How and why ancient masons built Stonehenge has baffled historians and scientists for centuries. But researchers now believe new analysis could support a lesser-known theory about the monument’s purpose. According to archaeologists from University College London, the stone monument served a purpose other than its practical use as an observatory or solar calendar. Their theory, detailed in a study published in the journal Archaeology Internationalis that Stonehenge also provided a unifying communal project for native Neolithic tribal Britons, versus newcomers from Germany and the Netherlands.
Their interpretation builds on findings released earlier this year about the Altar Stone of Stonehenge. For years, the 6.6-ton section of the monument’s central formation remained the last piece without a definitive origin. But geological evidence is recorded in it Nature seems to confirm that it came from Scotland. With this, experts now know that all pieces of Stonehenge are not native to the immediate area, but came from miles away.
“The fact that all of 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 both a political and a religious purpose,” says Mike Parker Pearson, a USL Institute of Archeology professor and lead author of the recent Archeology International study, said in a accompanying statement.
Knowing this, Pearson and his team believe that Stonehenge may have served as a “monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, honoring their eternal bonds with their ancestors and the cosmos.”
Stonehenge consists of multiple groups of stones built in different phases over hundreds of years, starting 5,000 years ago. Experts estimate that the 43 ‘bluestones’ of the first phase were built around 3000 BC. Although the wheel existed elsewhere in the world at that time, the technology had not yet arrived in Britain. This implies that organized efforts to transport the giant stones will require the coordination of hundreds, if not thousands, of local residents.
It wasn’t until about 500 years later that renovators installed the Altar Stone near Stonehenge’s largest three-stone structure, known as a trilithon, to frame the sunset on the midwinter solstice. Given that Stonehenge and the other ‘reclining stone circles’ are only located in a specific region of Scotland, archaeologists hypothesize that the building of the structures may have served as major, communally unifying events. According to Friday’s announcement, “the Altar Stone may have been brought as a gift from the people of Northern Scotland to represent some form of alliance or cooperation.”
Regardless of its effectiveness in uniting local communities, demographics continued to shift as mainland peoples increased their presence on the island. By 2000 BCE, Europeans were the dominant population in what is now modern-day Britain.
