Located about 90 miles west of London, Stonehenge is one of the world’s most famous and mysterious prehistoric monuments. Built around the same time as Egypt’s Great Pyramid, this complex of giant stones, some weighing up to 30 tons, has captivated archaeologists and historians for more than a thousand years .
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Scientific advances like radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have upended what we know about the people who built Stonehenge. The Guardian explains how forensic geology and isotopic analysis of the teeth of a man who died 4,350 years ago reveal that those societies were likely much less violent and more cooperative than previously thought.
What is a henge anyway? Where did the theory that aliens built it come from? How did some guy manage to buy Stonehenge as a gift for his wife for only £6,000? Host Greg Jenner breaks down the big questions about Stonehenge on this comedic history podcast from BBC Radio 4, with help from stand-up comedian Richard Herring and archaeologist Susan Greaney.
Prehistoric people approached Stonehenge via a route archaeologists call “The Avenue.” If they stood in the center of the circle and looked back down the Avenue on the summer solstice, they’d see the sunrise framed by the large sarsen stones. If you can’t visit Stonehenge in person, this interactive 3D virtual tour—complete with sidebars and video explainers—is the next best thing.
In the 1960s, scientists used a then-new technology—the computer—to analyze the placement of the Stonehenge stones in relation to the heavens. They decided that Stonehenge must have served as an ancient astronomical computer, accurately predicting lunar eclipses and other celestial events. Today’s scholars aren’t so sure. Here, BBC Sky at Night magazine covers the evolution of the astronomical theory of Stonehenge.
The first ship to cross the isthmus of Panama went not by sea but by land: The paddlewheel steamship Explorer was taken apart and transported by rail, an effort that generated “more trouble than profit,” according to one account.
Back in the day, access to Stonehenge was free and open to all; families would picnic there, and there was even a Woodstock-inspired music festival that drew up to 100,000 attendees. Then, in 1985, Margaret Thatcher put the kibosh on the festival, blocking off road access and calling in 1,300 riot police to violently arrest festival goers. This documentary features footage from that day. People have been largely banned from the central part of the monument ever since, except on solstices and equinoxes.
This gallery from Google Arts and Culture lets you explore Stonehenge through archival photographs from the Life magazine collection, contemporary images from Getty, and a Google Earth model of the site that you can spin around and flip to get an aerial view of the layout. There’s even a virtual tour that gets you close enough to see the lichen on the 30-foot-tall sarsen stones.
If you ask archaeologist Mike Pitts, the leading theories about how Stonehenge was built are all wrong. Instead of using wooden rollers to transport the sarsen stones, he suspects stone-age builders used sleds, and that they raised them not with long ropes but rather with the same technique islanders used to raise the big stone heads on Easter Island.
If you can’t quite picture how human beings managed to lug 30-ton stones over miles of prehistoric English countryside and stand them up, this short animation from English Heritage can help. The Stone Age engineering involved using giant wooden rollers and carving precisely interlocking tongue-and-groove joints to hold the heavy stones in place.
Stonehenge was built before the wheel was even invented, making its construction even more mysterious. In response, some wild theories have sprung up. One text from the 12th century depicts a giant from the Nephilim race helping the wizard Merlin erect the stones. A popular book from the 1960s suggested that Stonehenge (along with the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids) was actually built using alien technology.
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