New insights into the mystery of Stonehenge

Around 4000 BC, in most parts of the country, with the increase of humans planting crops and livestock animal species, and the emergence of new cultivation technology, farming gradually replaced the old hunting life, in the five centuries, people in some mountains as a symbol of territory, has established one tribe gathered together, Crafts were developed there, trades were made, or rituals were performed, and small wars occasionally broke out between the tribes. From generation to generation, new tribes moved to other places, smaller tribes merged into a larger tribe or were lost to history. In the south of England, an early social organization formed and lasted for thousands of years.

Several tribes carved up the rich forests and valleys of Wessex, competing with each other for the land that archaeologists now consider sacred. Around 3000 BC, one of these tribes asserted its authority over the land, laying the foundation for Stonehenge.

According to Professor Mike Pearson, an expert in British prehistory at the University of London who is leading the Stonehenge research project, one of the most puzzling aspects of the massive Stonehenge project is how people at the time first transported a type of bluestone 274 kilometers away, and the giant sandstone monolith was erected later. Pearson sees this project, unparalleled in the ancient world, as a demonstration of the power of a tribe and a symbol of building tribal alliances. Bringing the stone from Wales was itself a show of strength and a willingness to cooperate with other tribes.

The source of Stonehenge

So Stonehenge was built in the heart of Wessex because it had been operated there for many generations. Among the neighboring tribes, one local tribe has grown strong and has an ambitious plan. But what if the huge bluestones crucial to the project were not transported to Salisbury Plain by people of the time, but by glaciers thousands of years ago? Mainstream science rejects this speculation, but there is still a minority of people who support it.

To prove that the boulders were not THERE because of glacial movement, IT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO ESTABLISH that the STONES HAD NOT only come from Mount PulisRI BUT had also been transported by hand, A challenging task. Geologist Richard Bevins of the National Museum Wales and Rob Ixer of the University of London jumped at the challenge.

In the 1980 s, a research project of the Open University on these upright stones took a lot of samples, and pulis stone has carried on the comparison of the mountain, the scientists concluded that the big stone came to Wiltshire, a county with the moving of the ice, but in the past ten years, Mr. Vince and axel of Stonehenge, this paper analyzes the various types of rock And came to a surprising conclusion. "Almost everything we had believed about the origin of these large bluestones turned out to be partially or completely wrong." "Said, Axel.

Inspired by Bevins' and Ixer's discoveries, which led to a careful identification of large bluestone outcrops in the area, Pearson began searching for the remains of prehistoric quarries. After comparing tens of thousands of samples, he narrowed down the origin of the stones used at Stonehenge to a site called Cregrosfilene, where a small outcrop of rhyolite was found. He believes it was this rock that was used to complete the monumental task of Stonehenge. Together with geology professor Nick Pearce, he discovered exactly where the stones came from. They found the famous "diabase", one of the materials used to build Stonehenge, on a mountain called Carngiodo.

It is worth noting that the slopes of the newly discovered Stonehenge stones face the Irish Sea to the north, while the less credible stones face south towards the Bristol Channel. If the rocks had been brought to Wiltshire by glacial activity, they would have come from the Bristol Channel, but their discovery proved otherwise.

The new archaeological findings also cast doubt on two theories about the bluestone. It has previously been suggested that bluestones were chosen for the stone, perhaps because they believed the stone had miraculous healing powers or because it made a pleasant sound when struck with a stone hammer.

But the investigation found that some of the so-called healing springs, as well as the rocks that produce the pleasant sounds, were not found in the places that provided the stone for Stonehenge. If Pearson's findings can be proved, his theory may be the most convincing yet. He suggests that the rise of a tribe in southwest Wales at the time led to the creation of this impressive megaloge culture and that the monument in Wiltshire was a way of making a statement about its power.

The social and cultural background of Stonehenge

At the same time, another excavation mission is underway in Wiltshire. The team, led by David Jacques, a senior research fellow in the archaeology department at the University of Buckingham, discovered a new prehistoric site, one of Britain's most important, at Blickmead, about 2.5 kilometers east of Amesbury.

For years, Jacques took his students and volunteers on weekends to, as he put it, "dig through the mud by hand." In the end, they dug a small trench, but they had the same trouble as before, and the things they were interested in were below the water table, scattered in peat and mud. Some springs provide a constant source of water for the river Avon, supporting the inhabitants who lived here long before Stonehenge was built, and some of the bones of the animals that the inhabitants hunted are preserved here.

The steep peaks erected on one side of the river Avon act as a barrier to Brickmead, and the constant hot springs attract many games, with easy access to and from the forest along the river. By 3000 BC, and even as far back as 4700 BC, it was an ideal place for hunter-gatherers and fishers.

Jacques reasoned that a large number of stone tools and animal bones found here, particularly those of the extinct Aurochian bison, and even those of rats, toads, and fish, suggested that people had been living in the dry land nearby. While well-protected early hunting grounds are rare, Jacques says Blickmead is important not only as a testament to Britain's distant past but also for telling us something about the origins of Stonehenge.

If it had not been for another dig on the Avon River, Jacques might have been merely expressing his feelings. In 2008, they surveyed a road running parallel to the river bank and several circular trenches, winding up the valley to Stonehenge. Previous research had found that it looked like long ruts made by carts or sleds, and was probably made when large rocks were pushed up a slope, but Pearson was surprised to find that the ruts were most likely natural.

Environmental archaeologist Mike Allen says he can't explain exactly how the trenches formed, but he's sure they were natural. He points out that the tundra sediments in these gullies contain the shells of snails that thrived in the cold conditions of the Ice Age. Could this long road be explained by the branching or network of geomorphologic structures that often form in ice age "margins"?

Also for reasons that are not yet clear, but which may have something to do with the local topography, are three less distinct parallel ridges of the chalk in this area, which Allen thinks are probably formed by glacial water flowing down the mountains and eroding the ground. When humans returned to Britain after the ice Age, these "precise zones" were still visible on the bare, vegetated ground, and were later obscured by a growing variety of plants in silt-filled trenches.

Allen, I think it is a "surprising and very coincidence" the fact that the Banks of the river and the periglacial zone "and the solstice axis in a line, lived there ten thousand years ago people could witness the winter solstice referred to in that day the sun is out in the lines of falling behind the mountain, the hill later Stonehenge is erected.

What was once the car park is the site of a settlement between 8000 and 7000 B.C. There are the remains of four pits where four tall pine tree trunks were erected, and charcoal from the same age has recently been unearthed at Stonehenge. Although these pits, used by hunter-gatherers to erect pillars, are almost unique in Europe, archaeologists have long believed they are not related to Stonehenge. But now it looks like there might be a connection. The erection of these pillars is related to the celebration of the Winter solstice at that time. The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, was celebrated to welcome the coming warm spring and the beginning of growth, like the arrangement of Stonehenge.

Jacques's excavations along the river show that for thousands of years, between the erection of the pine pillars and the dozens of generations when the bluestones used for Stonehenge arrived, hunters used the hill every winter solstice to perform this tradition, which they considered sacred. Excavators' discovery of new bison bones dating back to 3000 BC in a trench around Stonehenge suggests that solstice traditions were also held there.

If archaeologists are right, Stonehenge was not a figment of the imagination, but a religious practice that dates back almost to the Ice Age. Stonehenge was of great importance to the spiritual life of the people of that time, and it was much older than we thought. Perhaps there are other ways in which celebrations of the arrival of farming have been preserved elsewhere, such as ancient frescoes and rock paintings.

For the generations who built and reshaped Stonehenge, it meant much more than standing it in line with the rising and setting of the sun. We now come here on the summer and winter solstices to remember the ancient people and their cultural heritage, not just the builders of Stonehenge, but our oldest human ancestors who came before them.