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Stonehenge’s strangest rock came from 500 miles away
(URL) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stonehenges-strangest-rock... (https://www.scientificamerican.com)
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|u/scientificamerican - 1 month
|
|From the article: ...in new research published on August 14 in *Nature*,
|scientists tested that assumption and reached a startling conclusion:
|The [Altar Stone seems to have instead come from northeastern
|Scotland](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07652-1). That’s
|much, much farther away from Stonehenge than Wales and in a different
|direction to boot. Still, it remains a mystery who brought the rock to
|Stonehenge, how they did it and how long the journey took. Original
|publication: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07652-1](https:
|//www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07652-1)
|u/nowaijosr - 1 month
|
|Im going to venture that they used a boat for that one ;)
|u/ElevenSleven - 1 month
|
|History Channel confirmed it was aliens.
|u/jsnatural - 1 month
|
|We call them Scots
|u/Chickentrap - 1 month
|
|Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland!
|u/idkmoiname - 1 month
|
|I doubt that. When the romans arrived in Britannia the locals knew
|nothing better than very small primitive boats and the only evidence
|that they ever had something better is the Dover Bronze Age boat
|from a thousand years after the Altar Stone, that is 9 meters long.
|Still way too small for this stone. There is no evidence so far that
|they had ships before the romans arrived
|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_maritime_history#Pre-
|Roman_Britain
|u/Blue-Soldier - 1 month
|
|I wouldn't underestimate those "small primitive boats." Many of
|them could carry substantial amounts of cargo over fairly large
|distances. Whether or not there were boats capable of moving the
|Altar Stone during the Neolithic is certainly debatable but by the
|middle Bronze Age it's clear that fairly developed and highly
|capable craft were in use. Secondly, the Britons at the time of
|the arrival of the Romans may have had quite advanced ships. While
|fighting the Veneti of what is now Brittany, Caesar describes
|their ships as being large, made of thick oak planks fastened with
|iron nails and propelled by leather sails. Overall, it seems that
|these ships were better suited to the conditions of the Atlantic
|coast than the Roman ones. While this isn't a direct description
|of ships in Britain, it speaks to the advancement of shipbuilding
|in the region and it's believed that the Britons likely had
|similar ones seeing as the Veneti's primary trading partners and
|allies were in Southern Britain. In fact, the Roman period
|Blackfriars ship is thought by at least some researchers to have
|been constructed in a native fashion rather than a Mediterranean
|one. A further demonstration of the developed maritime tradition
|of Northwest Europe is the Irish Broighter Boat, a highly detailed
|model from the period that features sails, oars, and several
|specialized tools. Edit: I'll also add that very large stone
|rings that were created by the people of the Yap Islands were
|often moved either by canoe for the smaller ones or by raft for
|the larger ones. Although the largest of these are a bit smaller
|than the Altar Stone it still presents some potential ways that it
|could have been moved. Edit 2: This is a much later edit but for
|anyone who's reading a few days after the original post, I
|realized that I should also mention that catamaran-like boats are
|another possibility. There's plenty of archaeological evidence
|that the logboats that we know were in use at the time were
|probably using outriggers attached through holes in the sides of
|the main canoe. Given this, I see no reason why they couldn't have
|lashed two or more boats together and placed a more solid platform
|on top to provide greater stability and carrying capacity.
|u/Overtilted - 1 month
|
|If they didn't have the need for big boats, they wouldn't build
|them. Humanity is not a straightforward line of things becoming
|bigger and more complex. Some peoples went back from agriculture
|to hunter gathering in some areas for example.
|u/FilthyCretin - 1 month
|
|whats to say they didnt just carve them into cylinders, roll them, then
|shape them further on location?
|u/seriousofficialname - 1 month
|
|They may have wanted those specific stones to be moved to a new
|location with their original shape intact, which would make sense if
|they used the shapes and details of each individual rock to help them
|remember important information (which is something modern people also
|do, for example the Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara, who associate
|information with the features and contours of Uluru, not to mention
|the surrounding landscape). So if they had changed the shapes of the
|stones it may have rendered them worthless. *shout-out to Lynne Kelly
|and her book The Memory Code which I highly recommend for anyone
|interested in Stonehenge or henge mouments or megalithic cultures, or
|memory techniques
|u/igreatplan - 1 month
|
|AFAIK Australia never had a megalithic culture, so wouldn’t a better
|parallel to Stonehenge be Melanesian and Austronesian peoples who
|still have a megalithic culture? I know some Micronesians did too
|but I don’t know how recent that was.
|u/seriousofficialname - 1 month
|
|Couple things: My point was that it's not crazy to think the
|people who built Stonehenge might have associated information with
|bumps on rocks, because we know people do that, regardless of
|whether the bumpy rocks are megalithic structures or natural
|formations. "Why didn't Australian Aboriginal people build
|megalithic structures?" is a good question though. Most megalithic
|cultures were gradually transitioning to sedentary/agricultural
|lifestyles, which Australian Aboriginal people never did. They
|still walk the landscape and learn the information that their
|forebears have associated with its features that way. Whereas a
|culture of people who are transitioning to a
|sedentary/agricultural lifestyle might be more motivated to build
|a local space to learn information that would have formerly been
|learned by walking around the country, so that the information
|would not be lost. > wouldn’t a better parallel to Stonehenge be
|Melanesian and Austronesian peoples who still have a megalithic
|culture? I didn't know they had megaliths that are still in use
|or how they use them. But if they associate information with the
|rocks and the bumps and shapes on the rocks then that would also
|suffice to make my point.
|u/hungry4danish - 1 month
|
|I'd assume they would have found piles of all the chippings somewhere
|nearby.
|u/hazpat - 1 month
|
|Same for their current shape
|u/bytethesquirrel - 1 month
|
|Unless they were carved into their final shape at the quarry.
|u/analogOnly - 1 month
|
|But then how did they roll them down hills?
|u/ConfessedOak205 - 1 month
|
|By carving them into cylinders
|u/I_cut_my_own_jib - 1 month
|
|But then we would see hot glue where they pieced them back
|into rectangles
|u/Pielacine - 1 month
|
|And they're rollin rollin rollin
|u/analogOnly - 1 month
|
|> Unless they were carved into their final shape at the
|quarry. Was the comment I replied to. A quarry is where the
|stone is harvested.
|u/Lithorex - 1 month
|
|Put logs underneath
|u/IsolatedFrequency101 - 1 month
|
|And drag it 500 miles through forests, over hills and across
|rivers?
|u/Yellowbug2001 - 1 month
|
|All the witnesses who could tell anybody where they could find the
|chippings were squashed by the enormous stone cylinders.
|u/theeth - 1 month
|
|Did they try looking in the nearby chippies?
|u/splittingheirs - 1 month
|
|What if they carved those chippings into cylinders and rolled them
|500 miles back?
|u/phlipped - 1 month
|
|Presumably they would have also needed to have carved the
|chippings from carving the chippings into cylinders before rolling
|them back 500 miles into cylinders and rolled them back 500 miles
|as well.
|u/AnotherDude1 - 1 month
|
|But wait... Hear me out.... Aliens
|u/Exiledfromxanth - 1 month
|
|Also how they made the pyramids
|u/ReheatedTacoBell - 1 month
|
|There was a documentary I watched a while back that suggested
|that, back during that time, Egypt was a bit more lush and water
|was more accessible. The explanation being that, in some way
|that I now forget, they routed water into the structure and used
|that to "float" the pieces up to where they were needed and then
|were moved into place manually. I will post the vid if I can find
|it.
|u/the_wonder_llama - 1 month
|
|This is the only theory that makes sense to me — that they used
|water elevators/ramps. Very large pieces of stone can be
|elevated using the buoyant forces of the water that a small boat
|can displace.
|u/ReheatedTacoBell - 1 month
|
|That's almost literally what the documentary said, and tbh
|made a lot of sense. I'm having a difficult time finding it
|though, and now I'm thinking it was on some streaming service
|and not YouTube....
|u/Correct_Inspection25 - 1 month
|
|We know of a number of the construction techniques, but i assume
|you mean absolutely all of them? For example, early pyramids
|(first 3 dynasties) were constructed very differently than later
|pyramids (middle kingdom and later). For example for later
|pyramids, we have the camps, on site cemeteries, salary, tools,
|and examples of transport. If we are talking early pyramids, agree
|unlikely we will know all the methods without additional
|discoveries of writing or other archeological evidence.
|u/Former_Jackfruit8735 - 1 month
|
|Are you implying this was all an early make-work scheme for
|underemployed masons?
|u/MaruhkTheApe - 1 month
|
|Can't believe people think it was aliens. Folks, Geoffrey of Monmouth
|settled this years ago - it was CLEARLY Merlin!
|u/Catymandoo - 1 month
|
|The builders were certainly in for the long haul! Amazing that we can’t
|understand how or why . In a similar vein our understanding of the
|Egyptian pyramids build process. Fascinating stuff.
|u/pxr555 - 1 month
|
|We know a whole lot meanwhile and it seems the how and why are closely
|connected. You need lots of people working together to do such things
|and this explains both the how and the why. No better way to unite
|people than doing hard things that are very visible and take a long
|time. Stonehenge seemingly was a bit like a pilgrimage site, with lots
|of people coming together for seasonal fairs or festivities.
|Transporting such a six tonnes stone over hundreds of miles must have
|taken years, with many people helping all along the way, telling
|everyone and their children and grandchildren about it and about
|Stonehenge. The sad thing is that this is prehistory, meaning we
|have absolutely no written accounts from back then. But then: You're
|still reading and talking about Stonehenge 5000 years later... it
|worked.
|u/TreeOfReckoning - 1 month
|
|That’s the answer. All over the world and throughout history people
|have united and toiled to do things that mean something to them.
|Thousands of years after Stonehenge, kings and queens are crowned on
|an unassuming block of Scottish sandstone just because it means
|something to them. Whatever the specific mechanics of
|transportation were (probably a combination of methods) the alter
|stone was moved 500 miles primarily through grit, determination,
|numbers, and belief.
|u/pxr555 - 1 month
|
|Well, and it's not only about those people. It's also a great way
|to get into and stay in power when you can motivate people to get
|such things done. It's basically culture-building. They will have
|used roads that were used for trade and pilgrims anyway, there are
|many of such prehistoric routes in Britain. I guess for the people
|back then this was a mixture of trade, getting to know and
|connecting to others, even marriage markets and fairs at
|Stonehenge and other sites. There is evidence that there were
|enormous amounts of cattle slaughtered at Stonehenge that had been
|driven there from places hundreds of miles away. It's easy to
|imagine that there were annual/seasonal festivals at Stonehenge
|and similar places with people coming from far away. And the more
|people went there and back and the harder the work they did for
|all that the more culturally important it became along with
|everything around it. Trade, communication and people staying in
|touch over long distances, people marrying into families far
|away...
|u/Catymandoo - 1 month
|
|I live not far from ‘henge and visited but also passed it many
|times. I still get goosebumps every time I see it.
|u/thetoxicballer - 1 month
|
|Wild to think that over that course of distance they very easily
|probably got lost with a few of those boulders and carried them
|hundreds of miles for nothing.
|u/llywen - 1 month
|
|Why would they get lost?
|u/thetoxicballer - 1 month
|
|Lack of specific navigation over a massive amount of distance
|u/seriousofficialname - 1 month
|
|Worth noting that Stonehenge and other megalithic structures (I
|think practically all of them) were built at a time when cultures in
|those areas were gradually transitioning to more sedentary
|lifestyles which was probably a factor motivating their
|construction.
|u/rebeltrillionaire - 1 month
|
|There’s pyramids all over Latin America but nobody ever questions who
|built em or how.
|u/yesnomaybenotso - 1 month
|
|Partial reasons for that tho, a key one being that the Mayans were
|literate and we deciphered their language and there are written
|accounts for certain structure types, which gave a lot of clues
|about their other structures (usage, purpose, etc.), and also clues
|into their ancestors as well, such as the Olmec. The pyramids and
|various walls and other structures have been found to have entire
|sections of bricks marked with unique symbols that archeologists
|suspect could be personal identifiers to demonstrate who actually
|placed the rock, leading them to think that construction was a form
|of public works in lieu of a formal taxation system with currency.
|That citizens would contribute toward society by building their
|section of the wall or whatever structure and in return they’d get
|their ration of food harvested by the people in the role of
|hunting/gathering the food. Those in the role of food acquisition
|would then be compensated by having their houses built for them.
|These are just general examples, but the concept of economy is
|crucial for societies and this demonstrates a give-and-take, without
|any evidence of a formal bartering system or universal system of
|currency. So the Latin American pyramids are just a little more
|understandable from our perspective than the Egyptian ones. But if
|you want your “aliens did it!” Conspiracy about Latin America, look
|up the Olmec Heads. Easter Island too, sure, but Olmec Heads I had
|never even heard about until college.
|u/rebeltrillionaire - 1 month
|
|Nah the joke is, nobody questions a Mexican construction worker
|but a bunch of black / Middle eastern people? No way!
|u/virishking - 1 month
|
|The only people who question who built the Egyptian pyramids
|very much also question who built the ones in the Americas
|u/NoSoundNoFury - 1 month
|
|Five out of the seven world wonders were built in the middle
|east or north Africa. Nobody doubts about the architectonic
|skills involved. People only wonder about the pyramids.
|u/Catymandoo - 1 month
|
|Very true. I mentioned the Egyptian ones as recent research has
|suggested a possible method used in construction. But you’re right.
|In fact I find those more interesting in some ways.
|u/onceinablueberrymoon - 1 month
|
|when it’s very clear where the stone comes from, or where the bricks
|were made, there isnt as much inquiry into *where* the materials
|came from. in a place like la venta, the stone for the giant heads
|did not come from nearby, so of course there has always been
|research into discovering where it was mined! there are many
|scientists who’s life work is understanding who built what and how
|in central and south america. it is more complicated then great
|britian because there are 1000s and 1000s of sites (some just being
|identified now by LIDAR) but there is great interest in these places
|for sure! (even if the countries the sites are located in are very
|poor or the sites are very difficult to get to)
|u/NoSoundNoFury - 1 month
|
|Erich von Däniken wrote multiple best-selling books wondering about
|this.
|u/Lithorex - 1 month
|
|> In a similar vein our understanding of the Egyptian pyramids build
|process. The problem isn't that we don't know how the Egyptians built
|their pyramids, but rather that we have multiple different solution on
|how to build a pyramid and the Egyptians didn't record which one they
|used.
|u/el_dude_brother2 - 1 month
|
|Scotland has the most concentration of stone circles in the UK and has
|great examples still standing like the Callanish Stones and the Ring of
|Brodgar. Must be some reason for that linked to ancient civilisations
|and their connections.
|u/Obamana - 1 month
|
|So a guy from Scotland finds a real nice rock and thinks to himself
|that he's up to a challenge. He's made rocks move long distances
|before so he'll pack this one up well and take it down south to show
|the savages there what a good rock ring looks like. He thinks to
|himself that he'll travel as far south to find a place where there are
|other nice rocks around to complete the circle but he can't find any.
|Now he's traveled too far south and he thinks that it's better to
|leave the superior northern rock at a nice hill somewhere and travel
|without it to find the other ones. Rock-man goes all the way to Wales
|where he finally finds, some good stone.
|u/josephs44 - 1 month
|
|Couldn’t it have been transported from Scotland by glaciers?
|u/GlaciallyErratic - 1 month
|
|Glaciers are rivers of ice - they flow downhill, and eventually toward
|the sea. There's no topographic reason for a glacier to flow from
|Scotland to the southern end of the UK.
|u/Paragone - 1 month
|
|Plus, wouldn't 500 miles be an insane distance for a moraine to
|travel? That kind of distance for a rock that large would typically
|require a volcanic eruption, right?
|u/fastidiousavocado - 1 month
|
|Not necessarily. Look up "glacial erratics" as they can be
|massive, and depending on the glacier and glaciation in the
|region, can travel extremely long distances. For this specific
|instance? I have no clue, I know nothing about their glacial
|history. But the midwest and great plains in the United States are
|littered with so many huge glacial erratics. I personally have
|picked up small agates that had to have traveled hundreds and
|hundreds of miles. It does happen, just dunno if it happened here.
|u/Lithorex - 1 month
|
|To be fair, the glaciers of the Ice Age were the polar ice caps
|coming for a visit.
|u/other_usernames_gone - 1 month
|
|Umm... Stonehenge rocks probably weren't transported by glaciers
|but there were in fact glaciers running across the UK in the last
|ice age. [BBC bite
|size](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zdw8dp3#zw94kty) [Map
|of glaciers in the UK](https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/ks3/gsl/education/
|resources/rockcycle/page3585.html#:~:text=Material%20eroded%20by%20t
|he%20ice,formed%20rapidly%20by%20glacial%20meltwater.)
|u/GlaciallyErratic - 1 month
|
|I'm discussing direction of flow, not presence of glaciers. Yes,
|there were glaciers.
|u/GeoGeoGeoGeo - 1 month
|
|As counter intuitive as it may seem glaciers can and do flow over
|topographic highs, flowing uphill. >"Although ice thickness
|exceeded relief in the region during the glacial maximum, and
|glaciers flowed west, **up-valley towards the Coast Mountains**..."
|https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/items/68231e97-c7a9-4930-a635-e5eed65
|c1792 Iirc during the Anglian stage (MIS 12) ice flow was generally
|north to south across much of the UK. I'd recommend reviewing
|detailed maps of ice flow direction during that glacial period, or
|even reading "A litho-tectonic event stratigraphy from dynamic Late
|Devensian ice flow of the North Sea Lobe, Tunstall, east Yorkshire,
|UK" for more recent understandings of ice flow during the last
|glacial maximum. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/
|pii/S0016787820300213
|u/Northwindlowlander - 1 month
|
|Not really, all our best reconstructions of ice sheet movement shows
|a northern travel, plus there's a lack of evidence of other scottish
|glacial deposits and erratics. It's not impossible but it's
|definitely unlikely.
|u/tacotacotacorock - 1 month
|
|This is easily explainable. Way back when Giants roamed the Earth. There
|was a curious young giant fascinated by the world around them.
|Everything the encountered was a marvel and They wanted ever so badly
|too possess those things and remember and play with them forever. So
|naturally like most kids this little giant put this remarkable stone in
|their pocket while out adventuring. One day while playing they
|discovered that the Rock was missing. Centuries later this tiny little
|stone in the Giants pocket was then utilized for Stonehenge. Not sure
|why it's so hard for historians.
|u/RigbyNite - 1 month
|
|>>While the study’s researchers say they never expected to identify the
|rock as Scottish, Sebire and Nash say they aren’t surprised, given the
|known trade routes at the time for more portable artifacts such as
|pottery and axes. “It isn’t a huge shock if there’s potentially that
|level of communication and connectedness,” Nash says. “If people are
|prepared to move stone from Wales to Stonehenge, then moving them from
|other parts of the British Isles to Stonehenge isn’t that far-fetched.”
|u/torewasa - 1 month
|
|"But I would walk five hundred miles And I would walk five hundred more
|Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles To fall down at your
|door"
|u/Hack_Shuck - 1 month
|
|Surely by now there is nothing left to learn about Stonehenge. How did
|they not know this about the stone previously?
|u/pxr555 - 1 month
|
|They already did know about this stone. And they did know that this
|stone didn't come from the same places as the others. It took a long
|time though to establish where it did come from. Here's a nice
|[BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c207lqdn755o) about
|it.
|u/Interesting_Injury_9 - 1 month
|
|That settled it - aliens!
|u/sweetangel273 - 1 month
|
|It’s not aliens. It’s Merlin!!
|u/Interesting_Injury_9 - 1 month
|
|Now thats just a tale…
|u/unclepaprika - 1 month
|
|But amazingly they got them all down in the sand And they moved it
|(Stonehenge!) And they dragged it (Stonehenge!) And they rolled it
|~~46~~ miles from ~~Wales~~! Hey (~~46~~ miles from ~~Wales~~
|Scotland!)
|u/camping_scientist - 1 month
|
|Why is the thought of boats this old so odd? Egypt had boats during this
|time period. Egypt is also arid so preservation of anything is much
|easier. The middle ages should be testament to how easy knowledge can be
|lost.
|u/reddituser5309 - 1 month
|
|Did they not have boats or rafts or something at this point?
|u/Grand_Presence_3714 - 1 month
|
|No one knows who they were, or, what, they were doing...
|u/SprinklesJolly8221 - 1 month
|
|My wife thinks that the rock was pushed down from Scotland during the
|ice age when glaciers covered most of the UK.
|u/divers69 - 1 month
|
|Old Red occurs in Dorset. Have they shown robustly that it is not from
|there?
|u/ask_carly - 1 month
|
|I'm going to assume "Altar Stone’s mineral age fingerprint doesn’t
|match that of stones anywhere in southern England" means it's probably
|not from Dorset. 
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