Stonehenge - Cult Centre of the Ancestors

Looming like a group of huddled stone giants on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, in southern England, Stonehenge is perhaps the most recognizable ancient monument in the world. The name 'Stonehenge' originates from the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons and roughly translates as 'hanging stones.' But the history of the great monument dates back thousands of years before the Saxons came to Britain, sometime in the 5th century AD. Its origins go back beyond the mysterious Celtic Druids of the last few centuries BC, back before iron was known in Europe and even before the Great Pyramid was erected in the sands of Egypt. Who built this enigmatic stone monument and what role did it play in the prehistoric landscape of England and Europe all those thousands of years ago?

            What visitors see today when they visit Stonehenge is a circular setting of large standing stones surrounded by earthworks, the remnants of the last in a series of monuments erected on the site between c3100BC and 1600BC. During this period Stonehenge was built in three broad construction phases, although there is evidence for human activity on the site both before and after these dates. In fact one of the most important and fascinating discoveries ever made in the area of Stonehenge was that of four large Mesolithic pits or post holes dating to between 8500 and 7650 BC, found beneath the modern carpark at the site. These huge post holes had a diameter of around 0.75m (2.4ft), and had once held pine posts.Three of the holes were aligned east-west, suggesting a ritual function - it has been suggested that they may have held totem poles, and indeed it is difficult to see what other purpose they could have served. The area around Stonehenge is full of prehistoric monuments, a number of which were constructed in the early Neolithic period (c4000-3000 BC) and thus predate the Stonehenge monument. Examples include the long barrow (communal burial chamber) at Winterbourne Stoke, 2.3 km away, the causwayed enclosure (a type of large prehistoric earthwork) known as Robin Hood's Ball, 2km north-west of Stonehenge, and the Lesser Cursus (a long, narrow, rectangular earthwork enclosure) 600m to the north. Thus when the builders of the first stage of construction at Stonehenge began work they were already operating in a sacred landscape, one that had seen ritual use for more than 5000 years.

            The first of Stonehenge's three construction phases was begun around 3100 BC, and consisted of a circle of timber posts surrounded by a ditch and bank. This henge, ('henge' used in the archaeological sense to mean a circular or oval-shaped flat area enclosed by a boundary earthwork) measured around 110m in diameter, and possessed a large entrance to the north-east and another smaller one to the south. This monument was dug by hand using deer antlers and the shoulder blades of oxen or cattle, and modern excavations of the ditch have recovered antlers used in the construction that were deliberately left behind by the builders of this monument. One odd fact about this phase is that there were other animal bones, mainly from cattle, placed in the bottom of the ditch, which proved to be 200 years older than the antler tools used to dig the structure. It seems that the people who buried the items had kept them for some time before burial, perhaps the bones were sacred objects removed from a previous ritual location and brought to Stonehenge. There is little remaining evidence for phase II at Stonehenge, though judging by finds of cremated bones from at least 200 bodies, the site must have functioned as a cremation cemetary.

            Phase III at the site, beginning around 2,600 BC, involved the rebuilding of the simple earth and timber henge in stone. Two concentric circles of 80 bluestone pillars were erected at the centre of the monument. These stones, weighing about 4 tons each, were carved and transported from the Preseli Hills, in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales, and brought by a route at least 300 km long. Apart from the bluestones, a 5m long blue-grey sandstone, now known as the Altar Stone, was brought to Stonehenge from near Milford Haven on the coast to the south of the Preseli Hills. How the bluestones arrived on Salisbury Plain is a subject of much controversy, though most archaeologists nowadays believe that they were brought there by man. The most obvious way for the builders of Stonehenge to transport the stones would have been to drag them down to the sea at Milford Haven by roller and sledge, and then float them to Stonehenge on rafts by sea and river. An incredible achievement of organization and dedication. An experiment to duplicate this feat was undertaken in 2001, when volunteers managed to pull a 3-ton stone down to the sea from the Preseli Hills in a wooden sledge on rollers, but when the stone was placed on the raft it slipped into the sea and sank. Intriguingly, an old legend held that Stonehenge originated with Merlin the wizard, who had a huge structure known as 'the Giant's Dance' magically transported from Ireland. Could the journey of the bluestones form Wales be a disorted memory of Stonehenge originating 'in the west'?

            It was also in Phase III at Stonehenge that the north eastern entrance to the enclosure was widened so that it precisely aligned with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset of the period. Another feature added to the Stonehenge landscape during this phase was the Avenue, a ceremonial pathway consisting of a parallel pair of ditches and banks stretching for 3 km from the monument down to the River Avon.

            Around 2,300 BC the bluestones were dug up and replaced by enormous sarsen stones brought from the Marlborough Downs, 32km away. The sarsens, each around 4.1 m high, 2.1 m wide and weighing around 25 tons, were arranged in a 33m diameter circle with lintels (horizontal stones) spanning the tops. Within this circle a horse-shoe shaped setting of five trilithons (two large stones set upright to support a third on their top), of dressed sarsen stone, was added, its open end facing north east,. The enormous stones which made up the central horse-shoe arrangement of ten uprights and five lintels weighed up to 50 tons each. Later in this period, between 2280 to 1930 BC, the blue stones were re-erected and arranged at least three times, finally forming an inner circle and horseshoe, between the Sarsen Circle and the Trilithons, mirroring the two arrangements of sarsen stones. It is though that more bluestones were transported from Wales to the site at this time. Between 2000 and 1600BC a double ring of pits, known as the Y and Z holes, were dug outside the outermost sarsen circle, possibly to take another setting of stones. However, for whatever reason, no stones were added and the pits were allowed to silt up naturally. After 1600BC there was no further construction at Stonehenge, and the monument appears to have been abandoned. Nevertheless the site was still occasionally visited, as is evidenced by finds of Iron Age pottery, Roman coins, and the burial of a decapitated Saxon man dated to the 7th century AD.

            There has been considerable speculation as to how Stonehenge was built. An experiment in the mid 1990s showed that a team of 200 people, using a wooden sledge on laid timber rails covered with grease, could have transported all 80 sarsens from the Marlborough Downs to Stonehenge in two years, longer if the work was seasonal. The experiment illustrated that the manouevering of the stones into position could have been accomplished using timber A-frames to raise the stones, which could then have been hauled upright by teams of people using ropes. The lintels may have been raised up gradually on timber platforms and levered into position when the primitive scaffolding reached the top of the upright stones. A fascinating aspect of the construction of Stonehenge is that the stones were worked using carpentry techniques. After being hammered to size using stone balls known as 'mauls', examples of which have been found at the site, the stones were fashioned with mortise and tenon joints so that the lintels could rest securely on top of the uprights. The lintels themselves were joined together using another woodworking method known as the tongue in groove joint.
           
            Much more interesting than how Stonehenge was built is why it was built. Unfortunately, for such an important structure the archaeological finds from Stonehenge have been relatively meagre. This is partly due to the fact that until the last couple of decades research at the site had been on the whole poorly performed and insufficiently written up. Skeletons were lost or seriously damaged, artefacts misplaced and excavation notes destroyed. Despite these losses, the evidence from surviving burials discovered at or near the site gives a fascinating insight into the lives of Neolithic peoples in the area.

            The main burials at Stonehenge are all broadly contemporary with each other, dating from the period 2400-2150BC (the Early Bronze Age period). Examination of a skeleton buried in the outer ditch of the monument revealed that the man had been shot at close range by up to six arrows, probably by two people, one shooting from the left the other from the right. Was this an execution or some form of human sacrifice? Another astonishing burial was found in 2002 at Amesbury, 4.5km south-east of Stonehenge, and has become known as either the 'Amesbury Archer' or the 'King of Stonehenge'. The rich grave goods found with this burial indicate a high-status individual and include five 'Beaker' pots, sixteen beautifully-worked flint arrowheads, boar's tusks, two sandstone wristguards (to protect the wrists from the bow string of a bow and arrow), a pair of gold hair ornaments, three tiny copper knives, and a kit of flint-knapping and metalworking tools. Not only are the gold objects the oldest ever found in Britain, but this person may have been one of the earliest metalwokers in the islands. Tests on the skeleton showed that the Archer was a strongly-built man aged between 35 and 45, though he had an abscess on his jaw and had suffered an accident which had torn his left knee cap off. But the most surprising element of the burial was yet to come.

            Research using oxygen isotope analysis on the Archer's tooth enamel found that he had grown up in the Alps region, either Switzerland, Austria or Germany. Analysis of the copper knives showed that they had come from Spain and France. This is incredible evidence for contact between cultures living in Europe 4,200 years ago. Could the unusually rich burial of the 'King of Stonehenge', obviously an important person of high rank, mean that he played an important part in the construction of the first stone-built monument on the site? A second male burial, dating from the same period as the Archer, was located near to his grave. This skeleton, which bone analysis has shown may be the Archer's son, had been buried with a pair of gold hair ornaments in the same style as the Archer's, though for some reason these had been left inside the man's jaw. Oxygen isotope analysis revealed that this man had grown up in the area around Salisbury Plain, though his late teens may have been spent in the Midlands or north-east Scotland.

            The 'Boscombe Bowmen' are a group of Early Bronze Age burials, found in a single grave at Boscombe Down, close to Stonehenge. Known as bowmen due to the amount of flint arrowheads found in their grave, the burial consists of seven individuals: three children, a teenager and three men, all apparently related to each other. Finds from the grave are similar in character to that of the Amesbury Archer and included an unusually high amount of Beaker pottery. Again it was the teeth that provided the clue as to where these people originated, in this case the men grew up in Wales but migrated to southern Britain in childhood. Given that the Boscombe Bowmen were roughly contemporary with the transport and erection of the Welsh bluestones at Stonehenge it is believed by many reseachers that they may have accompanied the stones on their 300km trek to Salisbury Plain. The burials of the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen, then, offer fascinating evidence for some of the people who were involved in the task of constructing Stonehenge, but what purpose did the enigmatic and unique monument serve?
           
            Because Stonehenge is aligned to the midsummer sunrise / midwinter sunset many reseachers, most notably English-born astronomer Gerald Hawkins, have claimed that a number of astronomical alighments are present at the site. However, subsequent analysis of the data assembled to support Hawkins' theory, has shown that many of the supposed astronomical alignments were arrived at by joining together features from different periods, as well as natural pits and holes that were not part of the monument.

            The most important thing to remember about Stonehenge is that although it is a unique structure, it was not an isolated monument. Stonehenge grew to be the focal point of a vast prehistoric ceremonial landscape, as can be seen for example from the numerous barrow (burial mound) cemeteries that were built around the monument. We have already seen that the Salisbury Plain landscape had been sacred for thousands of years before the building of Stonehenge. But in what sense was it sacred? One theory, put forward by English archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina, an archaeologist from Madagasca, used modern anthropological evidence to suggest that for the Stonehenge people timber may have been associated with the living, and the permanence of stone associated with the ancestors. As there are two important timber henge sites close to Stonehenge - Durrington Walls and Woodhenge, Pearson and Ramilisonina hypothesised a ritual route for funeral processions, which travelled down the River Avon from wood-built Durrington Walls in the east at sunrise, and then along the Avenue up to Stonehenge, the realm of the ancestors, its terminus, in the west at Sunset. This would have been a sacred journey from wood to stone via water, a symbolic passage from life to death. The paucity of archaeological finds from the central area inside Stonehenge certainly suggests that only a few people had access to the monument, not just anyone could walk inside. Whether these selected few were priests or included the high status Amesbury Archer, it is difficult to tell. But the stone structure as a metaphor for the ancestors makes a lot of sense, though it is likely that no single explanation can ever do justice to the remarkable people who built Stonehenge.