west Wales.

The study suggests the stones were quarried around roughly 3000 B.C.

The study was printed in Antiquity.