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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday December 09 2015, @11:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the stonecutters-lodge dept.

The Guardian and National Geographic claim that the Stonehenge stones may have been quarried (and erected) in Wales 500 years before they were put up in Wiltshire.

It has long been known that the bluestones that form Stonehenge's inner horseshoe came from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, around 140 miles from Salisbury Plain. Now archaeologists have discovered a series of recesses in the rocky outcrops of Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin, to the north of those hills, that match Stonehenge's bluestones in size and shape. They have also found similar stones that the prehistoric builders extracted but left behind, and "a loading bay" from where the huge stones could be dragged away. Carbonised hazelnut shells and charcoal from the quarry workers' campfires have been radiocarbon-dated to reveal when the stones would have been extracted.

[...] The dating evidence suggests that Stonehenge could be older than previously thought, Parker Pearson said. "But we think it's more likely that they were building their own monument [in Wales], that somewhere near the quarries there is the first Stonehenge and that what we're seeing at Stonehenge is a second-hand monument."

takyon: Party Like It's 2500 B.C.: Feasts At Stonehenge Were Epic Barbecues (DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2015.110)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @01:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @01:23AM (#274187)

    That's "Wiltshire" not "Wilshire".