A disturbance is any change to an archaeological site due to events which occurred after the site was laid down. Disturbances may be caused by natural events or human activity, and may result in loss of archaeological value. In some cases, it can be difficult to distinguish between features caused by human activity in the period of interest, and features caused by later human activity or natural processes.
127-460: Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire , England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury . It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones , each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones, held in place with mortise and tenon joints,
254-513: A "loud clanging noise". Rocks with such acoustic properties are frequent in the Carn Melyn ridge of Presili; the Presili village of Maenclochog (Welsh for bell or ringing stones) used local bluestones as church bells until the 18th century. According to the team, these acoustic properties could explain why certain bluestones were hauled such a long distance, a major technical accomplishment at
381-592: A common impurity. Tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before 3000 BCE. The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system for prehistoric societies. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world. While copper is a common ore, deposits of tin are rare in the Old World , and often had to be traded or carried considerable distances from
508-563: A feature unique among contemporary monuments. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones . Inside these are free-standing trilithons , two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice . The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds). Stonehenge
635-610: A given site must be familiar with the processes in play at that site to avoid the risk of misinterpretation. In some environments, animal activity can completely turn over the surface soil in as few as five to six years. The activity of earthworms , in particular, can contribute to the burial, and thus preservation, of artifacts dropped on the ground – but it also frequently blurs boundaries between natural and culturally disturbed soils, and can erase vertical stratification used for dating . Frost heaving may cause artifacts to rise or fall, depending on their heat conductivity , which
762-413: A large entrance to the north east and a smaller one to the south. It stood in open grassland on a slightly sloping spot. The builders placed the bones of deer and oxen in the bottom of the ditch, as well as some worked flint tools. The bones were considerably older than the antler picks used to dig the ditch, and the people who buried them had looked after them for some time prior to burial. The ditch
889-674: A much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe , societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours that are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000 BCE (6,000 BP ) in northern Europe. Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens . In forested areas,
1016-465: A natural tree throw ), which date to around 8000 BC, beneath the nearby old tourist car park in use until 2013. These held pine posts around two feet six inches (0.75 m) in diameter, which were erected and eventually rotted in place. Three of the posts (and possibly four) were in an east–west alignment which may have had ritual significance. Another Mesolithic astronomical site in Britain
1143-573: A procession route on the longest and shortest days of the year. Parker Pearson speculates that the wooden circle at Durrington Walls was the centre of a 'land of the living', whilst the stone circle represented a 'land of the dead', with the Avon serving as a journey between the two. Later in the Bronze Age , although the exact details of activities during this period are still unclear, the bluestones appear to have been re-erected. They were placed within
1270-410: A ring of 30 lintel stones resting on top. The lintels were fitted to one another using tongue and groove joints – a woodworking method, again. Each standing stone was around 13.5 feet (4.11 m) high, 7.0 feet (2.13 m) wide, and 3.5 feet (1.06 m) deep, weighing around 26 tons. Each had clearly been worked with the final visual effect in mind: The orthostats widen slightly towards
1397-592: A second group brought from Wales. All the stones formed well-spaced uprights without any of the linking lintels inferred in Stonehenge 3 III. The Altar Stone may have been moved within the oval at this time and re-erected vertically. Although this would seem the most impressive phase of work, Stonehenge 3 IV was rather shabbily built compared to its immediate predecessors, as the newly re-installed bluestones were not well-founded and began to fall over. However, only minor changes were made after this phase. Soon afterwards,
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#17327731501751524-440: A similar size. The most common theory of how prehistoric people moved megaliths has them creating a track of logs which the large stones were rolled along. Another megalith transport theory involves the use of a type of sleigh running on a track greased with animal fat. An experiment with a sleigh carrying a 40-ton slab of stone was successfully conducted near Stonehenge in 1995; a team of more than 100 workers managed to push and pull
1651-654: A single room. Settlements might have a surrounding stone wall to keep domesticated animals in and hostile tribes out. Later settlements have rectangular mud-brick houses where the family lived in single or multiple rooms. Burial findings suggest an ancestor cult with preserved skulls of the dead. The Vinča culture may have created the earliest system of writing. The megalithic temple complexes of Ġgantija are notable for their gigantic structures. Although some late Eurasian Neolithic societies formed complex stratified chiefdoms or even states, states evolved in Eurasia only with
1778-749: A single source. The emergence of metallurgy may have occurred first in the Fertile Crescent , where it gave rise to the Bronze Age in the 4th millennium BCE (the traditional view), although finds from the Vinča culture in Europe have now been securely dated to slightly earlier than those of the Fertile Crescent. Timna Valley contains evidence of copper mining 7,000 years ago. The process of transition from Neolithic to Chalcolithic in
1905-780: A source of Stonehenge's bluestone, indicating that the bluestone was quarried by human agency and not transported by glacial action. The long-distance human transport theory was bolstered in 2011 by the discovery of a megalithic bluestone quarry at Craig Rhos-y-felin , near Crymych in Pembrokeshire, which is the most likely place for some of the stones to have been obtained. Other standing stones may well have been small sarsens (sandstone), used later as lintels. The stones, which weighed about two tons, could have been moved by lifting and carrying them on rows of poles and rectangular frameworks of poles, as recorded in China, Japan and India. It
2032-581: A stone circle of identical size to the first known Stonehenge circle (110m) at the Welsh site of Waun Mawn in the Preseli Hills . It had contained bluestones, one of which showed evidence of having been reused in Stonehenge. The stone was identified by its unusual pentagonal shape and by luminescence soil dating from the filled-in sockets which showed the circle had been erected around 3400–3200 BC, and dismantled around 300–400 years later, consistent with
2159-571: Is Warren Field in Aberdeenshire , which is considered the world's oldest lunisolar calendar , corrected yearly by observing the midwinter solstice . Similar but later sites have been found in Scandinavia . A settlement that may have been contemporaneous with the posts has been found at Blick Mead , a reliable year-round spring one mile (1.6 km) from Stonehenge. Salisbury Plain was then still wooded, but, 4,000 years later, during
2286-476: Is a function of material. Freeze-thaw cycles can also disturb soils in several other ways, collectively called cryoturbation . Downhill creep may sort artifacts by mass or density, as may flooding. Drying of clays may cause deep cracks that are subsequently filled with surface material. Wetting and drying of clay may cause rocks to migrate to the surface. The action of winds on soil is especially common in desert environments. Anthropogenic climate change
2413-496: Is a holdover from antiquarian use. Mike Parker Pearson , leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project based around Durrington Walls , noted that Stonehenge appears to have been associated with burial from the earliest period of its existence: Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid third millennium B.C. The cremation burial dating to Stonehenge's sarsen stones phase
2540-800: Is also a transition period between Stone Age and Bronze Age, the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. For the prehistory of the Americas see Pre-Columbian era . The notion of "prehistory" emerged during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word "primitive" to describe societies that existed before written records. The word "prehistory" first appeared in English in 1836 in the Foreign Quarterly Review . The geologic time scale for pre-human time periods, and
2667-619: Is also reflected in a general 'resurgence' of hunter-gatherer ancestry, predominantly from males, across western and central Europe in the Middle Neolithic. At the time the megalithic Stonehenge 3 II was constructed (2600–2400 BC) by Neolithic people, the Bell Beaker people arrived, around 2,500 BC, migrating from mainland Europe. They lived side by side for ca. 500 years, with the Bell Beaker people probably incorporating
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#17327731501752794-490: Is altering, and in some cases accelerating, natural disturbance processes. At Nunalleq on the southwest coast of Alaska , a four-century-old Yup'ik site is under threat from the thawing of permafrost and rising storm surges of the Bering Sea . The permafrost had preserved items normally subject to rapid decomposition, including wooden objects and grass-woven baskets and mats. Since excavation at Nunalleq began in 2009,
2921-516: Is an example. In archaeology, the Iron Age refers to the advent of ferrous metallurgy . The adoption of iron coincided with other changes, often including more sophisticated agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles, which makes the archaeological Iron Age coincide with the " Axial Age " in the history of philosophy. Although iron ore is common, the metalworking techniques necessary to use iron are different from those needed for
3048-488: Is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that prehistorians use, such as " Neanderthal " or " Iron Age ", are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. The concept of a "Stone Age" is found useful in the archaeology of most of the world, although in the archaeology of the Americas it is called by different names and begins with a Lithic stage , or sometimes Paleo-Indian . The sub-divisions described below are used for Eurasia, and not consistently across
3175-782: Is called the Lower Paleolithic (as in excavations it appears underneath the Upper Paleolithic), beginning with the earliest stone tools dated to around 3.3 million years ago at the Lomekwi site in Kenya. These tools predate the genus Homo and were probably used by Kenyanthropus . Evidence of control of fire by early hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim
3302-479: Is equivocal. Similar associations between non-cereal farming subsistence patterns and monumental construction are also seen at Poverty Point and Sannai Maruyama . Researchers studying DNA extracted from Neolithic human remains across Britain determined that the people who built Stonehenge I and II were closely related to Iberian and Central European Early and Middle Neolithic populations, modelled as having about 75% ancestry from Early European Farmers who came from
3429-447: Is likely just one of many from this later period of the monument's use and demonstrates that it was still very much a domain of the dead. Stonehenge evolved in several construction phases spanning at least 1500 years. There is evidence of large-scale construction on and around the monument that perhaps extends the landscape's time frame to 6500 years. Dating and understanding the various phases of activity are complicated by disturbance of
3556-476: Is not known whether the stones were taken directly from their quarries to Salisbury Plain or were the result of the removal of a venerated stone circle from Preseli to Salisbury Plain to "merge two sacred centres into one, to unify two politically separate regions, or to legitimise the ancestral identity of migrants moving from one region to another". Evidence of a 110-metre (360 ft) stone circle at Waun Mawn near Preseli, which could have contained some or all of
3683-558: Is provided by a wide variety of natural and social sciences, such as anthropology , archaeology , archaeoastronomy , comparative linguistics , biology , geology , molecular genetics , paleontology , palynology , physical anthropology , and many others. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology , but in the way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named nations or individuals . Restricted to material processes, remains, and artefacts rather than written records, prehistory
3810-551: Is seen as a transition period between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. An archaeological site in Serbia contains the oldest securely dated evidence of copper making at high temperature, from 7,500 years ago. The find in 2010 extends the known record of copper smelting by about 800 years, and suggests that copper smelting may have been invented independently in separate parts of Asia and Europe at that time, rather than spreading from
3937-500: Is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Ya'akov Bridge , Israel . The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, have a light source, deter animals at night and meditate. Early Homo sapiens originated some 300,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic . Anatomic changes indicating modern language capacity also arise during
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4064-489: Is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems . The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared c. 5,200 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing having spread to almost all cultures by
4191-516: Is when the first signs of human presence have been found; however, Africa and Asia contain sites dated as early as c. 2.5 and 1.8 million years ago, respectively. Depending on the date when relevant records become a useful academic resource, its end date also varies. For example, in Egypt it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3100 BCE, whereas in New Guinea
4318-708: The Copper Age or Bronze Age ; or, in some geographical regions, in the Iron Age ). The term Neolithic is commonly used in the Old World ; its application to cultures in the Americas and Oceania is complicated by the fact standard progression from stone to metal tools, as seen in the Old World, does not neatly apply. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat , millet and spelt , and
4445-480: The Middle Ages and since then it has been studied and adopted by numerous groups. Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records. Many aspects of Stonehenge, such as how it was built and for what purposes it was used, remain subject to debate. A number of myths surround the stones. The site, specifically the great trilithon, the encompassing horseshoe arrangement of the five central trilithons,
4572-531: The Paleolithic , by the Neolithic only Homo sapiens sapiens remained. This was a period of technological and social developments which established most of the basic elements of historical cultures, such as the domestication of crops and animals , and the establishment of permanent settlements and early chiefdoms. The era commenced with the beginning of farming , which produced the " Neolithic Revolution ". It ended when metal tools became widespread (in
4699-621: The Preseli hills of southwestern Wales, about 140 miles (230 km) from the monument. The sandstone Altar Stone may have originated in east Wales. Analysis published in 2020 indicates the sarsens came from West Woods , about 16 miles (26 km) from the monument. Researchers from the Royal College of Art in London have discovered that the monument's igneous bluestones possess "unusual acoustic properties" – when struck they respond with
4826-462: The River Avon . The timber circle was orientated towards the rising Sun on the midwinter solstice , opposing the solar alignments at Stonehenge. The avenue was aligned with the setting Sun on the summer solstice and led from the river to the timber circle. Evidence of huge fires on the banks of the Avon between the two avenues also suggests that both circles were linked. They were perhaps used as
4953-904: The Senni Beds , perhaps from 50 miles (80 kilometres) east of the Preseli Hills in the Brecon Beacons. Work announced in 2024 by a team from Curtin University , who analysed the chemical composition of fragments of rock that had fallen off the Altar Stone, and dated them, found that the best match was with rocks in the Orcadian Basin (which includes Caithness , Orkney , and the Moray Firth regions of north-eastern Scotland). The researchers stated that this implies
5080-521: The Society of Antiquaries of London , and Timothy Darvill , of Bournemouth University , have suggested that Stonehenge was a place of healing—the primeval equivalent of Lourdes . They argue that this accounts for the high number of burials in the area and for the evidence of trauma deformity in some of the graves. However, they do concede that the site was probably multifunctional and used for ancestor worship as well. Isotope analysis indicates that some of
5207-639: The Stonehenge Archer , discovered in the outer ditch of the monument in 1978, and the two sets of burials, known as the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen , discovered three miles (5 km) to the west. Analysis of animal teeth found two miles (3 km) away at Durrington Walls , thought by Parker Pearson to be the 'builders camp', suggests that, during some period between 2600 and 2400 BC, as many as 4,000 people gathered at
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5334-577: The Wiltshire Museum . In 1877, Charles Darwin dabbled in archaeology at the stones, experimenting with the rate at which remains sink into the earth, for his book The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms . Stone 22 fell during a fierce storm on 31 December 1900. William Gowland oversaw the first major restoration of the monument in 1901, which involved the straightening and concrete setting of sarsen stone number 56 which
5461-403: The paternal (Y-DNA) lineages of Neolithic farmers in Britain were almost exclusively of Western Hunter-Gatherer origin. This was also the case among other megalithic-building populations in northwest Europe, meaning that these populations were descended from a mixture of hunter-gatherer males and farmer females. The dominance of Western Hunter-Gatherer male lineages in Britain and northwest Europe
5588-666: The stanenges or Stanheng "not far from Salisbury " recorded by 11th-century writers are "stones supported in the air". In 1740, William Stukeley notes: "Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire ;... I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones." Christopher Chippindale 's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words stān ' stone ' , and either hencg ' hinge ' (because
5715-483: The strontium content of the bones found that many of the individuals buried there around the time of construction had probably come from near the source of the bluestone in Wales and had not extensively lived in the area of Stonehenge before death. Between 2017 and 2021, studies by Professor Parker Pearson (UCL) and his team suggested that the bluestones used in Stonehenge had been moved there following dismantling of
5842-497: The surrounding land is owned by the National Trust . Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500 years. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Ælfric 's 10th-century glossary, in which henge-cliff is given the meaning ' precipice ' , or stone; thus,
5969-606: The three-age system for human prehistory, were systematised during the nineteenth century in the work of British, French, German, and Scandinavian anthropologists , archaeologists , and antiquarians . The main source of information for prehistory is archaeology (a branch of anthropology), but some scholars are beginning to make more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. The primary researchers into human prehistory are archaeologists and physical anthropologists who use excavation, geologic and geographic surveys, and other scientific analysis to reveal and interpret
6096-417: The "Chalcolithic", "Eneolithic", or "Copper Age" refers to a transitional period where early copper metallurgy appeared alongside the widespread use of stone tools. During this period, some weapons and tools were made of copper. This period was still largely Neolithic in character. It is a phase of the Bronze Age before it was discovered that adding tin to copper formed the harder bronze . The Copper Age
6223-608: The 'Blick Mead' camp 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Stonehenge (near the Vespasian's Camp site) has been dated to 4000 BC. The University of Buckingham 's Humanities Research Institute believes that the community who built Stonehenge lived here for several millennia, making it potentially "one of the pivotal places in the history of the Stonehenge landscape." The first monument consisted of a circular bank and ditch enclosure made of Late Cretaceous ( Santonian Age) Seaford chalk , measuring about 360 feet (110 m) in diameter, with
6350-530: The 17th-century antiquarian who was thought to have first identified them. These pits and the bank and ditch together are known as the Palisade or Gate Ditch. The pits may have contained standing timbers creating a timber circle , although there is no excavated evidence of them. A recent excavation has suggested that the Aubrey Holes may have originally been used to erect a bluestone circle. If this were
6477-623: The 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age , Sumer in Mesopotamia , the Indus Valley Civilisation , and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and keep historical records, with their neighbours following. Most other civilizations reached their end of prehistory during
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#17327731501756604-623: The Americas, these areas did not develop complex writing systems before the arrival of Eurasians, so their prehistory reaches into relatively recent periods; for example, 1788 is usually taken as the end of the prehistory of Australia . The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing system, is often known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no written records from human prehistory, which can only be known from material archaeological and anthropological evidence: prehistoric materials and human remains. These were at first understood by
6731-481: The Aubrey Holes are known to have contained later, intrusive, cremation burials dating to the two centuries after the monument's inception. It seems that whatever the holes' initial function, it changed to become a funerary one during Phase two. Thirty further cremations were placed in the enclosure's ditch and at other points within the monument, mostly in the eastern half. Stonehenge is therefore interpreted as functioning as an enclosed cremation cemetery at this time,
6858-705: The Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Iberomaurusian culture of Northern Africa and the Kebaran culture of the Levant . However, independent discovery is not ruled out. "Neolithic" means "New Stone Age", from about 10,200 BCE in some parts of the Middle East, but later in other parts of the world, and ended between 4,500 and 2,000 BCE. Although there were several species of humans during
6985-487: The Bell Beaker people, who had approximately 50% WSH ancestry. Throughout recorded history, Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments have attracted attention from antiquarians and archaeologists . John Aubrey was one of the first to examine the site with a scientific eye in 1666, and, in his plan of the monument, he recorded the pits that now bear his name, the Aubrey holes . William Stukeley continued Aubrey's work in
7112-671: The Eastern Mediterranean, travelling west from there, and 25% ancestry coming from Western Hunter-Gatherers from western Europe. These farmers moved to Iberia before heading north, reaching Britain in about 4,000 BC. Most of the ancestry of British Neolithic farmers came from the people who followed this route, with a minor contribution from groups who followed the Danube into Central and Western Europe. Their agricultural techniques seem to have come originally from Anatolia , and their mixture appears to have happened primarily on
7239-460: The Iron Age, often through conquest by empires, which continued to expand during this period. For example, in most of Europe conquest by the Roman Empire means the term Iron Age is replaced by "Roman", " Gallo-Roman ", and similar terms after the conquest. Even before conquest, many areas began to have a protohistory, as they were written about by literate cultures; the protohistory of Ireland
7366-694: The Middle East is characterized in archaeological stone tool assemblages by a decline in high quality raw material procurement and use. North Africa and the Nile Valley imported its iron technology from the Near East and followed the Near Eastern course of Bronze Age and Iron Age development. The Bronze Age is the earliest period in which some civilizations reached the end of prehistory, by introducing written records. The Bronze Age, or parts thereof, are thus considered to be part of prehistory only for
7493-739: The Middle Palaeolithic. During the Middle Palaeolithic Era, there is the first definitive evidence of human use of fire. Sites in Zambia have charred logs, charcoal and carbonized plants, that have been dated to 180,000 BP. The systematic burial of the dead , music , prehistoric art , and the use of increasingly sophisticated multi-part tools are highlights of the Middle Paleolithic. The Upper Paleolithic extends from 50,000 and 12,000 years ago, with
7620-400: The Q and R holes purposefully backfilled. The Heel Stone , a Tertiary sandstone, may also have been erected outside the north-eastern entrance during this period. It cannot be accurately dated and may have been installed at any time during phase 3. At first, it was accompanied by a second stone, which is no longer visible. Two, or possibly three, large portal stones were set up just inside
7747-622: The UK, according to English Heritage , ploughing with powerful modern tractors had done as much damage in the last six decades of the twentieth century as traditional farming did in the previous six centuries. Recreational activity on a site may damage archaeology in a number of ways. Amateur metal detectorists may disturb or remove artifacts. Travel over the ground surface, whether by foot, animal, bicycle, or motorized vehicle, can cause artifacts to be broken, crushed, or moved. Campfires can contaminate sites and cause smoke damage to rock art , and
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#17327731501757874-451: The US, removal of artifacts from federal and state lands without a permit is a crime, regardless of whether the artifacts are dug up or found on the surface. Collecting on private land requires written permission of the landowner, and may be subject to additional state and federal laws governing historic preservation . Disturbing human remains , including ancient skeletal remains , is a crime, as
8001-539: The base of six stones and the outer ditch. He also located a bottle of port in the Slaughter Stone socket left by Cunnington, helped to rediscover Aubrey's pits inside the bank and located the concentric circular holes outside the Sarsen Circle called the Y and Z Holes . Richard Atkinson , Stuart Piggott and John F. S. Stone re-excavated much of Hawley's work in the 1940s and 1950s, and discovered
8128-490: The builders from the Preseli Hills , 150 miles (240 km) away in modern-day Pembrokeshire in Wales. Another theory is that they were brought much nearer to the site as glacial erratics by the Irish Sea Glacier although there is no evidence of glacial deposition within southern central England. A 2019 publication announced that evidence of Megalithic quarrying had been found at quarries in Wales identified as
8255-621: The builders' belief system. The excavated remains of culled animal bones suggest that people may have gathered at the site for the winter rather than the summer. There is little or no direct evidence revealing the construction techniques used by the Stonehenge builders. Over the years, various authors have suggested that supernatural or anachronistic methods were used, usually asserting that the stones were impossible to move otherwise due to their massive size. However, conventional techniques, using Neolithic technology as basic as shear legs , have been demonstrably effective at moving and placing stones of
8382-408: The buried individuals were from other regions. A teenage boy buried approximately 1550 BC was raised near the Mediterranean Sea; a metal worker from 2300 BC dubbed the " Amesbury Archer " grew up near the Alpine foothills of Germany; and the " Boscombe Bowmen " probably arrived from Wales or Brittany, France. On the other hand, Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University has suggested that Stonehenge
8509-414: The carved axes and daggers on the Sarsen Stones. Atkinson's work was instrumental in furthering the understanding of the three major phases of the monument's construction. In 1958, the stones were restored again, when three of the standing sarsens were re-erected and set in concrete bases. The last restoration was carried out in 1963 after stone 23 of the Sarsen Circle fell over. It was again re-erected, and
8636-398: The case of Indigenous Australian "highways" known as songlines . The Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age (from the Greek mesos , 'middle', and lithos , 'stone'), was a period in the development of human technology between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic . The Mesolithic period began with the retreat of glaciers at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and ended with
8763-526: The case, it would advance the earliest known stone structure at the monument by some 500 years. In 2013, a team of archaeologists, led by Mike Parker Pearson , excavated more than 50,000 cremated bone fragments, from 63 individuals, buried at Stonehenge. These remains were originally buried individually in the Aubrey holes, but were exhumed in 1920 during an excavation by William Hawley , who considered them unimportant and in 1935 re-buried them together in one hole, Aubrey Hole 7. Physical and chemical analysis of
8890-482: The centre of the site. These stone sockets are only partly known (hence on present evidence are sometimes described as forming 'crescents'); however, they could be the remains of a double ring. Again, there is little firm dating evidence for this phase. The holes held up to 80 standing stones (shown blue on the plan), only 43 of which can be traced today. It is generally accepted that the bluestones (some of which are made of dolerite , an igneous rock), were transported by
9017-435: The circle (60 stones) and the trilithon horseshoe (15 stones). It was thought the ring might have been left incomplete, but an exceptionally dry summer in 2013 revealed patches of parched grass which may correspond to the location of missing sarsens. The lintel stones are each around 10 feet (3.2 m) long, 3.3 feet (1 m) wide and 2.6 feet (0.8 m) thick. The tops of the lintels are 16 feet (4.9 m) above
9144-463: The collection of folklore and by analogy with pre-literate societies observed in modern times. The key step to understanding prehistoric evidence is dating, and reliable dating techniques have developed steadily since the nineteenth century. The most common of these dating techniques is radiocarbon dating . Further evidence has come from the reconstruction of ancient spoken languages . More recent techniques include forensic chemical analysis to reveal
9271-462: The continent before the Neolithic farmers migrated to Britain. At the time of their arrival, Britain was inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers who were the first inhabitants of the island after the last Ice Age ended about 11,700 years ago. The farmers replaced most of the hunter-gatherer population in the British Isles without mixing much with them. Despite their mostly Aegean ancestry,
9398-409: The dates attributed to the creation of Stonehenge. The cessation of human activity in that area at the same time suggested migration as a reason, but it is believed that other stones may have come from other sources. The second phase of construction occurred approximately between 2900 and 2600 BC. The number of postholes dating to the early third millennium BC suggests that some form of timber structure
9525-477: The earlier Neolithic, people built a causewayed enclosure at Robin Hood's Ball , and long barrow tombs in the surrounding landscape. In approximately 3500 BC, a Stonehenge Cursus was built 2,300 feet (700 m) north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the trees and develop the area. Other previously overlooked stone or wooden structures and burial mounds may date as far back as 4000 BC. Charcoal from
9652-449: The earliest known cremation cemetery in the British Isles. Fragments of unburnt human bone have also been found in the ditch-fill. Dating evidence is provided by the late Neolithic grooved ware pottery that has been found in connection with the features from this phase. Archaeological excavation has indicated that around 2600 BC, the builders abandoned timber in favour of stone and dug two concentric arrays of holes (the Q and R Holes ) in
9779-602: The early eighteenth century, but took an interest in the surrounding monuments as well, identifying (somewhat incorrectly) the Cursus and the Avenue. He also began the excavation of many of the barrows in the area, and it was his interpretation of the landscape that associated it with the Druids . Stukeley was so fascinated with Druids that he originally named Disc Barrows as Druids' Barrows. The most accurate early plan of Stonehenge
9906-506: The end of the Bronze Age large states, whose armies imposed themselves on people with a different culture, and are often called empires, had arisen in Egypt, China, Anatolia (the Hittites ), and Mesopotamia , all of them literate. The Iron Age is not part of prehistory for all civilizations who had introduced written records during the Bronze Age. Most remaining civilizations did so during
10033-639: The end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently, in the 1870s, when the Russian anthropologist Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai spent several years living among native peoples, and described their way of life in a comprehensive treatise. In Europe the relatively well-documented classical cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome had neighbouring cultures, including the Celts and the Etruscans , with little writing. Historians debate how much weight to give to
10160-410: The fact that at the time of its construction, Britain's Neolithic people were experiencing a period of cultural unification. Stonehenge megaliths include smaller bluestones and larger sarsens (a term for silicified sandstone boulders found in the chalk downs of southern England). The bluestones are composed of dolerite, tuff, rhyolite, or sandstone. The igneous bluestones appear to have originated in
10287-446: The few mines, stimulating the creation of extensive trading routes. In many areas as far apart as China and England, the valuable new material was used for weapons, but for a long time apparently not available for agricultural tools. Much of it seems to have been hoarded by social elites, and sometimes deposited in extravagant quantities, from Chinese ritual bronzes and Indian copper hoards , to European hoards of unused axe-heads. By
10414-554: The first organized settlements and blossoming of artistic work. Throughout the Palaeolithic, humans generally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers . Hunter-gatherer societies tended to be very small and egalitarian, although hunter-gatherer societies with abundant resources or advanced food-storage techniques sometimes developed sedentary lifestyles with complex social structures such as chiefdoms, and social stratification . Long-distance contacts may have been established, as in
10541-497: The first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture . The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools: microliths and microburins . Fishing tackle , stone adzes , and wooden objects such as canoes and bows have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with
10668-461: The following Iron Age . The three-age division of prehistory into Stone Age , Bronze Age , and Iron Age remains in use for much of Eurasia and North Africa , but is not generally used in those parts of the world where the working of hard metals arrived abruptly from contact with Eurasian cultures, such as Oceania , Australasia , much of Sub-Saharan Africa , and parts of the Americas . With some exceptions in pre-Columbian civilizations in
10795-402: The ground. Within this circle stood five trilithons of dressed sarsen stone arranged in a horseshoe shape 45 feet (13.7 m) across, with its open end facing northeast. These huge stones, ten uprights and five lintels, weigh up to 50 tons each. They were linked using complex jointing. They are arranged symmetrically. The smallest pair of trilithons were around 20 feet (6 m) tall,
10922-574: The heat of a fire can cause rock to spall . Visitors may intentionally move artifacts, either to examine and share them with others, or in an attempt to protect them; this results in a loss of archaeological context which could provide insight into when, where, and how items were used. Vandalism may include defacing rock art, sculpture , or structures; digging; and removing artifacts. In some cases, later civilizations have chosen to modify, deface, or destroy relics of older peoples, particularly when these objects honor political or religious figures that
11049-442: The heel stone, and the embanked avenue, are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice. A natural landform at the monument's location followed this line, and may have inspired its construction. It has been conjectured that the design of the monument included a celestial observatory function, which might allow prediction of eclipse, solstice, equinox and other celestial events important to
11176-575: The henge-structures into their belief-system. The earliest British individuals associated with the Beaker culture, most likely speakers of Indo-European languages whose ancestors migrated from the Pontic–Caspian steppe, were similar to those from the Rhine. Eventually, there was again a large population replacement in Britain. More than 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool was replaced with the arrival of
11303-532: The introduction of agriculture , the date of which varied by geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East , agriculture was already underway by the end of the Pleistocene , and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term " Epipalaeolithic " is preferred. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have
11430-399: The introduction of farming in the British Isles, the practice of cereal cultivation fell out of favor between 3300 and 1500 BC, with much of the population reverting to a pastoralist subsistence pattern focused on hazelnut gathering and pig and cattle rearing. A majority of the major phases of Stonehenge's construction took place during such a period where evidence of large-scale agriculture
11557-474: The keeping of dogs , sheep , and goats . By about 6,900–6,400 BCE, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, and the use of pottery . The Neolithic period saw the development of early villages , agriculture , animal domestication , tools , and the onset of the earliest recorded incidents of warfare. Settlements became more permanent, some with circular houses made of mudbrick with
11684-749: The later society has denounced. At burial sites, notably including the tombs of Ancient Egyptian royals, grave robbers have often removed valuable artifacts and otherwise disturbed sites in the process. Improper archaeological practices can also damage artifacts and context. In many cases, disturbance created by later human activity on a site will have its own archaeological value. Some sites have been used, abandoned, and re-used many times, often for different purposes, with layers from more recent periods of use sometimes cutting through or obscuring those of older periods. Building materials may be scavenged and reused as well. Recognized archaeological sites are generally legally protected against human disruption. In
11811-678: The metal used earlier, more heat is required. Once the technical challenge had been solved, iron replaced bronze as its higher abundance meant armies could be armed much more easily with iron weapons. All dates are approximate and conjectural, obtained through research in the fields of anthropology , archaeology, genetics , geology , or linguistics . They are all subject to revision due to new discoveries or improved calculations. BP stands for " Before Present (1950)." BCE stands for " Before Common Era ". Disturbance (archaeology) The soil scientist Francis D. Hole identified nine natural processes resulting in soil disturbance, including
11938-421: The monument but it is unknown if the monument was in continuous use throughout British prehistory and beyond, or exactly how it would have been used. Notable is the massive Iron Age hillfort known as Vespasian's Camp (despite its name, not a Roman site) built alongside the Avenue near the Avon. A decapitated seventh-century Saxon man was excavated from Stonehenge in 1923. The site was known to scholars during
12065-489: The movements of animals and plants (known as bioturbation , and including burrowing , root growth and treefalls ); freezing and thawing; movement under gravity (including earthflow and rockslides ); swelling and shrinking of clays ; the actions of wind and water; the growth and dissolution of salt crystals; and movement caused by earthquakes . Different sites are subject to different degrees, combinations, and interactions of these processes, and archaeologists working with
12192-419: The natural chalk by periglacial effects and animal burrowing, poor quality early excavation records, and a lack of accurate, scientifically verified dates. The modern phasing most generally agreed to by archaeologists is detailed below. Features mentioned in the text are numbered and shown on the plan, right. Archaeologists have found four, or possibly five, large Mesolithic postholes (one may have been
12319-401: The nature and behavior of pre-literate and non-literate peoples. Human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight. Cultural anthropologists help provide context for societal interactions, by which objects of human origin pass among people, allowing an analysis of any article that arises in a human prehistoric context. Therefore, data about prehistory
12446-506: The next pair a little higher, and the largest, single trilithon in the south-west corner would have been 24 feet (7.3 m) tall. Only one upright from the Great Trilithon still stands, of which 22 feet (6.7 m) is visible and a further 7.9 feet (2.4 m) is below ground. The images of a 'dagger' and 14 'axeheads' have been carved on one of the sarsens, known as stone 53; further carvings of axeheads have been seen on
12573-406: The north-eastern entrance, of which only one, the fallen Slaughter Stone, 16 feet (4.9 m) long, now remains. Other features, loosely dated to phase 3, include the four Station Stones , two of which stood atop mounds. The mounds are known as " barrows " although they do not contain burials. Stonehenge Avenue , a parallel pair of ditches and banks leading two miles (3 km) to the River Avon ,
12700-711: The northeastern section of the Phase 3 IV bluestone circle was removed, creating a horseshoe-shaped setting (the Bluestone Horseshoe) which mirrored the shape of the central sarsen Trilithons. This phase is contemporary with the Seahenge site in Norfolk. The Y and Z Holes are the last known construction at Stonehenge, built about 1600 BC, and the last usage of it was probably during the Iron Age . Roman coins and medieval artefacts have all been found in or around
12827-742: The opportunity was taken to concrete three more stones. Later archaeologists, including Christopher Chippindale of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge and Brian Edwards of the University of the West of England , campaigned to give the public more knowledge of the various restorations and, in 2004, English Heritage included pictures of the work in progress in its book Stonehenge: A History in Photographs . Prehistoric Prehistory , also called pre-literary history ,
12954-530: The outer faces of stones 3, 4, and 5. The carvings are difficult to date but are morphologically similar to late Bronze Age weapons. Early 21st century laser scanning of the carvings supports this interpretation. The pair of trilithons in the north east are smallest, measuring around 20 feet (6 m) in height; the largest, which is in the south-west of the horseshoe, is almost 25 feet (7.5 m) tall. This ambitious phase has been radiocarbon dated to between 2600 and 2400 BC, slightly earlier than
13081-474: The outer sarsen circle and may have been trimmed in some way. Like the sarsens, a few have timber-working style cuts in them suggesting that, during this phase, they may have been linked with lintels and were part of a larger structure. This phase saw further rearrangement of the bluestones. They were arranged in a circle between the two rings of sarsens and in an oval at the centre of the inner ring. Some archaeologists argue that some of these bluestones were from
13208-431: The permafrost layer has receded 1.5 feet (0.46 m), and storm waves have torn away 35 feet (11 m) of the site. Throughout the northern latitudes, the warming climate is revealing previously unknown archaeology, while simultaneously threatening to destroy it. These sites must be prioritized for rescue archaeology . Farming, construction, habitation, and resource extraction are leading causes of site disruption. In
13335-658: The regions and civilizations who developed a system of keeping written records during later periods. The invention of writing coincides in some areas with the beginnings of the Bronze Age. After the appearance of writing, people started creating texts including written records of administrative matters. The Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ores, and then combining them to cast bronze . These naturally occurring ores typically included arsenic as
13462-449: The remains has shown that the cremated were almost equally men and women, and included some children. There is evidence that the underlying chalk beneath the graves was crushed by substantial weight, so the team concluded that the first bluestones brought from Wales were probably used as grave markers. Radiocarbon dating of the remains has put the date of the site 500 years earlier than previously estimated, to around 3000 BC. A 2018 study of
13589-502: The rise of metallurgy, and most Neolithic societies on the whole were relatively simple and egalitarian. Most clothing appears to have been made of animal skins, as indicated by finds of large numbers of bone and antler pins which are ideal for fastening leather. Wool cloth and linen might have become available during the later Neolithic, as suggested by finds of perforated stones that (depending on size) may have served as spindle whorls or loom weights. In Old World archaeology,
13716-639: The site as early as 3000 BC. One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. It has been a legally protected scheduled monument since 1882, when the Ancient Monuments Protection Act was passed in the UK. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO 's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage ;
13843-511: The site for the mid-winter and mid-summer festivals; the evidence showed that the animals had been slaughtered around nine months or 15 months after their spring birth. Strontium isotope analysis of the animal teeth showed that some had been brought from as far afield as the Scottish Highlands for the celebrations. At about the same time, a large timber circle and a second avenue were constructed at Durrington Walls overlooking
13970-537: The slab along the 18-mile (29 km) journey from the Marlborough Downs . Proposed functions for the site include usage as an astronomical observatory or as a religious site. In the 1960s, Gerald Hawkins described in detail how the site was apparently set out to observe the Sun and Moon over a recurring 56-year cycle. More recently, two major new theories have been proposed. Geoffrey Wainwright , president of
14097-635: The sometimes biased accounts in Greek and Roman literature, of these protohistoric cultures. In dividing up human prehistory in Eurasia, historians typically use the three-age system, whereas scholars of pre-human time periods typically use the well-defined geologic record and its internationally defined stratum base within the geologic time scale . The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory into three consecutive time periods , named for their predominant tool-making technologies: Stone Age , Bronze Age and Iron Age . In some areas, there
14224-473: The stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or hen(c)en ' to hang ' or ' gallows ' or ' instrument of torture ' (though elsewhere in his book, Chippindale cites the ' suspended stones ' etymology). The "henge" portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges . Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology, this
14351-428: The stone was transported some 430 miles (690 km), and thus demonstrates cultural links between Southern England and Northern Scotland. The north-eastern entrance was widened at this time, with the result that it precisely matched the direction of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset of the period. This phase of the monument was abandoned unfinished, however; the small standing stones were apparently removed and
14478-552: The stones and discovered charred wood, animal bones, pottery and urns. He also identified the hole in which the Slaughter Stone once stood. Richard Colt Hoare supported Cunnington's work and excavated some 379 barrows on Salisbury Plain including on some 200 in the area around the Stones, some excavated in conjunction with William Coxe . To alert future diggers to their work, they were careful to leave initialled metal tokens in each barrow they opened. Cunnington's finds are displayed at
14605-459: The stones in Stonehenge, has been found, including a hole from a rock that matches the unusual cross-section of a Stonehenge bluestone "like a key in a lock". Each monolith measures around 6.6 feet (2 m) in height, between 3.3 and 4.9 ft (1 and 1.5 m) wide and around 2.6 feet (0.8 m) thick. What was to become known as the Altar Stone was believed to have been derived from
14732-414: The time. In certain ancient cultures, rocks that ring out, known as lithophonic rocks , were believed to contain mystic or healing powers, and Stonehenge has a history of association with rituals. The presence of these "ringing rocks" seems to support the hypothesis that Stonehenge was a "place for healing" put forward by Darvill, who consulted with the researchers. There is evidence to suggest that despite
14859-473: The top in order that their perspective remains constant when viewed from the ground, while the lintel stones curve slightly to continue the circular appearance of the earlier monument. The inward-facing surfaces of the stones are smoother and more finely worked than the outer surfaces. The average thickness of the stones is 3.6 feet (1.1 m) and the average distance between them is 3.3 feet (1 m). A total of 75 stones would have been needed to complete
14986-428: The twelfth century by Geoffrey of Monmouth , who extolled the curative properties of the stones and was also the first to advance the idea that Stonehenge was constructed as a funerary monument. There are other hypotheses and theories. According to a team of British researchers led by Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, Stonehenge may have been built as a symbol of "peace and unity", indicated in part by
15113-587: The use and provenance of materials, and genetic analysis of bones to determine kinship and physical characteristics of prehistoric peoples. The beginning of prehistory is normally taken to be marked by human-like beings appearing on Earth. The date marking its end is typically defined as the advent of the contemporary written historical record. Both dates consequently vary widely from region to region. For example, in European regions, prehistory cannot begin before c. 1.3 million years ago, which
15240-460: The whole area. "Palaeolithic" means "Old Stone Age", and begins with the first use of stone tools . The Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age . It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c. 11,650 BP (before the present period). The early part of the Palaeolithic
15367-515: Was also added. During the next major phase of activity, 30 enormous Oligocene – Miocene sarsen stones (shown grey on the plan) were brought to the site. They came from a quarry around 16 miles (26 km) north of Stonehenge, in West Woods , Wiltshire . The stones were dressed and fashioned with mortise and tenon joints before 30 sarsens were erected in a circle of standing stones approximately 98 feet (30 m) in diameter, with
15494-428: Was built within the enclosure during this period. Further standing timbers were placed at the northeast entrance, and a parallel alignment of posts ran inwards from the southern entrance. The postholes are smaller than the Aubrey Holes, being only around 16 inches (0.4 m) in diameter, and are much less regularly spaced. The bank was purposely reduced in height and the ditch continued to silt up. At least twenty-five of
15621-458: Was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The famous circle of large sarsen stones were placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the bluestones were given their current positions between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at
15748-426: Was continuous but had been dug in sections, like the ditches of the earlier causewayed enclosures in the area. The chalk dug from the ditch was piled up to form the bank. This first stage is dated to around 3100 BC, after which the ditch began to silt up naturally. Within the outer edge of the enclosed area is a circle of 56 pits, each about 3.3 feet (1 m) in diameter, known as the Aubrey holes after John Aubrey ,
15875-412: Was in danger of falling. In straightening the stone he moved it about half a metre from its original position. Gowland also took the opportunity to further excavate the monument in what was the most scientific dig to date, revealing more about the erection of the stones than the previous 100 years of work had done. During the 1920 restoration, William Hawley , who had excavated nearby Old Sarum , excavated
16002-494: Was part of a ritual landscape and was joined to Durrington Walls by their corresponding avenues and the River Avon. He suggests that the area around Durrington Walls henge was a place of the living, whilst Stonehenge was a domain of the dead. A journey along the Avon to reach Stonehenge was part of a ritual passage from life to death, to celebrate past ancestors and the recently deceased. Both explanations were first mooted in
16129-399: Was that made by Bath architect John Wood in 1740. His original annotated survey has now been computer-redrawn and published. Importantly Wood's plan was made before the collapse of the southwest trilithon, which fell in 1797 and was restored in 1958. William Cunnington was the next to tackle the area in the early nineteenth century. He excavated some 24 barrows before digging in and around
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