Instead, researchers propose that Neolithic communities were responsible for transporting it the remaining hundreds of kilometres to Stonehenge.
(Image: magnific)A new study may have brought researchers closer to solving one of Stonehenge’s longest-standing mysteries: how its massive Altar Stone travelled roughly 700 kilometres from northeast Scotland to southern England.
Previous research traced its origins to the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland, but the mechanism behind its journey to Salisbury Plain remained unclear.
Now, scientists from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK and Curtin University in Australia suggest that part of the stone’s journey may have been accomplished naturally.
According to their study, published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, glaciers during the last Ice Age could have transported the Altar Stone southward as far as Dogger Bank, a region beneath the North Sea.
Instead, researchers propose that Neolithic communities were responsible for transporting it the remaining hundreds of kilometres to Stonehenge. (Image: magnific)
A new study may have brought researchers closer to solving one of Stonehenge’s longest-standing mysteries: how its massive Altar Stone travelled roughly 700 kilometres from northeast Scotland to southern England.
The six-tonne sandstone slab, which lies at the centre of Stonehenge, has long puzzled archaeologists. Previous research traced its origins to the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland, but the mechanism behind its journey to Salisbury Plain remained unclear.
Now, scientists from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK and Curtin University in Australia suggest that part of the stone’s journey may have been accomplished naturally. According to their study, published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, glaciers during the last Ice Age could have transported the Altar Stone southward as far as Dogger Bank, a region beneath the North Sea.
