The Stonehenge Mystery of the Altar Stone.

 

Ten or more years ago, my imagination was captured by the mind-blowing discoveries at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, where the archaeological dig had started uncovering this new discovery in a 2010 dig. Brick by brick, bone by bone, they revealed a 5500-year-old temple complex with more than 100 buildings, surrounded by a 10ft wall. Some of this complex is possible more than 800 years earlier than Stonehenge and could be as, if not more, important than the Wiltshire site.

The altar stone lies flat and buried under two fallen sarsen stones
and is barely visible to visitors. Photograph: Aberystwyth University

This week's jaw-dropping news about the Altar Stone at Stonehenge changes things again. Scientific research has revealed an extraordinary new mystery––the massive six-tonne stone at the heart of the monument was brought to Stonehenge from the far north of Scotland.

The Altar Stone is ritually the most important stone at Stonehenge. It marks the intersection of the winter solstice sunrise to summer solstice sunset alignment, and the summer solstice sunrise to winter solstice sunset alignment.

Individual crystals were examined which allowed the Altar Stone to be dated, showing Old Red Sandstone from the Orcadian basin in north-east Scotland. This basin was once a massive ancient water body called Lake Orcadie. It's possible that this was already a ritually important stone that  might even have been taken from the Orkney sacred site, or certainly the very north-east area of the mainland. 

Aberystwyth University geologist Nick Pearce
 analyses Neolithic standing stones in Orkney 
(Prof Richard Bevins, Aberystwyth University)

This journey of over 500 miles seems near impossible. It might have been brought by sea as there is evidence that people at this time were making sea journeys. However, it could have been dragged. That would mean organising teams of people to pull the stone, possibly swapping to new teams as the journey progressed south. But now we are beginning to realise how closely connected settlements might have been, this feels more realistic.

Speaking in the New Scientist,  geologist Richard Bevins from Aberystwyth University said, "Most stone circles are made from rocks found within a kilometre of the site. The thing that’s unique about Stonehenge is the distance that stones have been transported." 

Bevins’s team has already shown that the bluestones come from the Preseli hills in Wales, about 280 kilometres away. One idea is that they were part of an even older Welsh stone monument that was moved, a fascinating story to me, which I featured in this blog post here, because I live so close to these Welsh sites. 

It was always a possibility that early man travelled widely, and the news this week seems to confirm that both these sites were connected. 

An artist's impression of what
archeologists are uncovering

I first wrote about the amazing temple complex at the Ring of Brodgar after Jim and I visited Orkney just as they were starting to dig there. Even then,  it was quite apparent to us  that Orkney was a hub of society at that time, rather than an 'outback'.

You can read more about the full era of the Orkney complex  here on this blogpost, "Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Worship".

All this linking together of sites across England, Wales and Scotland (as we now think of it), suggests not only hardworking, intelligent and knowledgeable people living in the early Neolithic, but people who could plan, work and worship together. Of course, they may have argued, even fought each other too, but perhaps we might take a lesson from their achievements, which, in comparison, seem to outweigh our own