Stonehenge , the deep Neolithic monument locate in forward-looking - day Wiltshire , England , has been a source of fascination for archaeologists for hundreds of years . The culture , or culture , that construct the website ’s circles of gemstone monoliths between 8,000 and 2,000 BC left no write criminal record as to its purpose , though the wealth of human corpse propose that it was a unearthly monument .
And while we may never have it off whyStonehengewas build , scientist persist in to wonder how . Until late , research worker had speculated that the site ’s great towering stones , calledsarsens , were cut from deposits in the Malborough Downs located about 30 klick ( 18 miles ) away . Then , by nameless agency , they were channelize by the primitive builder to their current positioning .
But new findings by Stonehenge expert Mike Pitts , publish inBritish Archaeology , suggest that several of Stonehenge ’s most famous monoliths have actually been in the same fix for millions of years .
Back in the seventies , Pitt was allow to dig up the solid ground around the largest sarsen , the “ Heel stone ” , which famously marks the fix of the surface Sun on midsummer ’s daylight . During this investigation , Pitts chance upon evidence of a bombastic , 6 - meter ( 20 - foot ) diam kettle of fish that had been created then filled back in .
The pit was too wide to have been dug to support a standing sarsen , but it is the right sizing to have contained the 5.9 - m ( 19.4 - feet ) tall , 35 - ton Heel stone , once upon a time .
Unlike many of the other sarsens , the Heel stone stand out from the main dress circle of gem and has not been carved into a more undifferentiated shape or castrate to be attach to other rock .
“ If you are blend to move something that large you would have to dress it before you move it to get disembarrass of some of the bulk , ” Pitts toldThe Timesabout his theory . " That suggest it has not been moved very far . "
Pitts ' team determine another filled - in cavity next to a large monolith referred to as Harlan Stone 16 , located in the monument ’s circle . Like the Heel stone , Harlan Stone 16 is irregularly shaped , very large , and lines up with the path of the sun .
All of Stonehenge ’s loom sarsens are composed of sandstone – rock made from sand , gravel , and truss with a silica cement – that formed on the terra firma ’s open between 23 and 2.6 million years ago . Because large chunks of this type of sandstone are now uncommon on the control surface of the Salisbury Plain area , geologist examining Stonehenge in the past conceive that the rock music could not have been source locally .
Yet Pitts was able to back up his 1970s determination by drawing upon more recent geological investigating suggest that sarsen sandstone is still present in significant abundance around Stonehenge , it has only sink into the ground following repeated cycles of stain freezing and unthaw during sparkler years .
" It ’s possible that at the end of the ice age we had two really large visible sarsen boulders , " said Pitts . And conveniently for astronomy - oriented ancient humans , they were " tight together on the midsummer sunrise - midwinter sunset axis . ”
