New research suggests that Stonehenge’s first megalithic circle was first built 2,000 years ago in west Wales, its stones were excavated and stretched 1 miles0 miles (22 22 kilometers) west of England to its present location.
These findings also support the wild legend that the mythical magician Merlin ordered the Giants to move Stonehenge from Ireland and rebuild it to its current location.
Researchers have found the remains of an original stone circle in the Presley Hills, Wales, near the ancient quarry, where geologists have determined that Stoneheng’s famous bluestones were cut. The new study was published in the journal on Thursday (February 11) Antiquity, Suggesting that the Bluestones, which formed the first stage of Stonehenge, may have symbolized the ancestors or lineage of the Neolithic peoples living in the dwelling, which is why they carried the stones with them when they moved to distant lands.
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The research explains the mysterious origins of Stonehenge and why its first builders made such an effort to transport most of the stones almost halfway to Britain. Michael Parker Pearson, an archaeologist at University College Lodge London, led the research team. “Why would anyone say ‘We’re going to make a circle out of stones 140 miles away?’
To solve the mystery, Parker Pearson and his team spent more than five years exploring Neolithic stone monuments around Presley Hills. In 2017, they determined that the four stones at a site called “Pt Mooreland” in Vanuatu – Van Unman were all left in a huge circle of about 60 stones that matched the original 360-foot-wide layout. (110th) Circle of the Bluestones at Stonehenge. The rest of the rocks on Wuan Mwen were dug a long time ago, Parker told Pearson Live Science.
Ancient stones
Stonehenge is most famous for the giant “Sarsons” in its main circle, but these large stones were erected centuries after the monument was first erected. Recent research shows that the Sarsons are local sandstones that migrated a few miles to the Neolithic monument about 1,500 years ago.
But geologists and archaeologists have long known that many of the Stonehenge ring bluestones, some weighing 5 tons (4.5 metric tons), were transported from the Presley Hills mine in ancient times. Some stones have a blue color when some are newly broken or wet.
Scientific dating of coal and silt from some empty stone holes suggests that the Van Maun was built about 5,400 years ago, about 400 years before the earliest stages of Stonehenge. There is also an unusual five-sided cross section in one of the holes in the stone at Wunman that matches one of Stonehenge’s bluestones and has the same type of stone chips.
Parker told Pierce that it probably seems like when the Wanman stone circle and some other nearby stones were gone when the whole family left to live far away in the east, and then about 80 stones were raised at the Stonehenge site. .
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The distinctive levels of strontium isotopes in the enamel of human teeth found in ancient tombs by Stoneheng show that many of the ancient people buried there did not grow up near their current location in Wessex. Archaeological evidence suggests that they migrated further west, probably from modern Wales, and so the site of the new Neolithic cemetery was probably marked in the original stone circle.
He said each of the Bluestones symbolized a significant ancestor or ancestral lineage for the locals, which is why they erected stones in the new cemetery.
Merlin Legend
Researchers aren’t sure why so many Neolithic families left Presley Hills so suddenly to stay so far away. Parker Pearson thinks his community would have wanted to unite with a group of distant people for political or social reasons, and so they brought the stones of their ancestors with them to cement their presence in their new territory.
The calculations of the labor involved in the transport of the Bluestones, perhaps by sled, suggest that the journey from Vaun Maun to the present Stonehenge site may be completed in one summer.
“You can cover 3 miles [5 km] One day, if you have your trackway ready. “He said.” They must have had dinner, they must have had dinner … like a rolling party. “
Like Stonehenge, the circle was arranged on the Vunman so some of its stones were attached to the sunrise during the summer solstice; Similar arrangements have been found on other Neolithic monuments in the British Isles, and they may reflect the eternal pattern of the sun’s motion in heaven, he said.
The idea that Stonehenge was first transported over a great distance from the circle of stones seems similar to the medieval legend that Stonehenge was built at the command of Merlin, the legendary wizard who aided the same legendary King Arthur.
According to legend, the circle of stone was originally located in Africa, and the giants moved it to Ireland to serve as a magical center of healing. Later, legend has it, the stones were transported to the current location on the Salisbury plane near Merlin and were reassembled there as a memorial to the British people killed while fighting the invading Saxons.
Parker told Pierce that when the legend was written in the 12th century, it was considered part of the Earl of Nd in the far west of Wales; But it is unlikely that the legend describes a 5000 year old folk memory of the Stonehenge migration – the oldest known oral histories, the Sanskrit Vedas of India, are believed to be only 3000 years old. But, “I have to admit that the evidence is very interesting.” “Maybe – just, maybe – there’s a little grain of truth in it.”
Published on Original Living Science.
