Stonehenge Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of a ring of standing stones, with each standing stone around high, wide and weighing around 25 tons. The stones are set within earthworks 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 constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were
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