Essay, Research Paper: Stonehenge 2

Stonehenge
Stonehenge and its purpose remains an enigma even now, more than 4,000 years after it was first begun. It could have been a temple, an astronomical calendar, or guide to the heavens. Despite the fact that we don't know its purpose for certain, Stonehenge acts as a prehistoric timepiece, allowing us to theorize what it would have been like during the Neolithic Period, and who could have built this megalithic wonder.
Construction took place in three phases, over 25 generations. Most of it was the result of human muscle and a system of ropes and wooden levers used to transport the massive stones. Primitive tools, such as red deer antlers, were used to dig up the chalky countryside of Salisbury Plain, which was then taken away on ox shoulder blades.
The builders
No one can say for sure who built the monument. Seventeenth century, English antiquarian, John Aubrey, implicated the Druids, a religious sect known to worship at modern day Stonehenge. But this theory is now considered implausible. The modern Druid, possibly formed from a Celtic priesthood, is believed to have come along 2,000 years after the stone monument hadbeen built and perhaps was in ruin.
But there may not be just one answer. In the book, Beyond Stonehenge, author and modern-day astronomer Gerald Hawkins suggests three groups of people took part in the construction. The first may have been the secondary Neolithic people, just after 3000 BCE. Next would have been the "Beaker People" named after their beaker-shaped drinking cups. The last phase, mainly stonework, may have been carried out by Wessex people. These people are known to have ties to Brittany, France, which is another culture implicated in the construction of Stonehenge by modern-day historian Aubrey Burl.
Regardless of who built the stone monument, the design and construction involved thousands of people who would have needed to be believe in the project. According to Andrew Lawson, unit director of Wessex Archaeology Ltd., a company involved in fieldwork of the site, Stonehenge is less about who built it than who commanded it to be built.
"These people would need to have been supported and the whole venture would have needed to have been thought worthwhile," says Lawson.
"So, you either have somebody who is fairly dictatorial and is capable of coercing people into doing it or it's somebody of great influence who uses some other power of suggestion to control people." Lawson is partial to the second theory.
Phases in Stonehenge construction
From henge to the introduction of the stones, construction of Stonehenge took close to 2,000 years. Although individual theories regarding the sequence of building vary, the monument was believed to have been built in three phases, where a circle of landscape and some holes slowly evolved into a number of stone arrangements that are part of an enigma still being decoded today.
The first phase is believed to have started around 3000 BCE. It involved the construction of 56 pits called "Aubrey Holes" named after the person who first discovered them, English antiquary John Aubrey. These holes may have been used to hold timber or wooden posts, which later fell out of disuse. They may have also contained the cremated remains of humans at one time. A ditch and bank, or the henge part of the monument, was also dug out in a circle just outside the holes.
The "Avenue", a laneway that runs through a break in the henge, was created on the northeast corner of the circle and was later extended to the River Avon, two kilometres away. A "Slaughter stone," now fallen, was placed along the Avenue at the break in the henge inside the circle. A "Heel stone" was placed 27 metres outside the main monument along the Avenue. It weighs 35 tonnes and stands six metres tall. Four "Station Stones" were also erected in the shape of a rectangle within the henge.
The events of the second phase of building, starting around 2800 BCE, are the most uncertain. Some propose it was a time when the monument held great timber posts, which were later taken down. There were other timber strutures being built at the time, such as Stanton Drew, a similar circle structure constructed out of wooden pillars close to Stonehenge. But others suggest a double horseshoe of bluestones, the small stones in the monument, were erected and then taken down later.
Phase three, starting around 2100 BCE, is a period during which most of the stones began to get introduced. A set of five sarsen stone, or sandstone, trilithons -- consisting of two pillars and a top lintel stone-- were erected in the shape of a horseshoe. The tallest trilithon towers above the rest of the stone monument at more than 7 feet tall including the top stone, or lintel.
Thirty other upright sarsen stones were placed in a circle around the horseshoe. These stood four metres above ground, two metres wide and one metre thick. They were connected with lintels, stones laid across the upright rocks, that enclosed the horseshoe in a perfect circle.
In the final section of the third phase, between 2000 and 1500 BCE, a horseshoe of blustones was added within the inner sarsen horseshoe. About 60 other bluestones were placed between the sarsen circle and sarsen horseshoe. The last edition to the site, from about 1550 BCE to 1100 BCE, were the "Z" and "Y" holes found in two concentric circles around the outside of the larger sarsen stone circle. These may have been made to fit more bluestones but now stand empty.
The mystery of the bluestones
To drag the sarsen stones, weighing up to 45 tonnes, or the weight of six elephants, from Marlborough Downs 30 kilometres to the south of Stonehenge would have been quite a feat. The bluestones, in contrast, were about four tonnes but are believed to have come from much farther -- the Preseli Mountains nearly 385 kilometres away from Stonehenge. Popular theory suggests the stones were rolled to the Welsh shore, carried on raft around the coast and into the River Avon, at Bristol. They would have then been transported through local rivers and then back to land, where they were once again rolled to Salisbury Plain.
But transport may not have been that difficult. "Prior to the construction of Stonehenge, there were a whole series of massive timber monuments and probably the size of some of the timber monuments would have been very heavy as well," says Lawson.
"So, the transportation of large objects had been practiced for thousands of years, so these people were probably fairly well-versed."
But others, such as preshistorian and stone circle expert Aubrey Burl, don't believe they were carried that far. He agrees that these bluestones came from the same "magic" Preseli Mountains, but suggests glaciation brought the bluestones to the area surrounding Stonehenge during the last glacier period in history -- the Plyoscene, 650,000 years ago.
"It takes 10 years to destroy a myth, and it will take another 10 years before people understand that what they're saying is a virtual impossibility."
His theory's based on three key findings. He has found that of the other 1,300 stone circle in Britain, Ireland and Brittany, France, most are made of local stone brought no more than seven or eight kilometres.
Burl also believes that if humans were to have carried these stones all the way from these mountains, they would have only taken the good stones. The bluestones found on Stonehenge are a mix of good, bad and medium rock.
Lastly, Burl suggests that good bluestone was found in the vicinity of Stonehenge thousands of years before the monument was ever began -- suggesting the rock was already in the area. "All these things add up together to suggest it wasn't human beings but a glacier that brought them there."
Architecture of Stonehenge
The last feat of effort would have been the erection of the stones. It is believed that a foundation pit was dug in the chalky ground. Wooden stakes would have been pounded into the vertical side of the pit to stop the stone from digging into the chalky ground as it was being raised.
The stone was moved forward with rollers toward a ramp, until the base of the rock was just sticking over the hole. The outer end was then levered up, allowing the base to dip into the hole until the stone was balanced on a 30 degree angle. It was then hauled up by gangs of about 100 men pulling on ropes.
The lintels were raised to the top of the pillars by first being laid parallel to the base of the uprights. They were slowly lifted with the use of wooden levers and temporary timber platforms, which slowly raises the lintel to the top of the stones.
But what is more interesting than how the lintels were raised is how they were made to fit to the upright sarsens. Mortice-and-tenon joints are still being used by carpenters today, and involve shaping one stone so that one part of the top of it protrudes out and fits into the hammered out slot in the other stone.
"And it is the sheer effort that is necessary to create the architectural sophistication of stonehenge -- that is more fascinating than how the stones got up," says Lawson.
The reason for all this effort seems to point to a single purpose -- or does it?
More than 4,000 years ago, the people of the Neolithic period decided to build a massive monument using earth, timber and eventually, stones, placing it high on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England -- about 137 kilometres southwest of London. Why anyone ever decided to build Stonehenge remains a mystery, with theories ranging from religion to astronomy. Some of what was Stonehenge still stands today, as mysterious and sacred as it must have been to the hundreds of people who helped build the site.
The stones of the main monument appear to form layers of circles and horseshoe patterns that slowly enclose the site. First there is an outer stone circle, now mostly in ruin. Within this are a smaller set of stones, also set in a circle. Within the centre of the monument are trilithons -- two pillar stones with one stone on top -- in the shape of a horseshoe. Within this is another smaller set of stones, also in a horseshoe.
But it is a monument made of more than just rocks. There is the henge, or a ditch and bank, that surrounds the stone circle. There is also a laneway that extends from the northeast side of the monument from the open horseshoe to the River Avon, a few kilometres away. Several stones mark this laneway, just outside the henge of the monument.
It doesn't sound all that different from many of the other stone circles being constructed around this time. So, why does this megalithic monument draw so much attention? Christopher Witcombe, a professor of art history at Sweet Briar College in Virginia and an authority on Stonehenge, believes that much of Stonehenge's intrigue can be explained in terms of the advanced architecture shown in the erection of the site.
"The world seems to have gone through a kind of megalithic period where they were moving large stones around and putting them into various positions in the landscape," says Witcombe. "Stonehenge, compared to those, is a fairly sophisticated piece of architecture." The outside set of stone pillars, complete with linking top stones, called lintels, form a complete circle. How the builders would have known how to shape the lintels in such a way so that they remain flat but still form a gentle circle would be considered architecturally advanced for the time period. In addition to this, these top stones were attached to the pillars in a technique still being used by carpenters today -- by mortice-and-tenon joints. The top of the upright stone would have been shaped to have a protruding section that fit into a carved out slot in the lintel.
Jutting out from the green landscape of the English countryside, the circles of stones and outlying monuments emit a power that must have been ingrained in the site itself. But it is a magnetism that can't be explained by architecture alone. Much of Stonehenge's intrigue stems from the fact that the stones are so shrouded in mystery, a characteristic that is magnified by its age. "The very fact that [the stones] have survived must mean they are special in some way -- and we afford them that sort of quality," says Witcombe.
Stonehenge was constructed in three phases, over a 2,000 year period between 3000 BCE and 1400 BCE. Erosion, time and human invasion has worn it down, leaving many of the stones in stumps similar to a set of baby teeth. Although the site may not be as majestic as it once was, it still conveys a sense of power that seems to enclose people in its mystery, allowing no one to escape from the riddle of its purpose. Today, there is enough left of Stonehenge to speculate on its purpose, but not enough to say for sure why or how it was constructed. Astronomers, archaeologists and historians continue to debate theories on its construction and purpose, but the only thing that can be said for certain is a description of what still exists today.
On the outside of the main monument is a circle of 17 sarsen stones, or sandstones, left from a set of about 30. These rocks stand four metres high and weight about 25 tonnes each. Some of them still retain their lintels, which would have been secured in a type of tongue-and-groove slot.
Within this is a larger sarsen stone horseshoe in the middle of the monument. There are remnants of what would have been five sets of two stones with a lintel on top -- called a trilithon after the Greek word for three stones. The tallest of these upright sarsen stones is about 7 metres tall with lintel, acting as a reminder that the word sarsen comes from "saracen", meaning heathenish, foreign and vaguely satanic.
Some of the most interesting theories surrounding Stonehenge are still being generated by the bluestones, the small rocks set in a circle between the sarsen stone circle and sarsen stone horseshoe. Originally, there may have been as many as 60, but only a few stand today, two of which are believed to be lintels. A bluestone horseshoe can also be found within the large sarsen stone horseshoe, which would have originally been made up of 19 stones. Again, few are left of these as well. Each of these stones were made to increase in size towards the centre and alternated in shape between tall, thin pillar like stones and stones of a tapering obelisk shape.
These bluestones, now severely weathered and covered in lichen, may not appear blue. But if freshly broken, most would have a slaty-blue colour. There are five colour variations represented in the bluestones found at Stonehenge. Some contain crystals that have given them a different shade when broken, such as the spotted dolerite, named for its pink crystals, which emits a pinkish hue. Within the bluestone horseshoe is the Altar stone -- a blue-grey stone from the shores of Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. It may have once stood upright but now lays underneath one of the great sarsen trilithons, and is about five metres in length.
Many other stones, of more historical and astronomical importance, also mark the site. One of the most intriguing is the "Heel stone."It stands along a laneway, known as the Avenue, that extends from the open horseshoe, on the northeast corner of the monument and down toward the River Avon, two kilometres away.
Along the Avenue, closer to the stone circles, is the "Slaughter Stone" that may have once been part of a pair of stones, forming a gate to the main monument. Shaped around the stone circles are two pillar stones, known as the "Station Stones." Originally there would have been four, placed in the shape of a rectangle.
A bank-and-ditch, or the henge of the monument, circles the main monument at about 91 metres in diameter. On the inside boundary of the henge are 56 pits, known as "Aubrey Holes" that can barely be seen. Closer to the stone circles are two other sets of pits, called "Z" and "Y" holes. These were the last additions to the monument and may have been carved out to accommodate more bluestones, but now lay empty.
All of the stones were brought far distances to Salisbury Plain, using only muscle and primitive tools, like ropes and wooden levers. The sarsen stones are believed to have been brought from Marlborough Downs, 30 kilometres to the north of Stonehenge, which is a feat incomparable by today's standards. But even more intriguing than this is the mystery of the bluestones. They are believed to have come from the Preseli Mountains in southwest Wales, nearly 385 kilometres away. How these stones, each weighing four tonnes, arrived at Stonehenge is still debated. But regardless of how they came to the site, it appears to have required much effort in a time before the invention of the wheel.
"Clearly, a lot of trouble was taken by the builders to put those things up -- and some of the stones were brought from a long way away," says Witcombe. "Which also, incidently, signifies how important that spot on Salisbury Plain must be if they went to all that trouble to get those stones to that particular place."
"It's not the stones that make it sacred. It's the spot that's already sacred, or holy, and then the stones are built," says Witcombe.
And construction couldn't have been much easier than hauling those stones all that way.