Central Altar Stone from Scotland not Wales

The six-tonne Altar Stone on the coronary heart of Stonehenge got here from the far north of Scotland somewhat than south-west Wales as beforehand thought, new evaluation has discovered.

The discovery reveals the development of Stonehenge was a far higher collaborative effort than scientists realised.

It additionally signifies that the traditional monument, close to Salisbury in south-west England, was constructed with stones from all components of Great Britain.

The findings counsel Neolithic Britain was a much more linked and superior society than earlier proof indicated.

The distance between Stonehenge and the far north of Scotland is about 700km (434 miles).

The analysis was led by a Welsh PhD pupil, Anthony Clarke, now working at Curtin University in Western Australia.

Such is the significance of the invention that it has been printed in one of many world’s main scientific journals, Nature, which is a gigantic achievement for an apprentice researcher.

But it’s a bittersweet second for the younger Welshman, who was born in Pembrokeshire, the place the Altar Stone was till now thought to have come from.

“I don’t think I’ll be forgiven by people back home,” he joked to Daily News News. “It will be a great loss for Wales!”

But Mr Clarke factors out that the remaining stones within the central horseshoe, that are often known as bluestones, are from Wales and the bigger stones within the outer circle are from England.

“We’ve got to give the Scots something!” he mentioned.

“But on a serious note, Stonehenge seems to be this great British endeavour involving all the different people from all over the island,” he said.

The bluestones at Stonehenge were identified as coming from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire in 1923, by Welsh geologist Henry Herbert Thomas. The central Altar Stone was made of a different rock but always assumed to have come from the same area, until 20 years ago when scientists first began to question its origins.

Last year, researchers including Prof Nick Pearce from Aberystwyth in Wales, of all places, concluded that the Alter Stone could not have come from Wales. But its origin had remained a mystery, until now.

“It blew our socks off when we discovered it was from north-east Scotland,” Prof Pearce, who was additionally concerned within the present discovery, instructed Daily News News.

“It was a shock to say the least. Coming from that distance, more than 700km, was remarkable.

“The Neolithic people must have been pretty-well connected, far more connected than people give them credit for. They must have been very well organised”.

The breakthrough was made by the team at Curtin university who analysed the chemical composition of fragments of rock that had fallen off the Altar Stone and dated them. The composition and date are unique to rocks from different parts of the world, rather like a fingerprint.

The Australian team had access to one of the most comprehensive global rock fingerprint databases and found the best match was from the Orcadian Basin, which includes the Caithness, Orkney, and Moray Firth regions of north-eastern Scotland.

Construction at Stonehenge began 5,000 years ago, with changes and additions over the next two millennia. Most of the bluestones are believed to have been the first stones erected at the site.

Dr Robert Ixer, from University College London, who was also involved in the study, described the result as “shocking”.

“The work prompts two important questions: how was the Altar Stone transported from the very north of Scotland, a distance of more than 700 kilometres, to Stonehenge, and, more intriguing, why?”

The distance is the longest recorded journey for any stone used in a monument at that period and Prof Peace says that the next mystery to solve is how it got there.

“There are obvious physical barriers to transporting by land, and an equally daunting journey if going by sea.

“These findings will have huge ramifications for understanding communities in Neolithic times, their levels of connectivity and their transport systems”.

The new research will be pored over by archaeologists working for English Heritage, which looks after Stonehenge, according to one of the monument’s senior curators, Heather Sebire.

”This discovery certainly implies that there were great social connections in Britain at the time,” she told BBC News.

“It is phenomenal that the people of the time brought such a large stone all this way. They must have had a compelling reason to do it.

“They had a sophisticated and developed society and so they probably had a spiritual side, just like we do“.