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The Altar Stone, identified as Stone 80, is a recumbent central megalith within the Stonehenge monument from phase 3i sometime around 2600 BC.The anomalous lithology of the Altar Stone led to the previous suggestion of a provenance from the Old Red Sandstone (ORS) of west Wales, close to where the majority of the bluestones have been sourced in the Preseli area some 225 km west of Stonehenge.The Pembrokeshire bluestones, created through the crystallization of molten rock, are thought to be among the earliest stones placed at the Wiltshire site approximately 5,000 years ago...The study has revealed that the Altar Stone...

The Telegraph: Stonehenge was built by black Britons, a new children’s history book has claimed. The illustrated book entitled Brilliant Black British History, by the Nigerian-born British author Atinuke, says “every single British person comes from a migrant” but “the very first Britons were black”. Readers of the newly-released book are told that Stonehenge was built while Britain was “a black country”. The book, published by Bloomsbury and promoted by Arts Council-funded literacy charity The Book Trust, states that “Britain was a black country for more than 7,000 years before white people came, and during that time the most famous...

A new ‘book’ claims that black people built Stonehenge! ...

Archaeologists have uncovered a mysterious sanctuary in the central Netherlands made of burial mounds and ancient offerings of human and animal bones that has striking similarities to Stonehenge. The 4,000-year-old site was discovered in the town of Tiel and, like prehistoric stone circle Stonehenge, tracked the position of the sun on the solstices. “The largest mound served as a sun calendar, similar to the famous stones of Stonehenge in England,” the municipality of Tiel said in a statement. “This sanctuary must have been a highly significant place where people kept track of special days in the year, performed rituals and...

Around 8,000 revelers gathered around a prehistoric stone circle on a plain in southern England to express their devotion to the sun, or to have some communal fun STONEHENGE, England (AP) — All hail the rising sun. Around 8,000 revelers gathered around a prehistoric stone circle on a plain in southern England to express their devotion to the sun, or to have some communal fun. Druids, pagans, hippies, local residents and tourists, many clad in an array of colorful costumes and even antlers, stayed and celebrated at Stonehenge for the night and greeted sunrise on Wednesday, which is the longest...

Archaeologists have discovered a vast cemetery of Bronze Age burial mounds, thought to be up to 4,400 years old, ahead of a building development less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Stonehenge.The cemetery includes more than 20 circular mounds, known as barrows, built between 2400 B.C. and 1500 B.C. on a chalk hillside near Harnham on the outskirts of Salisbury in southwest England.Other than the site's proximity to Stonehenge, there's no evidence that the cemetery was connected with the famous monument. But the barrows were built around the same time as some of the central stages of Stonehenge, according to...

...To a number of scholars, there's more to Stonehenge's design than a symbolic reverence for the changing lengths of days. It's a timekeeper of some detail, a 'Neolithic computer' even...Last year, Bournemouth University archaeologist Tim Darvill published his claim that the monument operated as some kind of 'perpetual calendar', one based on a solar year equivalent to 365.25 days.Now, Polytechnic University of Milan mathematician Giulio Magli and astronomer Juan Antonio Belmonte from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, Spain, have countered Darvill's claim, stating it is based on "a series of forced interpretations, numerology, and unsupported analogies with...

Stone tools found in a 4,000-year-old grave near Stonehenge have traces of gold on their surfaces that indicate they were used to fashion gold ornaments. In 1801, archaeologists found the assemblage of Bronze Age artifacts, including the stone tools, in a barrow or burial mound from about 1800 B.C. near the village of Upton Lovell, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Stonehenge. The assemblage(opens in new tab) includes flint axes, a necklace of beads of polished stone and dozens of bone points — possibly from another necklace and the fringe of a garment. The collection, which is now on...

THE Moon destroyed a forest on Earth just by wobbling, according to a new study. The theory solves a mystery from 2015 which involved tens of millions of mangrove trees dying in Australia.... ...The researchers used 30 years of national satellite data to conduct their research and correlate the Moon's behavior with the mass tree death. This helped them spot a pattern of trees dying every 18 to 19 years, which is in keeping with the Moon wobble timeline....

Consider, for example, the Japanese stone circles from Ōyu and Isedotai in northern Japan. While not the imposing monoliths of Stonehenge, the two circles, made of thousands of smooth river stones, line up with the sun during the summer and winter solstices, and they were both used in burial rites. And for both monuments, collecting materials and completing construction would have taken enormous community effort. The similarities could also be related to topography: Japan and the United Kingdom are along the same latitude, sharing a similar climate and access to natural resources. But while the Neolithic people living near Stonehenge...

Archaeologists digging near Prague have discovered the remains of a Stone Age structure that’s older than Stonehenge and even the Egyptian pyramids: an enigmatic complex known as a roundel. Nearly 7,000 years ago during the late Neolithic, or New Stone Age, a local farming community may have gathered in this circular building, although its true purpose is unknown. The excavated roundel is large — about 180 feet (55 meters) in diameter, or about as long as the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tall, Radio Prague International reported. And while “it is too early to say anything about the people building...

Durrington Walls was a Neolithic settlement situated just 2.8km from Stonehenge, and dating from around 2500 BC, when much of the famous stone monument was constructed. It is believed that the site housed the people who built Stonehenge.A team of archaeologists led by the University of Cambridge investigated nineteen pieces of ancient faeces, or ‘coprolite’, found at Durrington Walls and preserved for over 4,500 years. Five of the coprolites (26%) – one human and four dog – were found to contain the eggs of parasitic worms.

The authors combine pollen, spores, sedimentary DNA, and animal remains to characterize the pre-Neolithic habitat of the site, inferring partially open woodland conditions, which would have been beneficial to large grazing herbivores like aurochs, as well as hunter-gatherer communities. This study supports previous evidence that the Stonehenge region was not covered in closed canopy forest at this time, as has previously been proposed.This study also provides date estimates for human activity at Blick Mead. Results indicate that hunter-gatherers used this site for 4,000 years up until the time of the earliest known farmers and monument-builders in the region, who would...

Scientists have uncovered evidence for a large-scale, prehistoric migration into Britain that may be linked to the spread of Celtic languages. The mass-movement of people originated in continental Europe and occurred between 1,400 BC and 870 BC. The discovery helps to explain the genetic make-up of many present-day people in Britain. Around half the ancestry of later populations in England and Wales comes from these migrants. ...When the newcomers arrived, the existing British population traced most of its ancestry to people who arrived at the end of the Neolithic, around the time Stonehenge was being built. They were part of...

...a series of deep pits were discovered near the world heritage site of Stonehenge last year... Now scientific tests have proved that those gaping pits, each aligned to form a circle spanning 1.2 miles (2km) in diameter, were definitely human-made, dug into the sacred landscape almost 4,500 years ago. The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area, because Durrington Walls, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north-east of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury in Wiltshire... While part of the circle has not...

Set in a remote, windswept salt marsh next to the sea, 54 wooden posts 10ft high stood lashed into a circle, so tightly bound together it was almost impossible to see through the cracks. At the circle's centre was an upturned tree, its roots reaching toward the heavens like branches... Now the mysterious structure, known as Seahenge, will go on display for the first time as part of the British Museum's blockbuster exhibition, The World of Stonehenge, which opens in February. Like the mythical lost city of Atlantis, Seahenge lay silently waiting to be discovered for thousands of years... Imagine...

Seahenge saga comes full circle 23 August 2007 The story of Seahenge has turned full circle, as the ancient timbers are returned to Norfolk. But as experts prepare them to go on display at King's Lynn Museum, CHRIS BISHOP finds an enigma that remains unsolved. Nearly 10 years after its controversial excavation, the mystery remains. While the upturned oak tree and its ring of timbers have taught us a few things we didn't know about our ancestors, we still don't know why they built it. Late in 1998, a long-forgotten landscape began re-emerging from beneath the sands of Holme Beach,...

4,000-year-old Seahenge to rise again – but not until 2008Pieces of Seahenge, the mysterious Bronze Age monument uncovered on the beach at Holme in 1998, will be renovated and transported to Lynn Museum over the next few months, where a permanent display will be painstakingly created for them. CONSERVATION work on the Seahenge wooden circle is continuing apace – but it will be at least a year before the Bronze Age monument will be on display in Lynn. The 4,000-year-old structure was uncovered by waves on the beach at Holme in 1998, sparking frenzied interest from the archaeological community. In...

Bisexual Viking Linked to Seahenge By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery NewsStatue Of Odin Aug. 27, 2004 — An ancient wooden carving of the bisexual Viking god Odin suggests the prehistoric timber circle monument Seahenge and another, even older, structure might have included totem pole-like carvings, according to archaeologists who have excavated the over 4,000-year-old British wood monuments. Because Odin was a mythological figure in prehistoric religion, the possible link between the carving and the monuments could mean that the mysterious circles held religious, funerary, or magical significance for the late Neolithic people who constructed them on Holme beach in Norfolk, England....

Druids despair as Seahenge set for dry berth November 19 2001 at 04:16PM London - A Bronze Age timber circle dug up on a beach two years ago should not be returned to its original site, where it would be vulnerable to the forces of the North Sea, English Heritage said on Monday. The 4 000-year-old structure, which became known as Seahenge, was found off the coast of Norfolk, north-east England, and removed despite prolonged protests by locals and Druid groups, who said the circle was a religious monument. English Heritage, the preservation group that oversaw and financed the ...