One of Stonehenge’s biggest mysteries has been ‘solved’ after 5,000 years

Spaceship landing site? Celestial calculator? A giant fertility symbol? Shrine to Mother Earth? Or just a pile of rocks?

It’s been a mystery for 5,000 years, but scientists think they may finally have discovered the reason Stonehenge was built.

While the landmark was built roughly at the same time as the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Giza, we know far more about the Egyptian sites than this ring of rocks in Salisbury Plains, Wiltshire.

But evidence suggests the iconic stones were erected to unify ancient Britain, according to research.

Geologists revealed that the famous Alter Slab hailed from far northeast Scotland, while it was already known that some rocks came from Wales and others more locally from Wiltshire.

How these rocks came from up and down the UK could be a big clue about why Stonehenge was made – unless it’s aliens, of course.

In a study published in Archaeology International, its lead author, UCL Professor Mike Parker Pearson, said the formation is different from the other 900 stone rings in Britain.

This ‘suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose’, he said.

Pearson added: ‘[It was] a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.’ 

One reason why Stonehenge remains a riddle is because writing did not exist in England until the Romans arrived 2,500 years later, so there is no written history of the landmark.

Instead, scientists have to get up close to the rocks that make it up.

England, Scotland and Wales did not exist as countries when Stonehenge was built between 3000 and 1500BC- but the scientists say the structure could still have been a way of unifying different parts of the island.

Stonehenge is best known for the tall Sarsen stones that make up its distinctive appearance – these, it’s believed, came from West Woods in Wiltshire.

Each Sarsen stone may have needed 1,000 people to pull it 15 miles to the site, a process that took generations and killed many people.

There are also around 80 smaller ‘bluestones’ that have a blueish tinge when wet or freshly broken.

These stones, experts mostly agree, were sourced from Craig Rhos-y-Felin in the Preseli Hills of south-west Wales.

The six-tonne, five-metre-long Altar Stone, which sits in the centre of Stonehenge, is also bluestone but its composition is different.

A research team analysed the age and chemistry of the minerals of the stone and found they were very similar to the Old Red Sandstone of the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland.

The team concluded ‘with 95% accuracy’ that the stone came from this area, which includes parts of Inverness, Thurso, Shetland and Orkney.

It’s not, however, believed, the rock originated in Orkney, nearly 550 miles away from Stonehenge.

The study suggests the Altar Stone was transported somehow by Neolithic people living in what is now northern Scotland as a gift to those living in what is now southern England.

The paper said: ‘[This was] perhaps to cement an alliance or to take part in the extraordinary long-distance collaboration that building Stonehenge represented and embodied.’

It adds that the rocks from Wales may have been brought to the site for similar reasons.

The paper says the link with Scotland could help explain similarities in ‘architecture and material culture’ between the area around Stonehenge and northern Scotland.

It adds: ‘Unusually strong similarities in house floor layouts between Late Neolithic houses in Orkney and the Durrington Walls settlement near Stonehenge also provide evidence of close connections between Salisbury Plain and northern Scotland.’

For around five centuries, Stonehenge was used as a cremation and burial site, with nearly half buried coming from areas other than Salisbury Plain.

Experts say it shows how far people would travel to visit the site.

Thousands of people will flock to Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice on June 21, the longest day of the year north of the Equator and the scientific start of summer.

The stones were built to align with the Sun on the two solstices, which happen in June and December.

In the summer, the Sun rises behind the Heel Stone in the north-east part of the horizon.

While in the winter, it sets to the southwest of the stone circle.

This story was originally published on December 20, 2024.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.