Theories about Stonehenge for solstitial alignments in stonehenge and the timber circles at Durrington Walls and Woodhenge as well. Mike Parker Pearson also believes that the stonehenge was a monument of unification, bringing together different groups with different ancestries. He surmises that the five trilithons in the center of stonehenge could have symbolized five tribal lineages charting their descent from five original ancestors. The Preseli Hills might have had some ancestral significance for the stonehenge builders as well (perhaps this was their place of origin), this may have been the motive behind dragging the bluestones all the way from Preseli Hills to Wiltshire.
Stonehenge a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another five hundred years. The "Oxford English Dictionary" cites Ælfric's tenth-century glossary, in which "henge-cliff" is given the meaning "precipice", or stone, thus the "stanenges" or "Stanheng" "not far from Salisbury" recorded by eleventh-century writers are "supported stones". William Stukeley in 1740 notes, "Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire...I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones." Christopher Chippindale's "Stonehenge Complete" gives the derivation of the