the stones that were used to build stonehenge came from ireland.
the stones that were used to build stonehenge came from ireland.
where did the stones come from to build stonehenge?
ireland
aubrey burl and a number of geologists and geomorphologists contend that the bluestones were not transported by human agency at all and were instead brought by glaciers at least part of the way from wales during the pleistocene. there is good geological and glaciological evidence that glacier ice did move across preseli and did reach the somerset coast. it is uncertain that it reached salisbury plain, although a spotted dolerite boulder was found in a long barrow at heytesbury, which was built long before the stone settings at stonehenge were installed. one current view is that glacier ice transported the stones as far as somerset, and that they were transported from there by the builders of stonehenge. however, in 2015, researchers reported they had confirmed the preseli spotted dolerite stones at stonehenge came from two neolithic quarries at carn goedog and craig rhos-y-felin in the preseli hills. using radiocarbon dating, researchers dated the quarry activities to around 3400 bc for craig rhos-y-felin and 3200 bc for carn goedog. project director mike parker pearson of the ucl institute of archaeology noted the finding was "intriguing because the bluestones didn't get put up at stonehenge until around 2900 bc… it could have taken those neolithic stone-draggers nearly 500 years to get them to stonehenge, but that's pretty improbable in my view. it's more likely that the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to wiltshire." in 2018 two of the quarries—carn goedog and craig rhos-y-felin—underwent more excavation to reveal evidence of megalith quarrying around 3000 bc. if true, this shortens the period between excavation and transportation to the stonehenge site.
theories about stonehenge
estimates of the manpower needed to build stonehenge put the total effort involved at millions of hours of work. stonehenge 1 probably needed around 11,000 man-hours (or 460 man-days) of work, stonehenge 2 around 360,000 (15,000 man-days or 41 years). the various parts of stonehenge 3 may have involved up to 1.75 million hours (73,000 days or 200 years) of work. the working of the stones is estimated to have required around 20 million hours (830,000 days or 2,300 years) of work using the primitive tools available at the time. certainly, the will to produce such a site must have been strong, and an advanced social organization would have been necessary to build and maintain it. however, wally wallington's work suggests that stonehenge's construction may have required fewer man-hours than previously estimated.
theories about stonehenge