A striking new reconstruction has offered the clearest look yet at how Stonehenge may have been built.
Produced by English Heritage using laser-scan evidence alongside archaeological findings, the image is being described as the most precise and richly detailed recreation of the monument’s construction to date.
The Stonehenge visible today was developed over roughly 1,500 years, between about 3100 BC and 1600 BC, though the visual centres on the major building phase around 2500 BC.
Experts believe hundreds of workers would have gathered to drag, lift and position the huge sarsen stones that now define the famous circular monument.
The people behind the landmark also appear to have relied on clever tools and practical engineering methods to help manage the immense challenge.
Those efforts helped turn Stonehenge from a modest arrangement of earthworks and timber posts into ancient Britain’s most elaborate ceremonial site.
Dr Susan Greaney, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter who contributed to the reconstruction, told the Daily Mail: ‘In this new reconstruction, the sarsens are being raised into place by chocking them up on a pile of boulders, smaller sarsens and hammerstones, rather than the A–frame and weights seen in other reconstructions.
‘This is based on some evidence for how the Easter Island statues were raised, which are a similar weight and size.’
Created by English Heritage based on laser scan data and archaeological research, this is the most accurate and detailed reconstruction ever made
New research suggests that the large sarsen stones were raised by propping them up with piles of rubble
This stunning reconstruction, created for the book Stonehenge: The Story of an Icon, shows the builders transporting the enormous ‘sarsen’ stones to the site on the Salisbury Plain.
These are the largest and most recognisable stones in Stonehenge, forming both the standing pillars and the horizontal ‘lintels’ that cap the arches.
Archaeologists believe that they would have been taken from the edge of the Marlborough Downs, located about 15 miles to the North.
With the largest of these stones weighing over 36 tonnes and measuring seven metres long, moving these would have been an enormous task.
More than 150 people might have worked together to pull a single stone along a track made of timber greased with animal fat.
However, researchers say this is not necessarily because the task was so difficult, but because pulling the stones was part of a celebration.
Professor Duncan Garrow, an archaeologist from Durham University, co–curated a new digital exhibition on the monument with the British Museum, called The Virtual World of Stonehenge.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘People get really into building monuments in the Neolithic period, and Stonehenge is the peak of that.
Archaeologists believe that the building of Stonehenge might have been even more important than the finished project, serving as a way of bringing the community together. Illustrated: A Neolithic man explains Stonehenge’s construction to children
‘It helped the community come together, so building it was very much part of the meaning and the purpose.’
Once the stones made it to the site, they still needed to be expertly shaped.
The ground at Salisbury Plain isn’t exactly level, so each stone had to be precisely cut to the right height, and archaeologists have found piles of waste stone chips nearby.
Finally, the outer circle was topped with the lintels that formed a smooth, continuous ring around the entire structure.
While the Neolithic is known as the Stone Age, the people of this time were actually far more familiar with woodworking than stone carving.
This expertise can be seen in the traditional woodworking techniques used to fasten the lintels, with each massive stone being secured with dovetail joints and mortise and tenon fittings.
Archaeologists believe that building Stonehenge would have taken around five and a half million hours of labour – with four and a half million of those spent on the large sarsen stones.
Of course, the most impressive aspect of this gargantuan construction project is that Stonehenge aligns perfectly with the movements of the sun.
The large lintels were lifted into position by building timber platforms. Each lintel was then fitted with a mortise and tenon joint
The summer solstice sunrise perfectly aligns with the outlying Heel Stone, while the winter solstice sun sets directly between the uprights of the tallest Trilithon.
While earlier structures such as long barrows were built to align with the sunrise or sunset, this is the first structure that ‘points’ at the solstice.
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Professor Garrow says: ‘Once people started farming during the Neolithic period, they had more invested in planting crops, so it was a bigger deal if the harvest failed.
‘So, good weather and a good year of sunshine and rain to make the crops grow become more important, and that escalated into a kind of religious focus on the sunshine.’
It is thought that this was centred around enormous gatherings around the summer and winter solstice, involving hundreds to thousands of people from all around the country.
Archaeologists believe that the Stonehenge builders stayed at the nearby site of Durrington Walls, one of the largest henges in Britain, measuring 500 metres across.
Excavations have evidence of mass feasting, with chemical analysis of pig bones and animal teeth revealing that these animals had been transported from as far as Scotland and west Wales.
Dr Matt Leivers, senior research manager, Wessex Archaeology, told the Daily Mail: ‘Further away, very large numbers of people gathered for feasts, and we can imagine opportunities for things like exchange of foreign objects, marriage partners, settling of disputes, competition, games, all that sort of thing.’
However, while the gatherings near Stonehenge would have been ‘seasonal fairs’, the focus at the circle itself would have been religious.
‘It was essentially a cathedral,’ says Dr Leivers.
‘Imagine Salisbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey. It’s the single crowning achievement of the expression of Neolithic religion in the English south.’
Exactly what those ritual gatherings would have looked like is hard to say, but researchers are now beginning to piece together a few scant clues.
Dr Leivers says: ‘The evidence from Stonehenge tells us that there probably wasn’t a lot done inside the circles that left a lot of material behind – so imagine that as a sacred centre.
‘Most people would have been gathered outside the circles, watching, praying, celebrating – maybe singing, drumming, or maybe in silence.’
The Stonehenge monument standing today was the final stage of a four part building project that ended 3,500 years ago
Stonehenge is one of the most prominent prehistoric monuments in Britain. The Stonehenge that can be seen today is the final stage that was completed about 3,500 years ago.
According to the monument’s website, Stonehenge was built in four stages:
First stage: The first version of Stonehenge was a large earthwork or Henge, comprising a ditch, bank and the Aubrey holes, all probably built around 3100 BC.
The Aubrey holes are round pits in the chalk, about one metre (3.3 feet) wide and deep, with steep sides and flat bottoms.
Stonehenge (pictured) is one of the most prominent prehistoric monuments in Britain
They form a circle about 86.6 metres (284 feet) in diameter.
Excavations revealed cremated human bones in some of the chalk filling, but the holes themselves were likely not made to be used as graves, but as part of a religious ceremony.
After this first stage, Stonehenge was abandoned and left untouched for more than 1,000 years.
Second stage: The second and most dramatic stage of Stonehenge started around 2150 years BC, when about 82 bluestones from the Preseli mountains in south-west Wales were transported to the site. It’s thought that the stones, some of which weigh four tonnes each, were dragged on rollers and sledges to the waters at Milford Haven, where they were loaded onto rafts.
They were carried on water along the south coast of Wales and up the rivers Avon and Frome, before being dragged overland again near Warminster and Wiltshire.
The final stage of the journey was mainly by water, down the river Wylye to Salisbury, then the Salisbury Avon to west Amesbury.
The journey spanned nearly 240 miles, and once at the site, the stones were set up in the centre to form an incomplete double circle.
During the same period, the original entrance was widened and a pair of Heel Stones were erected. The nearer part of the Avenue, connecting Stonehenge with the River Avon, was built aligned with the midsummer sunrise.
Third stage: The third stage of Stonehenge, which took place about 2000 years BC, saw the arrival of the sarsen stones (a type of sandstone), which were larger than the bluestones.
They were likely brought from the Marlborough Downs (40 kilometres, or 25 miles, north of Stonehenge).
The largest of the sarsen stones transported to Stonehenge weighs 50 tonnes, and transportation by water would not have been possible, so it’s suspected that they were transported using sledges and ropes.
Calculations have shown that it would have taken 500 men using leather ropes to pull one stone, with an extra 100 men needed to lay the rollers in front of the sledge.
These stones were arranged in an outer circle with a continuous run of lintels – horizontal supports.
Inside the circle, five trilithons – structures consisting of two upright stones and a third across the top as a lintel – were placed in a horseshoe arrangement, which can still be seen today.
Final stage: The fourth and final stage took place just after 1500 years BC, when the smaller bluestones were rearranged in the horseshoe and circle that can be seen today.
The original number of stones in the bluestone circle was probably around 60, but these have since been removed or broken up. Some remain as stumps below ground level.
Source: Stonehenge.co.uk
