Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England,
about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Amesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury.
One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is the remains of a ring
of standing stones set within earthworks. It is in the middle of the most dense
complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several
hundred burial mounds.
Archaeologists believe it was built anywhere from 3000 BC to
2000 BC. Radiocarbon dating in 2008 suggested that the first stones were raised
between 2400 and 2200 BC, whilst another theory suggests that bluestones may
have been raised at the site as early as 3000 BC.
The first monument consisted of a circular bank and ditch
enclosure made of Late Cretaceous (Santonian Age) Seaford Chalk, (7 and 8),
measuring about 110 metres (360 ft) in diameter, with a large entrance to the
north east and a smaller one to the south (14). It stood in open grassland on a
slightly sloping spot. The builders placed the bones of deer and oxen in the
bottom of the ditch, as well as some worked flint tools. The bones were
considerably older than the antler picks used to dig the ditch, and the people
who buried them had looked after them for some time prior to burial. The ditch
was continuous but had been dug in sections, like the ditches of the earlier
causewayed enclosures in the area. The chalk dug from the ditch was piled up to
form the bank. This first stage is dated to around 3100 BC, after which the
ditch began to silt up naturally. Within the outer edge of the enclosed area is
a circle of 56 pits (13), each about a metre (3 ft 3 in) in diameter, known as
the Aubrey holes after John Aubrey, the 17th-century antiquarian who was
thought to have first identified them. Sources
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