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A prehistoric “megahenge” in England’s Dorset may have been built as part of a “last hurray” from Stone Age people eager for how immigrants from continental Europe can change their world, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Cardiff University discovered that Mount Pleasant, a circular monument near Dorchester the size of nine football fields, was not built over centuries as previously thought, but in as little as 35 years.
Peter Sandiford / Cardiff University
Part of the Mount Pleasant site near Dorchester under excavation in 1971.
It may have been part of an intense period of building activity in southern England at the end of the Neolithic period around 2500 BC, just before people arrived from the continent with other belief systems and ways of doing things, the researchers said.
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Lead Investigator Susan Greaney said The Guardian the “explosion” in monument building may have been “the last hurray of the Stone Age.”
“They could see the changes that were coming and decide to resist them; they may have been thinking, ‘We don’t need these changes. We will build bigger and better monuments for our gods. We will work hard and stick to what we know, ”Greaney said.
Mount Pleasant, which was surrounded by a fence made of huge tree trunks known as a palisade, is one of only five known megahengges in southern England, all built around the same time. They, and smaller henges like Stonehenge, are believed to have been ceremonial sites.
Mount Pleasant would have been built by hundreds of people using simple tools like antler picks, Greaney said.
Finnbarr Webster / Getty Images
Mt Pleasant was built around the same time as other henges in southern England, including the famous Stonehenge (pictured).
The site, which is now plowed fields, was excavated in the 1970s, finding items such as antler picks, charcoal, and human bones, The Guardian reported.
Researchers from Cardiff University used new scientific techniques on excavated items found at the Dorset County Museum to determine that the site was built between 35 and 125 years ago.
Greaney said the “last hurray” theory is not necessarily correct.
“It may also be that the effort to build these monuments led to a rebellion or a collapse of beliefs that created a vacuum that allowed people to enter from the mainland.”
However, a report on the study published on the Cardiff University ORCA research website said that “there is a growing sense that the centuries around 2500 BC were pivotal years of change, a major turning point when they produced quick transitions. ”
