Stonehenge

Ancient prehistoric monument of standing stones located in Wiltshire, England. The name derives from the Old English hengen ("hung up"), referring to the horizontal lintel stones. Over the centuries, legend ascribed Stonehenge to Druidic, Roman, and Danish construction, but it is now generally accepted that it dates from Neolithic times and stands as the culmination of the period of megalith construction, remnants of which can be found across the British Isles. It was probably last in use about 1400 B.C.E. Megalithic (large stone) monuments exist in many locations in Europe.

A major step in understanding the use and significance of Stonehenge occurred in the 1960s when it was discovered that the alignment of the stones seems to facilitate the prediction of a variety of astronomical events, such as the summer solstice, and were thus probably related to late Neolithic worship ceremonies.

The Stonehenge site is composed of three distinct elements—an outer circle of local sarsen stones and two inner circles of blue stones from the Prescelly Mountains of Wales, 200 kilometers (125 miles) away. The first and third circles are capped with stone lintels, and the whole construction is encircled by a ditch, inside the bank of which are 56 pits known as the "Aubrey Holes" and a cemetery associated with them.

Isolated outside the stone circles is the Heel stone, over which the sun rises on Midsummer Day (June 24). It is clear that Stonehenge had special astronomical significance, since, in addition to the marking of the summer solstice by the Heel stone, the center of the great circle indicated the orbits of sun and moon, and holes were positioned for posts to mark these orbits. The whole construction indicates remarkable astronomical and mathematical knowledge on the part of the ancient builders. Like the pyramids of ancient Egypt, Stonehenge and similar monuments also involved considerable engineering skill in mining and transporting the huge stones.

Prior to modern archaeological investigations, Stonehenge was surrounded by confusing legends of origin and use. Radio-carbon dating has now established a date of around 2000 B.C.E. for the first monument, the second a few centuries later, and the third about the middle of the second millennium B.C.E. It is possible that the Druids inherited an oral tradition of the significance of Stonehenge and used it for sacred rituals involving sun worship.

Folklore credits such sites with magical power, and they have been associated with witchcraft rites. In France young girls would slide down such ancient stones with bare buttocks in the belief that it would make them fertile.

Early Christian missionaries attempted to absorb or neutralize such occult traditions by building churches inside prehistoric mounds. In medieval times, at the great stone monument at Avebury in southern Britain, there was a ceremony in which a single stone was dislodged and ritually attacked to symbolize the victory of the Christian Church over the Devil. Most sites, including Stonehenge, have also suffered vandalism over the centuries.

Modern Stonehenge

In the 1980s Stonehenge became the center of another strange ritual every midsummer. Thousands of hippies, living a nomadic life in battered automobiles (often unlicensed), reminiscent of the American dust bowl days, descended on the fields surrounding Stonehenge and set up makeshift camps, intending to gain access to Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice. But the site has been fenced off with barbed wire and the solstice ceremony restricted to a modern revival Druid organization and no more than six hundred ticket-holding visitors. To prevent the hippies from overrunning the site, farmers annually barricaded paths and byways with trailers and machinery, while hundreds of police stood by in riot gear.

For many years there was a ritual battle between hippies and police. Rocks, bottles, and other objects were thrown, while police with helmets and batons forced back the intruders and arrested many of them. After the summer solstice, the hippies were obliged to retreat to their battered vehicles.

Stonehenge remains one of England's most visited tourist sites in spite of the fence, which prevents visitors from walking among the stones.

Sources:

Burl, Aubrey. The Stone Circles of the British Isles. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976.

Chippendale, Christopher. Stonehenge Complete. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Hawkins, Gerald. Stonehenge Decoded. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965. Reprint, London: Souvenir Press, 1966.

Hitching, Francis. Earth Magic. London: Cassell, 1976.

Mitchell, J. Astro-Archaeology. London: Thames & Hudson, 1977.

Newham, C. A. The Astronomical Significance of Stonehenge. UK: John Blackburn, 1972.

Thom, Alexander. Megalithic Sites in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.