Earlier this week, archaeologists made a shocking discovery about Stonehenge, the mysterious prehistoric structure that sits on Salisbury Plain in southern England. What did they find? Confirmation that the wizard Merlin magically transported the standing stones from Ireland, as described in Arthurian legend? Evidence that the site is actually a landing pad for time-travelling extraterrestrials? Not quite. But the findings do cast doubt on the entire history of Britain, the researchers suggest.
According to the study in Nature, published on August 14, a massive slab of sandstone that forms an ‘altar’ at the centre of the stone circle – weighing six tonnes – was actually transported from the far north of Scotland, some 750 kilometres from where it currently stands. With modern machinery, this might not seem so surprising, but it’s estimated to have been moved around 4,500 years ago.
It’s not entirely clear how heaving such a heavy object was possible with primitive tools and limited manpower. Some scientists think the Altar Stone could have been a glacial erratic – a boulder picked up by a glacier and set down hundreds of kilometres away. Anthony Clarke, the geochronologist who led the recent study, isn’t so sure. “There is simply no evidence for it,” he says. “This was brought here by human agency.”
Stonehenge, the Pyramids…
Such a mystery…
To those who deny the history of giants. https://t.co/8opORGl0t4— Matthew Schofield (@vMHelixv) August 15, 2024
The discovery is exciting and has some “big implications,” says Jim Leary, a field archaeologist at the University of York, in a Nature article on the study. Most importantly, it offers clues about the Neolithic society that built the henge in the first place, whose traditions and social networks seemingly spread out across the whole British Isles. While the study concludes that the Altar Stone “could only have come from Scotland”, evidence suggests that other ‘bluestones’ in the henge originated in Wales, while the upright ‘sarsen’ stones came from the Marlborough Downs, much closer to home.
Of course, there are sceptics who doubt that any prehistoric human society would have been capable of moving a six-tonne stone from one end of Britain to the other – or wanted to. This suspicion has spawned many competing theories over the years, from alien origin myths to tales about an extinct race of giants who once roamed the Earth, leaving inexplicable monuments in their wake (see also: the Pyramids).
Below, we’ve gathered some of the best, worst, and wildest guesses about the origins of Stonehenge.
One of the most pervasive myths about Stonehenge says that Merlin (as in, King Arthur’s court magician) brought the stones from Mount Killaraus in Ireland, to serve as a burial place for slain British nobles. This idea seems to have originated in the 12th century, in stories penned by the pseudo-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth.
According to the legend, an army was sent to retrieve the magical stones, but they weren’t able to lift them. After having a laugh at them, the wizard picked them up himself (by magical or scientific means) and carried them across the sea to England. Some even believe that Merlin enlisted a giant to carry and assemble the stones, which kind of feels like cheating?
One of the earliest names for Stonehenge was Chorea Gigantum. Some believe this name comes from the phrase “old histories” but other language experts have interpreted it as “giants’ dance”. Either way, it lends a (very small) amount of credibility to the idea that giants used to roam the Earth, a supernatural conspiracy theory that persists to this day.
According to various X accounts that specialise in applying little red squares to Photoshopped images, all evidence of this extinct race of giants has wiped by institutions including the Smithsonian and the Vatican. Why? That’s unclear. It’s also unclear why they left Stonehenge behind, although Goffrey of Monmouth had some theories (of course he did). As noted by English Heritage, he wrote that the giants originally built Stonehenge as a bathhouse, where they could cure their aches and pains from lobbing rocks about all day.
Given Stonehenge’s longstanding association with druidry or Paganism – including the modern resurgence of the movement – it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that some believe the stone circle to be the work of druids. This theory dates back as far as the 1600s, when the archaeologist John Aubrey drew a connection with pre-Roman religious leaders native to Britain, in the earliest academic survey of the site.
Aubrey’s theories didn’t shed much light on how the stones got there, but it did form the basis of later research into their relation to ancient astronomy, solstices, and nature worship.
On the more glamorous end of the spiritual spectrum, the henge supposedly played host to Satanic gatherings, with nude dancing and animal sacrifice. One theologist, Dr. Dennis Lindsay, has lent his support – on the show of televangelist and convicted felon Jim Bakker – to the theory that the Devil built this shrine himself, with the help of… you guessed it, more giants!
Summer Solstice at Stonehenge22 Images
According to Britain’s ‘X-Files’ department, Stonehenge is a bit of a hotspot for UFO sightings. It’s also a bit of a hotspot for ingesting psychedelics, but we’ll leave you to form your own conclusions about the validity of these sightings.
The point is, many people believe that little green men are the only obvious explanation for the existence of Stonehenge, whether they built it as a launch pad for their interstellar spaceships, or communicated the blueprints to our ancient ancestors based no the structure of our solar system. I want to believe.