Having recently visited Stonehenge, I’m wondering about something.
Everyone assumes that whoever built Stonehenge actually finished the job, that they completed this perfect circle of perfectly vertical, evenly-spaced vertical rocks, topped by the horizontals. And then, over thousands of years, the rocks shifted, some of the verticals fell over, and most of the horizontals fell off.
My question is: How do we know it was ever actually completed? My theory is that they gave it a good try, but because of their limited technology, it proved so problematic that they said the hell with it, and gave up. I can imagine these huge rocks falling over and killing people, and the whole thing getting really out of control. Not to mention the fact that it probably would have been really difficult to fix any misalignments once the rocks were in place.
As far as I know, the area around Stonehenge has been populated during most of the time since its construction. Are there any representations of it from say a couple thousand years ago, that show it as more completed than today? Obviously it must have deteriorated in time, but why do we assume it was ever actually completed?
Ancient builders were tenacious folks. The Egyptian Pyramids were all completed and even the smallest of them was orders of magnitude more difficult to build than Stonehenge. When it came to their temples and sacred constructions, no amount of time or effort were too much for the ancients.
Well IIRC correwctly Stone Henge was bilt in different stages with other neolithic builders adding to what was already there. Personally I think that Silbury Hill in nearby Avebury is a much more impressive work of Neolithic engineering, also if you see the stone cirlce there which isn’t quite as impressive as Stonehenge but has a much, much larger radius you’ll see that the Neolithic builders didn’t do things by half.
There are paintings and drawing of Stonehenge over the centuries, some of these point to damage by Puritans, the ‘Stonekillers’, or by ground shifting as you mention, or just erosion.
I can’t remember where I saw the earliest known drawing, but I’m sure they date from the late 16thC and they show much more extensive cuaseways lined with obelisks and the great trilithon has its pediment in place, whereas only one of the uprights remains in place today.
Panache - As an archaeologist currently working in the United States, and as one who has been to stonehenge and worked with archaeologists from Wessex Archaeology, I’ll tell you it was quite finished when it was being used for ceremony. Bronze age results continually kept being rejected by radio-carbon dating. Over and over again they tried to put the date of the initial outer dicth around 3000 B.C. but completion dates vary swiftly, but it can be said that SH was built before 500 B.C. Completed that is.
When I was at the site there was a German team working on the Aubrey Holes, trying to date them succinctly. To my knowledge they were unsuccessful. Too little collagen in the samples they had.
It would be fair to say the site was complete at one point in time, but as there have been settlements their for millennia, a certain amount of vandalism has taken place, and taken it’s toll.
I was so relieved when I saw that the topic titled “Stonehenge: Did They Really Build It?” was not about aliens.
A “Then and Now” animation, as well as photos for your desktop here, from the Secrets of the Dead: Murder at Stonehenge documentary Channel 4 (UK) did last year.
Yeah, the stone circle at Avebury is an amazing monument.
I’d like to challenge the archeologist here to present some proof that Stonehenge was in fact fully finished. I know it was built in various stages over 1000s of years, but do we really, really know that the large outer circle was fully complete? For example, are there excavations clearly showing the holes dug for the updrights and that they were actually home to the stones that are missing? And can we be certain that all the capping stones were in place even if we know all the uprights were there? I thought the jury was still out on this.
I agree that, absent full evidence, it is highly likely to have been completed, but are we really sure?
John - the most reliable data suggest the site to be initially dug between 3000 B.C AND 2500 B.C. In archaeological terms the data is in some cases reliable in others quite unreliable. Cite .
The cite indicates a probability distrubution showing radiocarbon resluts of when the land was first used. Notice the highest percentage fall between the 3000 B.C mark and the 2500 B.C date.
IIRC, the first to excavate was a Duke from Buckingham early 17th century. But the most noteable was John Aubrey late 17th century. In archaeological terms they “Butchered” the area and may have taken some of the stones ergo the Aubrey holes are vastly significant.
If you John sat on the Avenue in 1000 B.C I’d bet vital parts of my anatomy that you would have seen a completed structure. The best theory for that is Stonhenge would have done no one any good, if it had not been complete. They would have only been able to determine a calender setting for 3/4’s of a year, even in the Aubrey time.
It is most likely Aubrey himself found the sit in ruin, without modern day archaeological assessment and survey techniques, everything would have been destroyed except the compacted placement of the chaulk under the original stones. Thus confirming a VERY heavy peice of wood, or a perfectly weighted stone slab - now missing slabs have baffled scientists for decades.
As a spiritual centre the Henge is very significant, as it was most likely not used by druids but someone of a more ancient line, Pre-Roman. It is this that people will always wonder. Who? I have little doubt though that it was unfinished, an undertaking of that magnitude in that period simply does not get dropped.
There is archaeological evidence of it being used though; regularly-spaced pits containing charcoal etc. It seems (to me) a little unlikely that they’d undertake the incredible task of hauling all that stone hundreds of miles (all the way from Southern Wales to Salisbury plain), then not bother putting it together (or be unable to).
Well, the Easter Islanders never finished all their statues. Quite a bit of different circumstances, but I don’t buy the “they wouldn’t have started if they didn’t mean to finish” it argument. Clearly they meant to finish it and I’m sure they wanted to finish it, too. But did they?
I intended to finish cleaning my garage last weekend, but I didn’t.
Certainly in the case of nearby Avebury, some of the stones have been removed over the years to become parts of houses, churches etc; the Stonehenge stone is pretty distinctive and certainly not local, I’m not sure if any of it has ever been tracked to other buildings in the area, but I think it is quite likely that some of it has disappeared that way.
Consider Avebury stone circle, just down the road from Stonehenge. Avebury is the world’s largest stone circle and we know Avebury was complete - many of the stones were broken up and used to build the cottages in the village that now sits inside the stone circle.
Avebury comprises an enormous circular earthwork, 400 m wide, with a deep external ditch whose circumference is over 1200 metres. Inside is a 400-metre diameter circle of immense standing stones, and inside that there are two more stone circles each 100 metres in diameter. From Avebury there run two stone avenues, each of which had about 100 megaliths. Altogether there were some 600 megaliths including those of the Sanctuary.
The ditch surrounding Avebury must have taken at least 100 years of intensive work to dig, and that’s just digging the ditch and remember these people probably didn’t have a whole lot of spare time on their hands what with farming etc.
When dealing with these neolithic folks, the idea that they would start something like Stonehenge and then get bored of it half-way through really is not an option. Or, at least, it is the least likely option by a long, long way.
If you want conclusive proof then you’re not going to get it since it’s so old, it predates Rome and Greece.
Anyway the main reason I posted:
Antiquarian,
Did you know Phil Harding? Something of a minor TV celebrity in the UK from Time Team.
I’ve been to both Avebury and Stonehenge. I highly recomend both. Avebury is cool because it encompasses the “village” (had a few pints at the pub there) and Stonehenge is just erie as you aproach it from a distance.
I’m really not trying to discredit anyone or claim that Stonehenge wasn’t completed. For those not familiar with the issue, it’s not like all the stones are just lying around and you could put the pieces back together if you wanted to. IIRC, quite a few of the stones are missing altogether. But I’m thinking that archeaologists have lots of clever ways of inferring what ancient structures were like. Maybe the missing stones have holes clearly dug for them. Maybe there is a way of telling if a stone ever was in the hole or not. Maybe there’s even a way to tell if the stone was in the hole, and actually had a top stone capping it. I don’t know. I’d like to know, as would Panache. I don’t buy his theory that the builders couldn’t finish it, but I think it is plausible that they just didn’t (for any number of reasons).
Not looking for absolute proof, but just what are the details of how archeologists conclude that it was, in fact, completed.
Years ago, Mad Magazine published a cartoon which showed the builders of Stonehenge walking away from it, with site looking as it does today. The caption to the cartoon read something like, “Britons finally figure out how to arrange the stones at Stonehenge in such a way as to confuse the hell out of archeologists for centuries to come.” Seems as good an explaination as any, to me.
Nothing, however, compares to Tamponhenge in terms of wonder.
My explanation: Ancinet drunken college students. And it works great for any of the unexplained stuff. Tell me you can’t see some ancient drunk students going, “Why don’t we arrange these huge rocks in some weird formation? It’ll mess with their MINDS!”
Well. Stonehenge was (perhaps) complete several times in several stages. The OP question seems to be was the last phase ever completed? and there is no reason to assume that it was.
First there was a circle with no stones, complete for hundreds of years.
The bluestones came from Wales, about 300 km away. They formed a (probably)complete circle, which is now gone- it does not seem to haveen great many years before they were re-erected within the great Sarsen outer circle, made of huge stones which had been dragged ‘only’ 30km.
Interestingly enough (to me) the Sarsen stone is a kind of sandstone formed from soil deposits in Tertiary times when the climate was a lot hotter.
The whole complex went through several stages, over a period of 1500 years, but it is wrong to assume that the last stage, or any of the intermediate stages, were ever completed.
Jojo - I do not know Phil Harding but I have met the man. I worked with Pippa Smith and Tom Archer through my University in Massachusetts. I went to Exeter and worked for a year on Carisbrooke Castle Isle of Wight…Very fun excavation and survey. I had lot’s of fun. When I went to Stonehenge and Avebury it was on more of an apprenticeship with Wessx personnel, I was never in a authoratative position. I will say it was an honor to work with those chaps, very knowledgeable.
John - you are both right and wrong with your asertion that is was never finished. Lest not forget an innate human drive of looting. People have mentioned the possibility that some of the original stones may infact be in the surrounding areas. This is true. But if one carried a 10 ton stone somewhere they better have a good place close by…
You said:
Yes there is and it is a common practice in archaeology. Silting, and study of deposits under stone, or holes can tell us with radiocarbon dating how old the hole is, and what was on top of it. Stonehnge saw it’s grand share of human and animal cremations, and these sights were all overlooked by medieval diggers. THANK GOD. And there is a fair amount of chaulk under several layers stretching from the outer ditch to the innder circle. Evidence collected from the Car Park also lead archaeologists to believe the structure was infact finished. As the settlement of our holes indicates stones stood upright there, for a considerable amount of time.
An Example to illustrate my point:
When a home is built on a stone foundation, and it lay there for say a century. When the home is knocked down, plowed over, and let’s say a nice layer of loam or sod was laid over it. Eventually no one could see that there was anything ever there. However, bring a team of archaeologists in and let them set up shop, and before they evern cut ground, they will survey the spot, and with a series of sonar readings tell exactly where the foundation was, because the impacted earth under the stone is still very much impacted, even with no stone left. Luckily in most parts of Stonhenge, there are large divits and areas that only needed survey and sonar to know what was actually standing there a millennia ago.
I hope I have answered at least some of your questions. I know you are not trying to discredit anyone, this is a tricky business trying to tell what stood where and when…it is certainly not a precise science at times.
BTW, I should say Most of the sights where human and animal remains were overlooked by medieval diggers, but some were infact found. Also I might add some were more recent than prior to 2000 years ago.
