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The site, known as the Ness of Brodgar, was investigated by BBC2 documentary A History of Ancient Britain, with presenter Neil Oliver describing it as 'the discovery of a lifetime'. So far the remains of 14 Stone Age buildings have been excavated, but thermal geophysics technology has revealed that there are 100 altogether, forming a kind of temple precinct. Until now Stonehenge was considered to have been the centre of Neolithic culture, but that title may now go to the Orkney site, which contains Britain's earliest known wall paintings. Oliver said: 'The excavation of a vast network of buildings on...

Experts say they have confirmed for the first time the precise origin of some of the rocks at Stonehenge. It has long been suspected that rhyolites from the northern Preseli Hills helped build the monument. But research by National Museum Wales and Leicester University has identified their source to within 70m (230ft) of Craig Rhos-y-felin, near Pont Saeson. The museum's Dr Richard Bevins said the find would help experts work out how the stones were moved to Wiltshire. For nine months Dr Bevins, keeper of geology at National Museum Wales, and Dr Rob Ixer of Leicester University collected and identified...

Experts say they have confirmed for the first time the precise origin of some of the rocks at Stonehenge.It has long been suspected that rhyolites from the northern Preseli Hills helped build the monument. But research by National Museum Wales and Leicester University has identified their source to within 70m (230ft) of Craig Rhos-y-felin, near Pont Saeson. The museum's Dr Richard Bevins said the find would help experts work out how the stones were moved to Wiltshire. For nine months Dr Bevins, keeper of geology at National Museum Wales, and Dr Rob Ixer of Leicester University collected and identified samples...

Two previously undiscovered pits have been found at Stonehenge which point to it once being used as a place of sun worship before the stones were erected.The pits are positioned on celestial alignment at the site and may have contained stones, posts or fires to mark the rising and setting of the sun. An international archaeological survey team found the pits as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project. The team is using geophysical imaging techniques to investigate the site. The archaeologists from the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection in Vienna have been surveying...

The US military has built a stone circle in its Air Force academy to give pagans, druids and witches somewhere to practice their religion. The Colorado base has spent around £50,000 building the Stonehenge-like structure to allow witches to cast spells, and pagans to form "circles of power" by night. It is situated on top of a wooded hill and includes a fire pit. The academy says it is for cadets who practice 'Earth based' religions including druids, witches and North American faiths. Despite the expenses it is believed only three out of the 4,300 cadets have openly admitted that...

Four to five thousand years ago, a wealthy teenage girl was laid to rest in a grave at what archaeologists believe is a newly found henge in Kent, England. The discovery of the 17-year-old's grave -- along with a unique prehistoric pot inside of a ringed ditch near two other women -- strengthens the idea that important death-related rituals took place at many of these mysterious ancient monuments when they were first erected. "What is becoming clear is that with a series of major excavations in Kent linked to road and rail works, and new aerial photography, there are many...

An egg-shaped ring of standing stones in Australia could prove to be older than Britain's Stonehenge - and it may show that ancient Aboriginal cultures had a deep understanding of the movements of the stars. Fifty metres wide and containing more than 100 basalt boulders, the site of Wurdi Youang in Victoria was noted by European settlers two centuries ago, and charted by archaeologists in 1977, but only now is its purpose being rediscovered. It is thought the site was built by the Wadda Wurrung people - the traditional inhabitants of the area. All understanding of the rocks' significance...

The most significant artifacts uncovered are two carved ducks, the first of their kind to be found in Britain and the oldest figurines ever hewn from the UK. The ducks were likely, say the team, to be a result of the Bronze Age tradition of carving animal figurines which were then thrown into water as offerings. But while the ducks date back to 700BC, a ceremonial dagger was also found which originated around 1400BC. However, another item which Jacques initially believed was a cow's tooth was revealed by radiocarbon dating to date back to around 6250BC, some 3,000 years before...

Injured soldiers from Gloucestershire-based 1st Battalion The Rifles, who have returned from front line duties in Afghanistan, are helping with an archaeological dig on Salisbury Plain. The project is designed to help them recover from battlefield injuries, including combat stress.

An archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument less than one kilometre away from the iconic Stonehenge. History is set to be rewritten after an archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument less than one kilometer away from the iconic Stonehenge. The incredible find has been hailed by Professor Vince Gaffney, from the University's IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre... "This finding...

In Morocco, not far from the Atlantic coast and away from major tourist attractions, lies a remarkable and enigmatic megalithic site. The Mzora stone ring (also spelled variously as Msoura/Mezorah) is situated roughly 11km from the nearest town of Asilah and about 27km from the ruins of ancient Lixus. It is not easy to reach and a small display in the archaeological museum at Tetouan is the most the majority of visitors see or hear of this very interesting site. Plutarch, in the first century CE, may have referred to Mzora in his Life of Sertorius. He describes the Roman...

It's one of Stonehenge's greatest mysteries: How did Stone Age Britons move 45-ton slabs across dozens of miles to create the 4,500-year-old stone circle? ...A previous theory suggested that the builders used wooden rollers -- carved tree trunks laid side by side on a constructed hard surface. Another imagined huge wooden sleds atop greased wooden rails. But critics say the rollers' hard pathway would have left telltale gouges in the landscape, which have never been found. And the sled system, while plausible, would have required huge amounts of manpower -- hundreds of men at a time to move one of...

Did visitors from space help build the great pyramids of Egypt and Central America? Is advanced technology from an alien civilization needed to explain how ancient man could move huge stones, build monumental structures, create intricate artwork and organize complex cultures? Some think so, because of their evolutionary belief that ancient man was ‘primitive’. If evolution were true, the further back into history we look, evidence should show a gradual decline in man’s intelligence, moving closer to the ape’s. Biblical creation would indicate otherwise. Man, created in God’s image, has always been intelligent. People make discoveries and invent things, and...

The oldest temple of the Sun has been discovered in northwest Bulgaria, near the town of Vratsa, aged at more then 8000 years, the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on December 15 2010. The Bulgarian 'Stonehenge' is hence about 3000 years older than its illustrious English counterpart. But unlike its more renowned English cousin, the Bulgarian sun temple was not on the surface, rather it was dug out from under tons of earth and is shaped in the form of a horse shoe, the report said. The temple was found near the village of Ohoden. According to archaeologists, the prehistoric...

Chemical tests on teeth from an ancient burial near Stonehenge indicate that the person in the grave grew up around the Mediterranean Sea. The bones belong to a teenager who died 3,550 years ago and was buried with a distinctive amber necklace. The conclusions come from analysis of different forms of the elements oxygen and strontium in his tooth enamel.Analysis on a previous skeleton found near Stonehenge showed that that person was also a migrant to the area.The findings will be discussed at a science symposium in London to mark the 175th anniversary of the British Geological Survey (BGS). The...

...The popping of a balloon is not the standard or best way to measure an impulse response, but more sophisticated equipment was not allowed at Stonehenge. At a full-size replica of the monument at Maryhill, Washington state, however, Bruno and Rupert were able to use powerful loudspeakers and special test signals to get more accurate results. Maryhill also has the advantage that it is complete, whereas some of the stones of Stonehenge have fallen or disappeared over the years. That makes a noticeable difference to the drum sounds convolved with Maryhill's impulse response: the more complete stone circle makes the...

...near Letchworth. Archaeologists have found a circular area about 50 metres wide surrounded by a bank at Stapleton's Field in Norton. North Herts Archaeology Officer, Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews said: "Henges are quite rare with only 60 known in the UK, so this is a significant find. It's interesting as the only other henge known locally is on Western Hills, which is visible from the site we are working on." ...The archaeologists are able to date the henge because of pottery they found which is associated with the Bronze Age... Henges are only known to occur in Britain and Northern Ireland. They...

The team was very excited when I was there by this black and white image. It's a scan of an existing barrow and in this image the archaeological team see a segmented ditch and 24 deep pits which they say would probably have been dug for timbers and a wooden structure. A wooden henge. The diagram on the right shows this more clearly.

New wooden henge, a circular ditch that aligns with world-famous monument, deemed site's most exciting find in a lifetime -- Without a sod of earth being dug up, a new henge, a circular ditch which probably enclosed a ring of timber posts and may have been used for feasting, has been discovered...only 900 metres away and apparently contemporary to the 5,000-year-old stone circle, as the most exciting find at Stonehenge in a lifetime... The henge was revealed within a fortnight of an international team beginning fieldwork on the three-year Stonehenge Hidden Landscape project, which aims to survey and map 14...

Just northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio, a sort of wooden Stonehenge is slowly emerging as archaeologists unearth increasing evidence of a 2,000-year-old ceremonial site... Like Stonehenge, the Ohio timber circles were likely used to mark astronomical events such as the summer solstice. Formally called Moorehead Circle but nicknamed "Woodhenge" by non-archaeologists, the site was once a leafless forest of wooden posts. Laid out in a peculiar pattern of concentric, but incomplete, rings, the site is about 200 feet (57 meters) wide. Today only rock-filled postholes remain, surrounded by the enigmatic earthworks of Fort Ancient State Memorial (map). Some are thousands of...

A team of 100 archaeologists, from various universities around Britain, along with Wessex Archaeology, has been carrying out excavations as part of the seven-year Riverside Project at Woodhenge, Durrington Walls and Stonehenge Cursus to find out more about the sites and their links with Stonehenge in the 26th Century BC... Professor of archaeology at Sheffield University Mike Parker- Pearson is leading the dig: "I think our most exciting discovery is the ceremonial avenue which leads from Durrington Walls to the river." ...The road, which formed an avenue aligned on the Midsummer Solstice sunset, suggested that Durrington Walls and Woodhenge were...

SALISBURY, England — Thousands of New Agers and neo-pagans danced and whooped in delight Monday as a bright early morning sun rose above the ancient stone circle Stonehenge, marking the summer solstice. About 20,000 people crowded the prehistoric site on Salisbury Plain, southern England, to see the sunrise at 4:52 A.M. (1152EST), after an annual all-night party. The event typically draws thousands of alternative-minded revelers to the monument, as they wait for dawn at the Heel Stone, a pockmarked pillar just outside the circle proper, which aligns with the rising sun.

(NEWSER) – Thousands of New Agers and neo-pagans danced and whooped in delight this morning as a bright early morning sun rose above the ancient stone circle Stonehenge, marking the summer solstice. About 20,000 alternative-minded revelers crowded the prehistoric site in southern England to see the 4:52am (11:52pm EST) sunrise, following an annual all-night party. They waited for dawn at the Heel Stone, a pockmarked pillar just outside the main circle that aligns with the rising sun. Unlike previous recent years, when the sunrise has been obscured by cloud, the bright sun bathed the monument in orange and gold today....

A prehistoric village has been discovered in southern England that was likely home to the builders of Stonehenge, archaeologists announced on January 30, 2007 (read the full story). The village, located 1.75 miles (2.8 kilometers) from the famous stone circle, includes eight wooden houses dated back to around 2500 B.C. The remains of a cluster of homes include the outlines of floors, beds, and cupboards. Tools, jewelry, pottery, and human and animal bones were also found. The excavated houses formed part of a much bigger settlement dating back to the Late Stone Age, according to project leader Mike Parker Pearson...

LITTERED across the hills of Dartmoor in Devon, southern England, around 80 rows and circles of stones stand sentinel in the wild landscape. Now, striking similarities between one of these monuments and Stonehenge, 180 kilometres to the east, suggest they may be the work of the same people. The row of nine stones on Cut Hill was discovered in 2004 on one of the highest, most remote hills of Dartmoor national park. "It is on easily the most spectacular hill on north Dartmoor," says Andrew Fleming, president of the Devon Archaeological Society. "If you were looking for a distant shrine...

Inevitably dubbed Stonehedge, the evidence from a new survey of the Stonehenge landscape suggests that 4,000 years ago the world's most famous prehistoric monument was surrounded by two circular hedges, planted on low concentric banks. The best guess of the archaeologists from English Heritage, who carried out the first detailed survey of the landscape of the monument since the Ordnance Survey maps of 1919, is that the hedges could have served as screens keeping even more secret from the crowd the ceremonies carried out by the elite allowed inside the stone circle... If the early Bronze Age date is correct,...

Pagan worshippers, who braved freezing dawn temperatures to celebrate the winter solstice at Stonehenge, were dismayed to discover they had turned up on the wrong day . . . Pagan leader Arthur Pendragon said: "It is the most important day of the year for us . . ."

The team who worked on the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2009 are to return to their findings to explain the eating habits of the people who built and worshipped at the stone circle over four thousand years ago... the new 'Feeding Stonehenge' project will analyse a range of materials including cattle bones and plant residue... Initial research suggests the animals were brought considerable distances to the ceremonial site.. The original Stonehenge Riverside project, which strengthened the idea that nearby Durrington Walls was part of the Stonehenge complex, yielded a surprisingly wide range of material ranging from ancient tools to animal...

Salem, N.H. — At this leafless and gloomy time of year I traveled, in the spirit of the symbologist Robert Langdon of “The Da Vinci Code,” to America’s Stonehenge, in this town five miles from the Massachusetts border. Scholars have debated whether the stone cairns and chambers here were built by early American Indians, enterprising colonial settlers or, more controversially, a migrant European culture that visited these woods nearly 4,000 years ago. Determined to plumb these mysteries, I arrived at a rustic information center and gift shop on a cold and gray Sunday morning. Inside I was greeted by the...

A retired construction worker from Flint, MI named Wally Wallington thinks he might know one way [Stonehenge may have been built]. He even goes so far as to demonstrate it by building a min-Stonehenge on his property… all by himself.

> Researchers have dubbed the site "Bluehenge," after the color of the 27 Welsh stones that were laid to make up a path. The stones have disappeared, but the path of holes remains. >

Given away by strange, crop circle-like formations seen from the air, a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex discovered in southern England has taken archaeologists by surprise. A thousand years older than nearby Stonehenge, the site includes the remains of wooden temples and two massive, 6,000-year-old tombs that are among "Britain's first architecture," according to archaeologist Helen Wickstead, leader of the Damerham Archaeology Project. For such a site to have lain hidden for so long is "completely amazing," said Wickstead, of Kingston University in London. Archaeologist Joshua Pollard, who was not involved in the find, agreed. The discovery is "remarkable," he said,...

Not long ago, I wrote of how the English language is being destroyed by the stupidity of feminism. Well, today I've found another perfect example of how feminism is making our language trite and silly. The example turns up in a report on new prehistoric discoveries near Stonehenge, in Hampshire, England. Apparently, a pair of Neolithic tombs was discovered in the English countryside and researchers are all excited. I can’t say I blame them for this is very interesting news. It isn't the discovery that served as a vehicle for a stupid feminazi trick, though, but the coverage. Tucked into...

He was a giant of a man, a chieftain who ruled with a royal sceptre and a warrior's axe. When they laid him to rest they dressed him in his finest regalia and placed his weapons at his side. Then they turned his face towards the setting sun and sealed him in a burial mound that would keep him safe for the next 4,000 years. In his grave were some of the most exquisitely fashioned artefacts of the Bronze Age, intricately crafted to honour the status of a figure who bore them in life in death. For this may have...

Mystery unraveled by construction worker

The story of Stonehenge and the mystery that surrounds it is familiar to most Salisbury residents, but one man has come to the city to tell people about an ancient circle of standing stones which pre-dates even Wiltshire's World Heritage site. Vardan Levoni Tadevosyan is an Armenian/Spanish historian of the occult who visited Salisbury last week to raise the profile of Carahunge, dubbed the Armenian Stonehenge. Carahunge, meaning 'speaking stones', is located 200km from the Armenian capital Yerevan, near a town called Sisian. There are over 200 stones on the seven-hectare site and many of the stones have smooth angled...

The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan. According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years...

In a surprisingly under-reported story from 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University College, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan. [Image: Standing stones beneath Lake Michigan? View larger]. If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post-Ice Age presence of both humans and mastodons in the upper midwest. [Image: The stones beneath Lake Michigan; view larger]. In a PDF assembled by...

"In a small basin in the hills we came the next day (27th October, 1930) upon a circle 27 feet (8.5 metres) in diameter of thin slabs of sandstone, 18 to 24 inches high. Half were lying prone, but the rest were still vertical in the sand. There was no doorway or other sign of orientation, and though we searched within and without the circle, no implements could be found. I understand that other similar circles have been found in the neighborhood of the Gilf Kebir." Major R.A.Bagnold, Journeys in the Libyan Desert 1929 and 1930, The Georgaphical Journal, Vol....

Jan. 7, 2009 -- Stonehenge was built as a dance arena for prehistoric "samba-style" raves, according to a study of the acoustics of the 5,000-year-old stone circle. Using cutting-edge technology, Rupert Till, an expert in acoustics and music technology at Huddersfield University in northern England, discovered that Stonehenge's megaliths reflect sound perfectly, making the stone circle an ideal setting for listening to repetitive trance rhythms.

In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido, a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their shovels a mysterious spectacle -- a broad circular arrangement of large rocks, strikingly symmetrical, evidently man-made. What could it be? An Ainu fortress? ...Oshoro today is part of the city of Otaru, on its western fringe, 20 km from the city center and 60 km west of Sapporo. The Late Jomon period (circa 2400-1000 B.C.) was an age of northward migration. The north was warming, and severe rainfall was ravaging the...

Following Alfred Watkins’s famous vision of straight paths crossing the landscape, the concept of “leys” has evolved over several decades (see panel, pp31–32), but it has become increasingly obvious to research-minded ley students that there never were such features as “leys”, let alone “leylines”. At best, these were convenient labels to cover a multitude of both actual and imaginary alignments from many different eras and cultures. This was because most enthusiasts were projecting their own ideas onto the past in various ways. But the handful of research-minded ley hunters cared about actual archæology, and they followed where the mythical leys...

This toy hedgehog, found in a child's grave at Stonehenge, is proof of what we have always known - children have always loved to play. Archaeologists who discovered the grave, where the child was laying on his or her side, believe the toy - perhaps placed there by a doting father - is the earliest known depiction of a hedgehog in British history. The diggers were working to the west of Stonehenge in what is known as the Palisade Ditch when they made the remarkable discovery last month in the top of the pit in which the child was buried....

Stonehenge was used as a cremation cemetry throughout its history, according to new evidence that divides archaeologists over whether England's most famous ancient monument was about celebrating life or death... The latest evidence is from a team of archaeologists from a number of British universities who have been carrying out excavations over the past five summers... The report said: "We propose that very early in Stonehenge's history, 56 Welsh bluestones stood in a ring 285 feet 6 inches across. This has sweeping implications for our understanding of Stonehenge." The second significant finding was from radiocarbon dating of human remains found...

LONDON - The first excavation of Stonehenge in more than 40 years has uncovered evidence that the stone circle drew ailing pilgrims from around Europe for what they believed to be its healing properties, archaeologists said Monday.

Stone age people drove animals hundreds of miles to a site close to Stonehenge to be slaughtered for ritual feasts, according to scientists who have examined the chemical signatures of animal remains buried there... Durrington Walls is a stone-age village containing the remains of numerous cattle and pigs which are thought to have been buried there after successive ritual feasts. The site is two miles north east of Stonehenge and dates from around 3000 BC, 500 years before the first stones were erected... The evidence points to groups of people driving animals from as far away as Wales for the...

Archeologists have uncovered the remains of what they believe to be a 20ft fence designed to screen Stonehenge from the view of unworthy Stone Age Britons. The wooden construction extended nearly two miles across Salisbury Plain more than 5,000 years ago, and would have served to shield the sacred site from the prying eyes of ordinary lower-class locals... The dig's co-director Dr Josh Pollard, of Bristol University, said: "The construction must have taken a lot of manpower. The palisade is an open structure which would not have been defensive and was too high to be practical for controlling livestock. It...

Archaeologists have discovered traces of a Bronze Age place of worship in Germany in what they say might be the country's answer to Stonehenge. Scientists from a university in Halle are excavating a roughly 4,000 year-old circular site in eastern Germany which contains graves that bear a strong resemblance to Stonehenge, a prehistoric stone circle of towering megaliths in southern Britain. "It is the first finding of this kind on the European mainland which we have been able to fully excavate and which shows a structure we have until now only seen in Britain," Andre Spatzier, head of the excavation...

Pearson said, "I think the key thing is that from the moment that Stonehenge is built -- this is very shortly after 3,000 B.C. -- they're putting in burials as well as the parts of the monument itself. And I think it's something that is going hand in hand with it." He referred to alternative theories, including Bournemouth University archaeologist Timothy Darvill's idea that Stonehenge was a place of healing, as in no way inconsistent with the site also serving as a cemetery. A place devoted to the ancestors naturally could have a variety of secondary uses, such as invoking...

<p>As the sun rose at 0458, a cheer went up from the brave crowds who had taken up their positions overnight at the stone circle on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.</p> <p>Clad in ponchos, black cloaks and makeshift waterproof jackets made from bin-bags, revellers gathered at the Heel stone....</p>