Stonehenge is a name given to a mysterious prehistoric monument that stands tall on the
Salisbury Plains amid the idyllic English countryside of Wiltshire.
Over a million tourists flock to the enigmatic site each year, marvelling at the ancient
architecture.
But, despite the popularity of one of the world’s greatest structures, nobody quite
knows how and why it exists.
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I am your host Rebecca Felgate
and today we are tackling an age old mystery as we ask – Why was Stonehenge built?
Before we get into this answer, I just want to ask you guys to leave this video with a
thumbs up and leave us a comment letting us know why you think Stonehenge was built.
Stonehenge is an impressive sight to behold.
It’s exitance is heavily associated with myth, magic, ritual and religion.
Can we do what thousands before us who have mused upon the great stone circle have failed
to do an figure out why it is there?
If only some wise prehistoric person had had the foresight to actually write something
down about the process or document it in some way, but unfortunately this seemed to be beyond
the capabilities of Neolithic Britons.
Without any written record, it becomes infinitely much harder to determine the who, how and
whys of Stonehenge.
Luckily in the age of modern science, we are able to examine the clues on a deeper level
than those who mused at the stones hundreds of years before we did.
Carbon dating tells us the area was in active use between 3100 BC and 1600 BC, but that
the stones were raised between 2400 BC and 2200 BC.
Interestingly, what archeologists are also able to tell us these days is that Stonehenge
as we know it is actually the third and final structure on the site.
It seems initially the area was home to a man-made chalk circle, then a timber structure
before finally becoming home to the huge stone structure we know today.
But wait… let’s think about those huge stones a little more.
If they were raised over 4000 years ago, like, how exactly?
People back then didn’t exactly have cranes, forklifts or…you know, the wheel!
Stonehenge was originally made up of approximately 165 stones, the biggest of which are roughly
4 by two metres each and weigh around 25 to 30 tons.
Eesh.
On top of that….
Not all of the stones are local, some come from 200 miles away in Wales, so…sans wheel….
How on earth did they get to the Sailsbury Plains.
This line of questioning has led to some pretty wild theories, although let us just interject
before we discuss those and say that modern experiments have proven was possible, even
with the rudimentary construction tools available thousands of years ago.
While we don’t know for sure, it is likely the stones were moved with rolling logs and
sleighs.
Indeed at similar site in Aberdeenshire cricket ball size ball barings were unearthed near
stones by archeologists, suggesting the stones could have been dragged.
While this would have been a definite feat of human endeavour and would have taken an
educated estimate of 20 million man hours and thousands of workers to build, we know
from – dragged?
- studies now estimate that the site would have taken around 20 million man hours to
build – which would mean thousands of workers.
So….what would be worth this effort?
Historically there really is only one answer – religion.
This brings us from how, to why.
The most compelling evidence for religion of sorts at Stonehenge is the findings from
carbon dating in the area.
Ancient animal bones have revealed that pigs were slaughtered in the area in the winter
months each year, which could have something to do with the equinox.
Lending more substance to this theory; it appears Stonehenge is built on three chalk
ridges that geographically align in the midsummer and midwinter axis.
This could suggest a architectural symbol of heaven and earth unified.
Again, the alignment of the stones seems to suggest that those who built the structure
factored in optimum viewing of sunrises and sunsets.
Perhaps Stonehenge was a site for an undocumented ancient religion.
For ritual – Radiocarbon dating on animal remains and fossils found near the area tell
us that pigs were slaughtered there in the winter months every year – could have been
an equinox thing!
Some people also suspect the area to have associations with healing, which could once
again tie into the religious aspect of things.
Burials of humans around Stonehenge generally show deformity or trauma, which could suggest
that people were brought to the stones because they believed they had so,e magical powers.
Furthermore, some researchers in archaeocoustics suspect the structure could have been a concert
chamber, saying the size and shapes of the rocks make for amazing acoustics.
But why go through all the effort of constructing something so mammoth for simple acoustics?
Again, perhaps the stones served as some kind of chamber for religious ritual.
So, if we have a few ideas of how and why Stonehenge was built, that leaves us with
the question of who commissioned it.
While there are some logical theories that the site was built by Druids, the group don’t
date back as far as early construction of Stonehenge and their religious rituals don’t
seem quite on par from the evidence found at the site.
A wilder theory suggests that the great wizard Merlin commissioned some giants, from an ancient
race called Nephilim, to do it.
Of course, there is no evience to support this.
Perhaps the wildest theory out there comes from Swiss author Erich von Däniken who thinks
aliens provided earthlings with godlike intelligence and power, and they constructed Stonehenge
following extraterrstrial command.
Again… the evidence is…er…lacking.
Interestingly, the Stonehenge Landscapes project recently discovered, using underground radar
and magnetic imaging, that actually, Stonehenge is at the centre of a whole bunch of structures,
spreading out around 4 and a half square miles in the area, which points to some kind of
cultural significance in the area that we don’t yet know about., and maybe we never
will.
What we do know is that several different generations of people were involved in building
Stonehenge, meaning that the area was significant for several centuries – this could support
a hypothesis about an old religion lost with the sands of time.
So, like a lot of questions out there, this one doesn’t have a fully formed answer,
we can only work woth our best available information, and at the moment it seems to point to the
reason behind stonehenge’s existence being for ritual and religion, but like all good
questioners, we are open to more options with the mergence of new evidence.
What do you guys think?
Why is Stonehenge there and who built it?
Let me know in the comments section below.
For now, thanks for tuning in to Life’s Biggest Questions.
Make sure you give the video a thumbs up and stay subscribed for more big answers.
I am Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you in the next video, but for now, stay curious,
stay alert and never ever stop questioning.