Stonehenge breakthrough as scientists may have shed light on major mystery

Stonehenge is one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments located on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.

This world heritage site attracts millions of visitors each year who marvel at this only surviving lintelled stone circle of its kind.

Alongside attracting a host of wanderers, these ancient sights have also baffled experts and archaeologists when it comes to their origins.

A new study by researchers at UCL and Aberystwyth University have discovered Stonehenge’s true purpose. 

The researchers have claimed that Stonehenge was likely used as a way to unify ancient people from across the UK.

In the study, which was published in the journal Archaeology International, researchers further analysed the significance of its recent discovery.

This included the Scottish origin of the six-tonne Altar Stone and later confirmed that all stones featured in Stonehenge were brought to Salisbury Plain from far away.

This long journey corroborates the long-held theory that the Neolithic monument had unifying purposes back in ancient Britain. 

Lead author Professor Mike Parker Pearson (UCL Institute of Archaeology) explained: “The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions, making it unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose – as a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”

Just under 1,000 stone circles have been discovered across the UK, with Stonehenge being home to a significant spot for the island’s ancient people, notes the study.

They added that many of these ancient people included several newcomers who had migrated from other parts of Europe.

Researchers added that the accompanying celebrations and feasting synonymous with Stonehenge would have attracted thousands of people who wanted to take part in this momentous venture.

Professor Parker Pearson, a Professor of British Later Prehistory, said: “We’ve known for a while that people came from many different parts of Britain with their pigs and cattle to feast at Durrington Walls, and nearly half the people buried at Stonehenge had lived somewhere other than Salisbury Plain.”

“The similarities in architecture and material culture between the Stonehenge area and northern Scotland now make more sense.  

“It helped to solve the puzzle of why these distant places had more in common than we might have once thought.”