Stonehenge

Megalithic monument on Salisbury Plain, 3 km/1.9 mi west of Amesbury in Wiltshire, England. The site developed over various periods from a simple henge (earthwork circle and ditch), dating from about 3000 BC, to a complex stone structure, from about 2100 BC, which included a circle of 30 upright stones, their tops linked by lintel stones to form a continuous circle about 30 m/100 ft across.

Within this sarsen peristyle was a horseshoe arrangement of five sarsen trilithons (two uprights plus a lintel, set as five separate entities), and the so-called ‘Altar Stone’ – an upright pillar – on the axis of the horseshoe at the open, northeast end, which faces in the direction of the rising sun. A further horseshoe and circle within the sarsen peristyle were constructed from bluestone relocated from previous outer circles.

It has been suggested that Stonehenge was constructed as an observatory.

Development The first monument, around 3000 BC, was a low circular henge about 98 m/322 ft in diameter with a shallow outer ditch, and a single entrance fronted by the Avenue, with parallel banks 14 m/46 ft apart and ditches. The Avenue continues in a straight line for 275 m/900 ft and then divides, one branch curving north and the other east to the Avon at West Amesbury (parts of its course have been reconstructed using aerial photography). Within the earthen circle, close to its edge, was a circle of 56 large ritual pits, the Aubrey Holes (discovered by John Aubrey 1666), which contained bone pins, a polished stone mace-head and cremated human bones, all typical of the Neolithic cultures of Wessex early in the 2nd millennium BC. The Heelstone within its small ditch in the Avenue was also part of this first monument.

In the second phase, associated with the pottery of Beaker people, a double circle of Pembrokeshire bluestone was erected. The bluestone may have been transported by human labour 217 km/347 mi, or were possibly glacial deposits used in-situ. It appears that the entrance of this double circle was aligned on the present axis of the monument: the orientation on the Midsummer sunrise marked by the Avenue. This early bluestone monument with carefully finished and trimmed stones may have provided a prototype for the later work on the massive upright monolith sarsen stones. The stones of the sarsen peristyle and trilithon are carefully dressed, and the vertical stones have tenons made to fit mortice holes on the undersides of the lintels, which are curved to meet the circumference of the circle and the whole corrected for perspective. Two of the sarsen uprights bear Bronze Age carvings which appear to be contemporary with the original working of the stones. Copper or bronze flat axes are depicted, and possibly a hafted dagger. The style has parallels with early Mycenaean types and has led to suggestions of Wessex–Mycenae trade links, although chronological differences make this unlikely.

About 1800 BC the double circle of bluestones was removed and in the final building phases, approximately 1500 to 1400 BC, 60 of them were rearranged to form a circle inside the sarsen peristyle and a horseshoe within the sarsen trilithons. The Y and the Z holes, two irregular circles of square socket holes which lie between the sarsen circle and the Aubrey Circle, represent part of a construction that was never completed.

Conservation Stonehenge Down, including the Avenue and the Cursus, was purchased by public subscription in 1927 and 1929, and vested in the National Trust in order to preserve the view from Stonehenge, which was a gift to the nation and is in the custody of English Heritage. In 1958 a trilithon that fell in 1797 was re-erected, along with three other stones which fell in 1900.

Stonehenge is one of the best-known archaeological sites in the world. Its conservation poses problems and the decision to close the circle to the public has caused controversy, in particular with regard to the Midsummer solstice ceremony held there. It is apparent that whatever the original intention of the builders, it has been given ritual significance in later years and is regarded as a ‘sacred site’.