Stonehenge and Astronomy

Salisbury Plain

On a gentle slope of the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, stands a monument that has captured the human imagination for millennia. Stonehenge is a powerful and enigmatic presence, a ring of standing stones set within earthworks that speaks of a distant past. It isn’t just a collection of rocks; it’s the ruin of a sophisticated, multi-phased structure built and rebuilt over a period of some 1,500 years. Its creators left behind no written records, bequeathing to the modern world one of its most enduring archaeological mysteries. What remains is a testament to the ambition, ingenuity, and spiritual conviction of Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples. The story of Stonehenge isn’t just about the stones themselves but about the landscape they inhabit, the people who built them, and the centuries of effort they poured into creating a place that aligned with the heavens and honored their dead. It is a story of transition, from hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, from simple earthworks to complex stone engineering, and from a local gathering place to a monument of pan-regional importance. Understanding Stonehenge means looking beyond the iconic silhouette and exploring the deep history etched into the chalk downland of southern Britain.

The Ancient Landscape of Salisbury Plain

The story of Stonehenge doesn’t begin with the raising of the first stone. It begins thousands of years earlier, with the shaping of the land itself. Salisbury Plain was not always the rolling, open grassland we see today. Its history is one of dramatic environmental change, which in turn shaped the lives of the people who would eventually build one of the world’s most famous monuments. The chalk bedrock, formed from the skeletal remains of marine organisms millions of years ago, provides the foundation for this unique landscape. It is a porous, free-draining stone that gives the region its characteristic gentle hills and dry valleys. This geology would later provide the builders with a ready medium for digging the ditches and banks that defined their sacred spaces.

From Ice to Forest: The Mesolithic Era

After the last Ice Age retreated, around 10,000 BC, the landscape of what would become Salisbury Plain was a vast, frozen tundra. As temperatures rose, hardy grasses and shrubs began to colonize the land, followed by pioneer trees like birch and pine. This was the world of the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, people. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers, moving in small family groups across the land in pursuit of game and edible plants. They hunted large animals like aurochs (wild cattle), red deer, and wild boar in the expanding woodlands. The rivers, like the nearby Avon, were rich with fish and fowl.

These people left behind subtle traces of their existence. The most famous local find from this period is a series of large pine posts, discovered near the site of the modern visitor center car park. Dated to between 8500 and 7700 BC, these posts were erected in a line, though their purpose remains unknown. They weren’t part of a building but stood as markers in the landscape. Perhaps they had a territorial function, or maybe they were totemic, imbued with some spiritual meaning. Whatever their purpose, they show that for thousands of years before Stonehenge was conceived, this area was already a special place, one where people felt compelled to make their mark upon the earth. The very act of raising these posts, long before the construction of henges or the raising of megaliths, suggests a long-term human connection to this specific part of the world. It was a known place, a landscape with a history and memory that stretched back into the deep past.

As the climate continued to warm, the open pine and birch woodlands gave way to a dense, closed-canopy forest of oak, elm, and lime. This “wildwood” would have covered much of Salisbury Plain, making travel difficult and hunting a different kind of challenge. The people of the Mesolithic adapted, developing new toolkits and strategies for surviving in this changed environment. They lived in temporary camps, perhaps returning to favored spots year after year. They did not build permanent monuments, but they invested the landscape with meaning through stories, place names, and rituals that have been lost to time.

The First Farmers: The Neolithic Revolution

Around 4000 BC, a new way of life arrived in Britain. The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, brought with it the revolutionary practices of farming and animal husbandry. This wasn’t an invasion of new peoples who replaced the old, but more likely a gradual adoption of new ideas and technologies spreading from continental Europe. People began to clear areas of the forest to plant crops like wheat and barley and to graze domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep, and pigs. This change had a massive impact on society and the landscape.

For the first time, people began to settle down in more permanent communities. A reliable food source allowed for larger populations and a more sedentary lifestyle. With this came the concept of land ownership, inheritance, and a more complex social structure. People now had a different relationship with the land. It wasn’t just a place to hunt and gather from; it was a resource to be managed, defended, and passed down through generations. This new focus on place and ancestry led to the creation of the first great monuments. People began to build structures that were intended to last, to stand as permanent markers of their presence, their beliefs, and their connection to their ancestors.

The act of clearing the forest itself was a monumental task, undertaken with simple stone axes. As they opened up the landscape, they began to transform Salisbury Plain into a mosaic of woodland, pasture, and arable fields. It was in this newly managed landscape that the great monumental building tradition of the Neolithic began.

Early Monuments: Cursuses and Long Barrows

Long before the first circle was dug at Stonehenge, its builders’ ancestors were already constructing other enormous ceremonial structures. Two types of monument dominate the early Neolithic landscape of the region: long barrows and cursus monuments.

Long barrows are earthen mounds, often over 100 meters in length, which served as communal tombs. They were built using soil and turf, with the material often quarried from flanking ditches on either side. Inside, chambers constructed of wood or stone held the disarticulated remains of numerous individuals. These weren’t tombs for single, powerful rulers, but rather collective burial places, venerating the community’s ancestors as a whole. The bones were often sorted, with skulls placed in one area and long bones in another, suggesting complex funerary rituals that may have involved exposing the dead to the elements before their final burial. These barrows were prominent features in the landscape, often sited on ridges or hilltops. They were more than just repositories for the dead; they were powerful symbols of a community’s lineage and its claim to the land.

The Salisbury Plain is home to one of the most remarkable of these early structures: the Greater Stonehenge Cursus. Built between 3600 and 3400 BC, this is a gigantic earthwork enclosure. It consists of two parallel banks and ditches running for nearly 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) across the landscape, with a width of about 100 to 150 meters. Its purpose is a mystery. It isn’t a defensive structure, nor is it a road in the modern sense. It’s best understood as a ceremonial way, a vast enclosure that defined a sacred path or processional route through the landscape. Walking its length would have been a carefully controlled experience, with views of the surrounding area framed and restricted by the high earthen banks. The Cursus passes just north of where Stonehenge would later be built, indicating that this specific area was already a focus of ceremonial activity centuries before the famous stone circle was conceived. It established an east-west alignment in the ritual landscape that would be respected and referenced by later builders.

These early monuments show that the people of the Neolithic were capable of large-scale, coordinated construction projects. They had the social organization to muster a large workforce and the engineering skills to plan and execute these enormous earthworks. They also had a deeply spiritual worldview, one that connected them to their ancestors, their land, and the passage of time. It was from this tradition of monumental building that the idea for Stonehenge would emerge. The landscape was already sacred, already filled with the tombs of the ancestors and the great ceremonial ways. Stonehenge wasn’t built in a vacuum; it was the next, and most ambitious, chapter in a story that had already been unfolding for centuries.

The Story of Construction: A Monument in Phases

Stonehenge was not built in a single event. It’s the product of at least 1,500 years of construction, modification, and rearrangement. Archaeologists have divided its development into several distinct phases, each representing a major change in the monument’s form and, likely, its function. This long and complex history shows that Stonehenge was a place of enduring importance, a canvas upon which successive generations expressed their beliefs and engineering prowess. Each phase built upon what came before, sometimes reusing elements, sometimes completely redesigning the space, but always maintaining the site as a central focus for the surrounding communities.

Phase 1: The First Henge (c. 3100 BC)

The first major construction at Stonehenge was not a stone circle but an earthwork. Around 3100 BC, people using simple tools made from deer antlers and animal shoulder blades dug a massive circular ditch and bank. This type of monument is known as a henge, a term that specifically refers to a circular earthwork with a ditch inside the bank. Ironically, Stonehenge itself, with its ditch outside the bank, doesn’t strictly fit this archaeological definition, but the name has stuck.

The ditch was not uniform. It was dug as a series of connected pits, leaving a slightly scalloped or undulating bottom. The excavated chalk was piled up on the inside to form a high bank, which would have been dazzlingly white when first created. This brilliant circle, measuring about 110 meters (360 feet) in diameter, would have been a striking landmark in the green landscape. There were two main entrances through the earthwork: a wide one to the north-east and a smaller one to the south.

Just inside the bank, the builders dug a ring of 56 pits. These have become known as the Aubrey Holes, named after the 17th-century antiquarian John Aubrey, who was the first to record them. For a long time, their purpose was debated. Were they pits for timber posts? Were they for holding stones? Excavations in the 20th century provided a clearer answer. Many of the Aubrey Holes were found to contain cremated human remains. It seems that from its very beginning, Stonehenge was a cemetery. It was a place for the dead, a domain of the ancestors enclosed within a great circular boundary. Over 60 cremation burials have been found at the site, mostly within the Aubrey Holes and the ditch, making Stonehenge the largest known Neolithic cemetery in Britain. The individuals buried here were men, women, and children, suggesting it was a burial ground for an entire community, or perhaps several elite families.

At this early stage, there were likely some wooden structures within the enclosure, and perhaps a few stones. The Heel Stone, a large, unworked sarsen boulder located outside the north-eastern entrance, may have been erected during this period, or it could be a natural feature that was incorporated into the design. Another stone, now fallen, known as the Slaughter Stone, lay just inside the north-eastern entrance. These few stones hint at the astronomical alignments that would become so important later, as the north-eastern entrance is broadly oriented towards the midsummer sunrise. This first version of Stonehenge was a great circular enclosure, a meeting place for ceremonies that honored the dead and perhaps marked the turning of the seasons.

Phase 2: A Time of Timber (c. 3000–2600 BC)

After the initial construction of the henge, the site entered a new phase characterized by the use of timber. The intense focus on cremation burials seems to have lessened, and the Aubrey Holes were gradually backfilled. Instead, people began to erect complex arrangements of wooden posts within the center of the enclosure.

The evidence for these timber structures is less obvious than the great stones that stand today. It comes from the discovery of postholes, dark stains in the chalk subsoil left by the decayed remnants of wooden posts. The pattern of these postholes is complex and confusing, partly because they were erected and dismantled over several centuries, and also because later stone settings disturbed the ground. archaeologists have identified what appear to be multiple structures. They suggest a series of concentric timber circles or other arrangements at the center of the site.

This timber phase is important because it shows a shift in ritual practice. While the site remained a ceremonial center, the focus may have moved from being primarily a cemetery to a place for gatherings and rituals among the living, conducted within these wooden structures. This use of timber connects Stonehenge to a wider tradition seen at other nearby sites. At Woodhenge, just a few kilometers away, an almost identical pattern of concentric oval rings of postholes was found. Another major site, Durrington Walls, contained several large timber circles. It seems that in the Neolithic worldview of this region, there was a symbolic distinction between materials. Timber, being organic and perishable, may have been associated with the world of the living, while stone, being permanent and unchanging, was associated with the ancestors and the world of the dead. Stonehenge, at this point, appears to have been part of the domain of the living. That was about to change dramatically.

Phase 3: The Arrival of the Stones (c. 2600–1600 BC)

This long and complex phase is when Stonehenge was transformed into the monument we know today. It marks one of the most remarkable feats of prehistoric engineering in the world: the transport and erection of giant stones. This phase can be broken down into several sub-stages, as the monument was repeatedly rearranged and redesigned.

The Bluestones Arrive

Around 2600 BC, the first stone setting was erected at the center of the henge. But these weren’t the giant sarsens that dominate the site today. They were smaller stones, known as bluestones, because they take on a bluish hue when wet or freshly broken. The truly astonishing thing about these bluestones is their origin. Geological analysis has pinpointed their source with incredible precision: the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, west Wales, over 240 kilometers (150 miles) away.

Why these specific stones were chosen is a mystery that lies at the heart of Stonehenge. Perhaps the Preseli Hills were considered a sacred or ancestral homeland. Some of the bluestones are of a type called spotted dolerite, which is visually distinctive. Others are rhyolites and volcanic ashes. Whatever the reason, a huge effort was undertaken to quarry and transport around 80 of these stones, each weighing between 2 and 4 tons.

The original arrangement of these bluestones is thought to have been a double arc or circle at the monument’s center. This structure, known as the Q and R Holes setting, was never completed and was dismantled not long after it was begun. The bluestones were taken down, and the builders embarked on an even more ambitious project.

The Great Sarsen Circle and Trilithons

Shortly after the first bluestone circle was dismantled, the largest stones ever to be used at the site arrived. These are the sarsens, a type of silicified sandstone. They are incredibly hard and durable. Their source was the Marlborough Downs, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) north of Stonehenge. While this was a much shorter journey than the bluestones’ epic trek from Wales, the sheer size of the sarsens presented an immense logistical challenge. The largest of them weigh over 40 tons.

With these stones, the builders created the iconic structure that still dominates the site. They erected an outer circle of 30 upright sarsen stones, each weighing around 25 tons. On top of these, they placed a continuous ring of 30 lintel stones, held in place with sophisticated woodworking joints. This created a perfect, unbroken circle about 33 meters (108 feet) in diameter. The precision involved was extraordinary. The tops of the lintels are almost perfectly level, despite the slight slope of the ground.

Inside this circle, they erected an even more impressive structure: five massive trilithons arranged in a horseshoe shape. A trilithon consists of two huge upright stones with a single lintel placed across the top. These were arranged in order of height, with the smallest pair at the entrance of the horseshoe and the largest, the Great Trilithon, at the apex. The uprights of the Great Trilithon towered over 7 meters (24 feet) above the ground and weighed around 45 tons each. This sarsen phase represents the architectural peak of Stonehenge. It was a stunning, almost sculptural monument, with its surfaces carefully shaped and finished.

Rearranging the Bluestones

Once the great sarsen structures were in place, the bluestones were brought back into use. They were rearranged into a new setting inside the sarsen horseshoe. An oval of dressed bluestone pillars was erected, mirroring the shape of the trilithons. At least one of the bluestones, the Altar Stone, a greenish sandstone from a different part of Wales, was placed in front of the Great Trilithon.

But the rearrangements weren’t over. Later, this bluestone oval was dismantled. The builders then created the bluestone settings that we see the remnants of today: an inner horseshoe of single bluestone pillars and an outer circle of bluestones erected in the space between the outer sarsen circle and the inner trilithon horseshoe. It seems they were never quite satisfied with the arrangement, repeatedly modifying the interior of their great temple.

The Final Stages and the Avenue

The last major construction activities at Stonehenge took place in the early Bronze Age. Around the time the bluestones were being rearranged for the final time, two mysterious rings of pits were dug just outside the sarsen circle, known as the Y and Z Holes. They were never filled with stones or posts and seem to have been left to silt up naturally. They may represent a plan for a further rearrangement of the bluestones that was never carried out.

The most significant later addition was the construction of the Avenue. This was a ceremonial approach to the monument, consisting of two parallel banks and ditches. It runs for about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the north-eastern entrance of Stonehenge down to the banks of the River Avon. This formalized the approach to the monument, creating a processional way that linked Stonehenge to the river. The Avenue follows the path of the summer solstice sunrise as it leaves the monument, reinforcing the astronomical importance of the site’s alignment. Its construction marks the final major act of building at Stonehenge. After about 1600 BC, no new large-scale construction took place. The monument was complete, left to stand as a silent witness to the changing cultures and beliefs of the people who used it for centuries to come.

The Stones Themselves: Geology, Transport, and Engineering

The story of Stonehenge is inseparable from the story of its stones. They are what make the monument unique. The choice of two very different types of stone, sourced from locations hundreds of kilometers apart, speaks to a complex set of beliefs and a staggering level of ambition. The effort required to transport, shape, and erect these megaliths demonstrates a mastery of logistics and engineering that was unparalleled in prehistoric Europe. Examining the stones reveals not just how Stonehenge was built, but also sheds light on why it might have been built.

The Sarsen Stones: Giants from the Downs

The larger stones at Stonehenge are sarsens. The name is thought to derive from “Saracen stone,” a medieval term for something foreign or pagan. Sarsen is a silicified sandstone, an intensely hard rock formed from sand cemented by silica. This process occurred millions of years ago when sand deposits were exposed to fluctuating water tables in a warm climate. The result is a rock that is more durable than granite.

The source of these stones was a long-standing puzzle, but recent scientific analysis has confirmed their origin. They came from a place called West Woods on the Marlborough Downs, approximately 32 kilometers (20 miles) north of Stonehenge. In West Woods, these great boulders lay scattered across the surface, remnants of a geological layer that has otherwise eroded away. The Neolithic builders didn’t have to quarry them from bedrock in the modern sense. Instead, they had to identify suitable stones, extract them from the ground, and then begin the arduous process of moving them.

Transporting these megaliths was a monumental undertaking. The largest sarsens, the uprights of the Great Trilithon, weigh over 40 tons. The uprights of the outer circle are around 25 tons, and the lintels about 7 tons. The builders had no wheels and no draft animals capable of pulling such loads. The most likely method of transport involved immense manpower and simple technology. The stones were probably loaded onto wooden sledges and hauled across the landscape on rollers. This would have required hundreds of people pulling on ropes, clearing a path, and constantly moving the log rollers from the back of the sledge to the front.

The journey from the Marlborough Downs to Salisbury Plain would have been slow and difficult, traversing rolling hills and valleys. It’s estimated that moving a single large sarsen might have taken many months, if not longer. This wasn’t just a construction project; it was likely a major social and ceremonial event in itself. The gathering of people from across the region to move the stones would have been an opportunity to form alliances, arrange marriages, and reinforce social bonds. The very act of moving the stones may have been as important as their final placement in the monument.

The Bluestones: A Journey from Wales

The smaller stones at Stonehenge are collectively known as bluestones. This isn’t a single geological type but a variety of igneous and volcanic rocks, including spotted and unspotted dolerite, rhyolite, and volcanic ash. For decades, geologists knew they were foreign to the chalk landscape of Salisbury Plain. In the 1920s, their general origin was traced to the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. In recent years, advanced geochemical analysis has pinpointed the exact outcrops from which specific types were quarried. The spotted dolerites come from a crag called Carn Goedog, and the rhyolites from another outcrop called Craig Rhos-y-felin.

This discovery is remarkable because it confirms a journey of over 240 kilometers (150 miles). How these stones, weighing up to 4 tons each, were moved across such a vast distance is one of archaeology’s most debated topics. There are two main theories.

The first is the human transport theory. This proposes that the Neolithic builders quarried the stones in the Preseli Hills and transported them all the way to Salisbury Plain. The quarrying itself was a significant task. Archaeologists have found evidence at the Welsh sites of quarrying activity, including stone tools and platforms that seem to have been used to lower the extracted pillars. Once quarried, the stones would have been moved overland to the coast. From there, they could have been loaded onto rafts or boats and transported by sea around the Welsh coast and up the Bristol Channel. The final leg of the journey would have been overland again, perhaps being dragged up rivers like the Bristol Avon and the Wiltshire Avon before the final haul to Stonehenge. This would have been an incredibly complex and perilous undertaking.

The second theory suggests a glacial transport. This hypothesis argues that the stones were not carried by humans but by ice sheets during one of the Ice Ages. The theory goes that a glacier scraped the stones from the Preseli Hills and carried them east, depositing them on Salisbury Plain when the ice retreated. The Neolithic builders would then have found these special, foreign stones locally and simply collected them for their monument. geological evidence for this specific glacial action is weak. Most glaciologists believe the ice sheets didn’t move in that direction or reach that far south. Furthermore, the discovery of quarrying activity in the Preseli Hills strongly supports the human transport theory. The sheer number of stones and their specific geological variety also make it seem unlikely they were all conveniently deposited in one area by a glacier. Most archaeologists now favor the human transport model, seeing the journey of the bluestones as an intentional, epic feat.

The question remains: why go to all that trouble? The Preseli Hills may have been seen as a sacred place, perhaps an ancestral homeland. The stones themselves might have been believed to possess special properties, such as healing powers. It’s possible that there was an earlier stone circle in the Preseli Hills that was dismantled and moved to Salisbury Plain as a powerful act of political or religious unification.

The Engineering of a Masterpiece

The construction of Stonehenge wasn’t just about muscle; it was about brains. The builders displayed a sophisticated understanding of engineering, geometry, and stoneworking that is evident in every aspect of the sarsen structures.

Shaping and Dressing

Unlike most megalithic monuments, the stones of Stonehenge are not rough, natural boulders. They were shaped and dressed to a remarkable degree. The builders used large, heavy stone mauls—some weighing up to 60 kilograms—to hammer the surfaces of the sarsens, pounding them into the desired rectangular shapes. This process, called dressing, would have been incredibly labor-intensive. Once the general shape was achieved, they used smaller hammerstones of sarsen or flint to more finely smooth the surfaces.

The visual refinements are subtle but impressive. The upright stones of the outer circle taper slightly towards the top, and they have a slight convex bulge in the middle, a technique known as entasis, which the ancient Greeks would later use on their temples to correct optical illusions and make the columns appear straight. The lintel stones are not simple rectangles; they are curved to follow the line of the circle. Each element was carefully designed to create a cohesive and visually impressive whole.

The Art of Prehistoric Joinery

The most extraordinary feature of the sarsen construction is the use of joinery techniques borrowed directly from woodworking. The builders were not content to simply balance the lintels on top of the uprights; they locked them together.

The lintels of the outer circle were joined to the uprights using mortise and tenon joints. A projecting peg (the tenon) was carved on the top of each upright, which fitted into a corresponding hole (the mortise) carved into the underside of the lintel. To connect the lintels to each other in a continuous ring, they used tongue and groove joints. A vertical tongue was carved down one end of a lintel, and this fitted into a corresponding groove on the end of the next lintel. This interlocking system made the structure incredibly stable.

The great trilithons also used mortise and tenon joints, with two tenons on each upright connecting to two mortises on the giant lintel. This level of stoneworking is unique in prehistoric Europe. It shows that the designers were thinking like carpenters but working in stone. They were not just building; they were creating architecture.

Raising the Stones

Erecting the stones was the final engineering challenge. The uprights were likely raised using a combination of ramps, levers, and sheer manpower. A large pit would have been dug for the base of the stone, with one side cut as a gentle slope. The stone would be hauled until its base slid down the slope into the pit. Then, using wooden A-frames and ropes, hundreds of people would have pulled the stone into a vertical position. Once upright, the pit would be backfilled with rubble to secure it.

Lifting the lintels into place, some 4 meters (13 feet) off the ground, was even more difficult. The most widely accepted theory is that the builders constructed massive timber platforms or cribs next to the uprights. The lintel would have been slowly raised, perhaps using levers, with each small lift being supported by adding another layer of timber to the platform. Once it reached the required height, it could be maneuvered across onto the tops of the uprights and lowered into place. The whole process required immense coordination, patience, and a deep practical understanding of mechanics. It was a slow, careful, and dangerous job, a final testament to the skill and dedication of Stonehenge’s builders.

Life and Death Around the Monument

Stonehenge did not exist in isolation. It was the centerpiece of a rich and dynamic ritual landscape, populated by the living and the dead. To understand Stonehenge, we must look beyond the stone circle to the surrounding area, which was teeming with activity. Recent archaeological work, especially at the nearby sites of Durrington Walls and Woodhenge, has revolutionized our understanding of how the monument was used. It appears that Stonehenge was part of a much larger ceremonial complex, one that separated the domains of the living and the dead, connected by the River Avon and processional avenues.

Durrington Walls and the Village of the Builders

Just 3 kilometers (2 miles) north-east of Stonehenge lies Durrington Walls, one of the largest henge enclosures in Britain. For a long time, it was a little-understood earthwork, but excavations in the 21st century have revealed its importance. Durrington Walls was a place of the living, a massive settlement that was occupied seasonally, likely during the time of Stonehenge’s main sarsen construction phase around 2500 BC.

Archaeologists have uncovered the floors of hundreds of small houses within the henge. These were simple, square dwellings with central hearths, their walls likely made of wattle and daub. The sheer scale of the settlement suggests that thousands of people gathered here. Analysis of animal bones found at the site provides a clue as to what they were doing. The remains are overwhelmingly from pigs, and the age profile of the animals indicates they were killed during mid-winter and mid-summer feasts. This was a place for massive ceremonial gatherings, where people from across the region came together to feast and to work on the great construction project at Stonehenge. It’s widely believed that this was the village of the builders.

Inside Durrington Walls, there were also large timber circles, similar to the ones from Stonehenge’s second phase. The most prominent of these, the Southern Circle, was oriented towards the midwinter sunrise. This creates a fascinating symmetry with Stonehenge, which is oriented towards the midsummer sunrise. This has led to a compelling theory about the relationship between the two sites. Durrington Walls, with its timber structures (associated with the living) and its midwinter alignment (a time of darkness and feasting), was the land of the living. Stonehenge, with its permanent stone structures (associated with the ancestors) and its midsummer alignment (a time of light and new life), was the land of the dead.

The two sites were connected. A broad, paved avenue led from the Southern Circle at Durrington Walls down to the River Avon. The Avenue at Stonehenge also leads down to the river. The River Avon acted as a conduit, a ceremonial route connecting the world of the living at Durrington Walls with the world of the ancestors at Stonehenge. People may have held processions, perhaps carrying the dead or representations of the ancestors, from one site to the other via the river.

A Place for the Dead: Burials at Stonehenge

From its very inception, Stonehenge was associated with human remains. The first phase of the monument was, in effect, a large cremation cemetery. The 56 Aubrey Holes and the ditch contained the cremated bones of at least 60 individuals, and likely many more. The practice of cremation suggests a specific set of beliefs about the transition from life to death, perhaps involving the transformative power of fire to release the spirit. The placement of these remains within the great circular enclosure suggests they were the founding ancestors of the community, their presence sanctifying the site.

As the monument developed, the nature of burial changed. During the stone phases, inhumation (the burial of the complete body) became more common in the wider landscape. The area around Stonehenge is dotted with hundreds of round barrows, the burial mounds of the Bronze Age. These are quite different from the communal long barrows of the earlier Neolithic. Round barrows typically contain the remains of a single individual, often accompanied by rich grave goods like pottery beakers, bronze daggers, and gold ornaments.

This marks a social shift, from the collective identity of the early farming communities to a more hierarchical society where individual status and power were important. The people buried in these barrows were the new elite of the Bronze Age. They chose to be buried in sight of Stonehenge, using the ancient monument to legitimize their own power and connect their lineage to the sacred authority of the past. One of the most famous of these burials is that of the Amesbury Archer, a man buried about 5 kilometers from Stonehenge around 2300 BC. His grave contained the richest collection of objects from this period ever found in Britain, including copper knives, flint arrowheads, and the country’s first gold objects. Isotope analysis of his tooth enamel revealed that he was a migrant, having grown up in the alpine region of central Europe. His presence shows that Stonehenge was not a remote, isolated place, but was known across Europe, drawing people and new technologies to its sphere of influence.

Even though new burials were not placed within Stonehenge itself during the Bronze Age, the monument was clearly the focal point of a vast cemetery landscape that grew up around it over a thousand years. It had become a city of the dead, a place where the memory of the ancestors was anchored in stone and earth.

Feasting and Gathering

The evidence from Durrington Walls shows that massive feasts were a central part of the ritual calendar. The sheer quantity of pig bones—estimated to be from over 1,000 animals at some gatherings—indicates feasting on an industrial scale. This wasn’t just about feeding the workforce. Feasting is a powerful social mechanism. It brings people together, creates obligations, and displays wealth and power. The organizers of these feasts would have been important leaders, capable of commanding the resources and loyalty of a large population.

The feasts likely coincided with key moments in the solar calendar, particularly the winter and summer solstices. People would travel great distances to participate. Isotope analysis of cattle teeth from the site shows that the animals were brought from as far away as Scotland. These gatherings were not local affairs; they were huge, inter-regional events. They were opportunities to exchange goods, share knowledge, arrange alliances, and participate in the collective religious experience centered on the building and use of the great monuments.

While the main feasting site was at Durrington Walls, some evidence of feasting has also been found closer to Stonehenge. The landscape between the two sites was likely a hive of activity during these festival periods. The construction of Stonehenge cannot be separated from these social gatherings. The monument was both a cause and a consequence of this intense social energy. It was the physical embodiment of the community’s collective power and religious devotion, a project that bound people together through shared work, shared ceremony, and shared celebration.

What Was It For? Exploring the Purpose of Stonehenge

For centuries, people have asked the same question: why was Stonehenge built? Without any written records from its creators, there can be no definitive answer. through careful archaeological investigation, scientific analysis, and an understanding of the wider prehistoric context, we can explore several overlapping theories. Stonehenge was likely not built for a single purpose but was a multi-functional site whose meaning and use changed over its long history. It was a place that integrated the cycles of the heavens with the lives of people on earth, a place of ceremony, of healing, and of the ancestors.

A Temple to the Sun and Moon: Archaeoastronomy

The most famous and widely accepted interpretation of Stonehenge is that it was an astronomical observatory, a temple aligned with the movements of the sun and moon. The study of the astronomical alignments of ancient sites is known as archaeoastronomy.

The primary alignment of Stonehenge is unmistakable. The entire monument is oriented on the solar axis of the solstices. An observer standing in the center of the stone circle on the longest day of the year, the midsummer solstice, can watch the sun rise almost directly over the Heel Stone, which stands outside the main entrance along the Avenue. On the shortest day of the year, the midwinter solstice, the setting sun aligns in the opposite direction, framed perfectly by the uprights of the Great Trilithon at the head of the sarsen horseshoe.

This solar alignment is too precise to be a coincidence. It was clearly a deliberate and fundamental part of the monument’s design. The solstices were important moments in the agricultural year, marking the turning points of the seasons. For early farming communities, tracking the sun’s progress would have been essential for knowing when to plant and when to harvest. The solstices were also likely powerful moments in their religious calendar, celebrated with rituals and feasts, as the evidence from Durrington Walls suggests. Stonehenge provided a monumental stage for these events, a place where the architecture of humans mirrored the architecture of the cosmos.

Some researchers have proposed even more complex astronomical functions for Stonehenge. It has been suggested that the monument could have been used to predict eclipses of the sun and moon. Theories, for example, have linked the 56 Aubrey Holes to cycles of lunar eclipses. While these ideas are intriguing, they are more difficult to prove than the primary solar alignment. The solar connection is built into the very fabric of the monument’s layout, while the lunar and eclipse theories rely on more complex numerical interpretations that may or may not have been intended by the builders. What is certain is that the builders of Stonehenge had a deep and sophisticated knowledge of the sun’s annual cycle and deliberately oriented their greatest monument to celebrate its most important moments.

A Place of Healing: The Bluestone Mystery

A more recent theory has focused on the potential role of Stonehenge as a place of healing. This idea stems primarily from the mystery of the bluestones. Why would a community expend such a colossal amount of effort to transport these specific stones all the way from the Preseli Hills in Wales? The answer, some archaeologists argue, may lie in a belief that the stones themselves possessed curative powers.

The evidence for this theory is circumstantial but compelling. In folklore, the springs that rise in the Preseli Hills have long been associated with healing properties. It’s possible that these beliefs stretch back into prehistory. The bluestones may have been seen as the physical embodiment of this healing power, brought to the center of the ritual world on Salisbury Plain to serve the needs of a wider population.

Supporting this idea is the evidence from burials around Stonehenge. A number of the skeletons found in the area show signs of serious injury or illness. The Amesbury Archer had a badly damaged knee that would have caused him to walk with a severe limp. Another nearby burial, of the “Boscombe Bowmen,” contained individuals who had also traveled a great distance. It’s possible that these people were making a pilgrimage to Stonehenge in search of a cure. The monument may have functioned as a prehistoric Lourdes, a place where the sick and injured came in the hope of being healed by the magical properties of the bluestones. This theory doesn’t contradict the astronomical interpretation; it complements it. The healing rituals may have been timed to coincide with the solstices or other auspicious celestial events, when the power of the site was believed to be at its peak.

A Symbol of Unity and Power

The construction of Stonehenge, particularly the sarsen phase, required the mobilization of a huge workforce and the coordination of communities across a wide region. Building the monument was a massive social undertaking that would have required a powerful political or religious authority to organize. In this sense, Stonehenge can be seen as a statement of power and a symbol of unity.

The act of bringing together people from different regions to work on a shared project would have helped to create a common identity. The evidence that the feasting animals at Durrington Walls came from all over Britain suggests that Stonehenge was a project of national, or at least pan-regional, significance. By contributing to the building of the monument, different groups cemented alliances and became part of a larger social and religious network.

The monument itself, with its sophisticated design and imposing scale, would have been a powerful symbol of the abilities and beliefs of its creators. It demonstrated their capacity to tame the natural world, to move mountains of stone, and to create a structure that reflected cosmic order. For the leaders who organized its construction, Stonehenge was a way to legitimize their authority. It was a permanent declaration of their connection to the gods, the ancestors, and the cosmos itself. It became the central place for the most important ceremonies, the political and religious capital of southern Britain in the late Neolithic.

A Domain of the Ancestors

Perhaps the most fundamental purpose of Stonehenge, one that underlies all the others, was its role as a place for and of the ancestors. From its earliest phase as a cremation cemetery, the site was dedicated to the dead. The permanent, enduring nature of stone was likely seen as the appropriate material for the world of the ancestors, in contrast to the perishable timber used for the world of the living at Durrington Walls.

Stonehenge was a place where the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the spirits was thin. The alignments to the solstices may have been seen as moments when this boundary was particularly permeable, when the ancestors could be contacted or when their presence was most strongly felt. The processions along the Avenue and the River Avon may have been rituals that re-enacted the journey from life to death, moving from the domain of the living at Durrington Walls to the stone domain of the ancestors at Stonehenge.

The monument was not just a tomb or a temple. It was an interface. It anchored the community’s ancestors to a specific place in the landscape, creating a powerful link between the past and the present. By honoring the ancestors at Stonehenge, the living renewed their connection to their heritage, their land, and the cosmic forces that governed their world. It was a way of ensuring continuity, of maintaining social order, and of guaranteeing the fertility of the land and the prosperity of the people. This focus on ancestry likely remained central to the monument’s purpose throughout its long history, providing the deep cultural foundation upon which its other functions as an astronomical calendar, a center of healing, and a symbol of power were built.

From Antiquity to the Present: A History of Stonehenge

The story of Stonehenge did not end when the last stone was raised. For thousands of years after its construction ceased, the monument has continued to exert a powerful pull on the human imagination. It has been interpreted and reinterpreted by successive cultures, from Roman souvenir hunters to medieval magicians, and from Enlightenment antiquarians to modern-day druids. Its journey through history is as fascinating as the story of its creation, reflecting our changing relationship with the past and our enduring quest to understand this enigmatic place.

The Roman Encounter

By the time the Romans arrived in Britain in 43 AD, Stonehenge was already an ancient ruin, over 1,500 years old. The local Britons of the Iron Age still held the monument in some reverence, and there is evidence of ritual activity at the site during this period. The Romans, with their own tradition of stone temples, were clearly fascinated by it.

Archaeological finds from the Roman period at and around Stonehenge include coins, pottery, jewelry, and metalwork. These items are not from a settlement but suggest that the site was a destination for visitors, perhaps functioning as a tourist attraction or a religious shrine. The Romans may have associated Stonehenge with their own deities or with the practices of the native druids, whom they both feared and respected. Some of the bluestones show signs of having been chipped away at, possibly by Roman visitors taking souvenirs. While they did not add to the structure, the Romans recognized Stonehenge as a place of ancient power and importance, a mysterious relic from a past far more distant than their own.

Medieval Myths and Legends

After the Romans departed and Britain entered the Early Middle Ages, historical knowledge of Stonehenge’s origins was lost. It became a subject of myth and legend, a place explained through stories of magic and giants. The most enduring of these tales came from the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain.

Geoffrey wove Stonehenge into the legend of King Arthur. He claimed the monument was not built by Neolithic people but by the wizard Merlin. According to the story, a group of British nobles had been treacherously massacred, and their king, Aurelius Ambrosius, wanted to create a fitting memorial. Merlin advised him to bring a magical stone circle known as the Giants’ Dance from Ireland. These stones, Merlin explained, had healing properties. After the Britons failed to move the stones, Merlin used his magical arts to transport them across the sea and re-erect them on Salisbury Plain precisely as they had stood in Ireland. The monument was named Stonehenge because of the hanging lintel stones. Later, the great kings Aurelius, Uther Pendragon, and Constantine were said to be buried there.

This story, though entirely fictional, was hugely influential. For centuries, it was accepted as the true origin of Stonehenge. It linked the monument to the heroic age of Arthurian legend and imbued it with an aura of magic and mystery that persists to this day. The legend even contains a faint echo of the truth—the idea of stones being brought from a great distance and possessing healing powers.

The Antiquarians and Early Archaeology

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment brought a new spirit of scientific inquiry. Scholars and antiquarians began to look at Stonehenge with fresh eyes, seeking a more rational explanation for its origins. The architect Inigo Jones, commissioned by King James I in the 1620s, surveyed the monument and concluded its elegant geometry and classical proportions meant it must have been a Roman temple dedicated to the sky god Caelus.

In the late 17th century, John Aubrey conducted the first methodical survey of the site. He correctly dismissed the Roman theory and proposed that Stonehenge and other stone circles were temples built by the ancient British priests, the Druids. He was the first to record the ring of 56 pits that now bear his name. The association with the Druids was popularized in the 18th century by William Stukeley, another dedicated field archaeologist. Stukeley made detailed and accurate plans of Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape, and he was the first to recognize the monument’s alignment with the solstices. His work laid the foundations for the astronomical interpretation of the site. Although we now know Stonehenge was built thousands of years before the Iron Age Druids, his romantic image of robed priests performing solar ceremonies at the monument has proven incredibly powerful and enduring.

The 19th and early 20th centuries saw the first scientific excavations. William Cunnington and Richard Colt Hoare dug into many of the barrows around Stonehenge, establishing a basic chronology for the site. In the early 20th century, Professor William Gowland conducted the first major restoration work, re-erecting a leaning sarsen upright and its lintel in 1901. His excavations of the ground beneath the stone provided the first clear archaeological evidence for the use of stone tools in shaping the megaliths, finally proving its prehistoric origins. Further major excavations and restorations were carried out by William Hawley in the 1920s and by Richard Atkinson, Stuart Piggott, and John F. S. Stone in the mid-20th century. Their work established the phased construction sequence of the monument that is still broadly accepted today.

The Modern Era: Restoration and Research

By the 20th century, Stonehenge was in a state of considerable disrepair. Several stones had fallen, and unrestricted access by the public was causing erosion. In 1918, the site was gifted to the nation. Throughout the century, several restoration projects were undertaken to secure the stones. A fallen trilithon was re-erected in 1958, and other stones were set in concrete to prevent them from falling. While these interventions were necessary for safety and conservation, they have been criticized for altering the monument’s authentic state.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries have been a golden age for Stonehenge research. New scientific techniques have revolutionized our understanding. Radiocarbon dating has provided a much more precise timeline for the construction phases. Isotope analysis of human and animal remains has revealed the vast geographic origins of the people and animals who came to the site. And geophysical surveys and landscape projects, like the Stonehenge Riverside Project, have mapped the surrounding area in unprecedented detail, revealing dozens of previously unknown Neolithic and Bronze Age features and placing Stonehenge within its rich ceremonial context. This research has shifted the focus from the monument in isolation to its relationship with Durrington Walls, the River Avon, and the wider landscape of Salisbury Plain.

Stonehenge Today: A World Heritage Site

Today, Stonehenge is managed by English Heritage, and the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust. It is one of the most famous and popular tourist destinations in the world, attracting over a million visitors each year. In 1986, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognizing its outstanding universal value.

Managing such an iconic site presents many challenges. Balancing visitor access with the conservation of the fragile archaeology is a constant concern. For many years, the experience was marred by the proximity of two busy roads, the A303 and A344. A new visitor center was opened in 2013, located 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) away, to restore a sense of dignity and landscape context to the monument. The A344, which ran right past the Heel Stone, has been closed and grassed over, returning the approach to something more like its original state. Controversial plans to put the busy A303 into a tunnel as it passes the site continue to be debated.

Stonehenge also remains a place of deep spiritual significance. Modern Druid and Pagan groups celebrate the summer and winter solstices there, continuing a tradition of ceremony and reverence that connects them, at least in spirit, to the monument’s ancient past. Stonehenge is not just a relic of a bygone age. It is a living part of our cultural heritage, a place that continues to inspire awe, wonder, and a significant sense of connection to the deep history of humanity. Its stones may be silent, but they continue to tell a powerful story.

Summary

Stonehenge is far more than an isolated circle of stones. It is the culminating achievement of a long tradition of monumental building by the Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples of Britain. Constructed and modified over a period of 1,500 years, from roughly 3100 BC to 1600 BC, it represents a massive investment of labor, ingenuity, and social organization. Its story begins not with stones, but with a great earthwork enclosure, a henge that served as a cemetery for cremated remains, establishing the site as a sacred domain of the ancestors.

The monument evolved through a phase of complex timber structures before its builders embarked on the ambitious project of creating a temple of stone. They undertook an epic journey to transport the bluestones over 240 kilometers from the Preseli Hills in Wales, perhaps believing them to possess healing or magical properties. They then hauled the colossal sarsen stones from the Marlborough Downs, shaping and dressing them with unprecedented skill. Using sophisticated woodworking joints rendered in stone, they created the iconic outer circle and inner horseshoe of trilithons, a masterpiece of prehistoric engineering.

Stonehenge was the center of a vast ritual landscape. It was connected, likely by the River Avon, to the contemporary settlement at Durrington Walls, a place of the living where the monument’s builders feasted and gathered. The complex seems to have been organized around the cycles of the sun. Durrington Walls aligned with the midwinter sunrise, while Stonehenge famously aligns with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset. This celestial alignment suggests its function as a ceremonial calendar, marking the turning of the seasons.

The purpose of Stonehenge was likely multi-faceted. It was an astronomical observatory, a temple to the sun, and a center for great ceremonies. It may have been a place of healing, drawing people from across Britain and even continental Europe. It was also a powerful political symbol, a declaration of unity and power by the communities who built it. Above all, it was a domain of the ancestors, a permanent stone portal where the worlds of the living and the dead could meet. After its construction ceased, Stonehenge was never forgotten. It has been a source of myth, wonder, and scientific inquiry for millennia, reflecting our enduring fascination with the deep past and the remarkable achievements of our ancestors.