PUBLISHED: 15:31 30 May 2008 | UPDATED: 15:13 20 February 2013
When was the first stone structure at Stonehenge built? Recent excavations hope to find that out and
PUBLISHED: 15:31 30 May 2008 | UPDATED: 15:13 20 February 2013
When was the first stone structure at Stonehenge built? Recent excavations hope to find that out and we give you privileged access to the dig. <br/><br/>The Preseli Bluestones Project, the first excavations at Stonehenge for forty years, hopes to find out...
On 21 June, Stonehenge will once again be the focus of world attention even more than it is usually as people gather to celebrate the Summer Solstice, none more enthusiastic ally that one group of people popularly associated with the celebrations - the Druids. Druid Priestess Emma Orr explained that Druidry is "an attitude and understanding, an exquisitely simple and natural philosophy of living. For many it is a rich and ancient religion, a mystical spirituality. For others, it's simply a guiding way of life. It is absolutely open and free for anyone to discover". Druids have always had an affinity for stone circles, and Druid groups have been building them and celebrating in them for 200 years. There is a recent structure at the Glastonbury Festival site and others are built for the annual Eisteddfods.
When 17th-century scholars began studying ancient stone monuments around Britain, they concluded that Druids had built many of the dolmens, standing stones and stone circles. This belief was commonly accepted but, until recently, most serious academics dismissed the idea. They thought that the Celts and their Druid priests hadn't arrived in Britain before 500BC. However, more recent studies suggest that Druidry can be traced back to earlier Celtic tribes who were probably here by 2000BC. Stonehenge's first stone structure appears to date back to 2600BC. This is tantalisingly close, so could Druids even have been involved in its construction? And is, as has been believed to date, the summer solstice the most important occasion in the life of Stonehenge? A new excavation at the monument has just concluded and to which Wiltshire magazine had access - the Preseli Project - may clear up a few questions, including the construction dates, but one thing is already clear - Druids are popularly indivisible from the Stonehenge Solstices, and long may this continue.
Being a World Heritage Site, together with exotic places like Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal, the name of Stonehenge is quite familiar to our American cousins - even those who believe that England is part of landlocked Europe. For the rest, Stonehenge is as vital to the UK Grand Tour as Buckingham Palace and Stratford-upon-Avon, and on an average day at this mysterious site, American accents compete with countless languages from all around the world. Probably most people know that the massive stone circle's largest sarsen stones came from near Marlborough, and the smaller bluestones in the central ring came from the Preseli Hills in Wales, but who knows when and why? But we know a man who is, as they say, 'on the case' with the Preseli Bluestone Project.
Such is the international reputation of Bournemouth University's School of Conservation Sciences, that when Timothy Darvill, Professor of Archaeology at the University, and his colleague, Professor Geoff Wainwright, President of the Society of Antiquaries, approached English Heritage with 