It is possible that the legend of the Stonehenge stones being moved from far away may reflect the same kind of transmutation of historical memory into what at first appears to be a fanciful fairy tale. But the Merlin tradition is not the only such folk memory associated with Stonehenge. About 200 feet outside the main circle there is a solitary 15-foot-tall megalith known as the Heel Stone. Legend tells how it got to be there. A friar—a wandering monk—once tried to exorcise the devil, who dwelt at Stonehenge. He failed, and in retaliation the devil hurled one of the circle’s huge stones at the fleeing friar, narrowly missing him but grazing him on the heel. That, it is said, is how the Heel Stone got to be where it is and how it got its name.7 In reality, the monolith marks the spot over which the sun rises on the summer solstice (the longest day of the year), around June 21, as seen from the center of the stone circle, presumably marking an important ceremonial occasion. Significantly, in the ancient British language, and preserved in Breton, which is still spoken in part of northern France, the word for the sun is heol, which sounds remarkably like “heel.”8 In all probability, the stone was originally referred to the heol stone (the sun stone), and years later those who no longer spoke the earlier language mistook the old word for “sun” as the word heel, and the legend subsequently developed to explain the unusual name.
I draw attention to such folklore because, as we shall see, legends, traditions, and mythology can be important tools when investigating ancient historical mysteries. That doesn’t mean to say that all such folktales reveal some underlying truth, but they are certainly worth considering, especially when investigating anything from a period from when there exist no written records. The first recourse, however, is archaeology and the various modern scientific techniques, which can be employed in helping to unravel the secrets of the megalithic creations. How, for instance, do we know how old Stonehenge actually is? Well, for centuries, nobody did.
As mentioned, there is the legend that Merlin was responsible for the creation of Stonehenge. Whether or not he was based on a historical figure is immaterial so far as this perceived dating is concerned: the Arthurian tales placed Merlin’s life around the year 500 CE, which would apparently make Stonehenge around 1,500 years old, give or take a few decades. And until the 1600s this is how old the monument was generally thought to be. The first relatively modern attempt to date Stonehenge was made in the late seventeenth century by the English antiquarian John Aubrey. (An antiquarian was a person who studied and collected antiquities and ancient artifacts—a kind of early archaeologist.) In 1666 Aubrey made an important survey of Stonehenge as it was during his time, concluding that it was probably built by the Druids, the priesthood of the Celts, who were native to the British Isles before the Roman invasion of the mid-first century.9 The Celts—of whom we will be learning more in later chapters—first arrived in Britain from continental Europe around 700 BCE, and the Druids were suppressed by the Romans soon after their invasion in the first century CE. So if Aubrey was right, Stonehenge could predate the supposed Arthurian era by around a thousand years. Inspired by Aubrey, in the early 1700s another antiquarian, William Stukeley, popularized the notion that Stonehenge and the other stone circles were Druid temples.10 Stukeley was a leading Freemason, and his ideas inspired the founding of Masonic-style orders of latter-day “druids” who reinvented what they believed to be ancient Celtic ceremonies at various megalithic sites. In fact, some modern Druids still exist today and continue to perform ceremonies at Stonehenge, particularly at the summer solstice. As we shall see, the original Druids may well have performed ceremonies at Stonehenge and other stone circles, but modern archaeology has determined that the circles were built long before the Celts ever arrived in Britain (see chapter 10).
One of the most significant modern methods of determining the age of ancient remains is radiocarbon dating, and this procedure has been used to date Stonehenge. All living things, fauna or flora, absorb a type of carbon called carbon-14. Once an organism dies, the intake ceases. Thereafter, the carbon-14 decays, or transforms, into a different type of carbon; hence it decreases over time. By scientifically measuring the amount of carbon-14 still present in an organic sample, archaeologists can determine approximately how long ago the organism died. The problem is, of course, stones are not organic remains. It’s true that many rocks incorporate fossils that were once living things, but fossils are so old that they have been petrified—literally turned to stone—by geological processes and cannot be radiocarbon dated. As its name suggests, Stonehenge is a monument made of stone. So how has it been radiocarbon dated? The answer lies with organic remains found beneath the stones. The bottoms of the pits that were dug to hold the stones were lined with broken animal bones, probably to stop the stones from sinking farther into the earth, and bone is organic, so it can be radiocarbon dated. Of course, the results will relate to when the animals died, but it’s a reasonable assumption that this was roughly the same time the stones were erected. The same technique can be used to date earthworks, mounds, and pits that were dug and later filled in, using organic remains in the soil.
Then there’s geophysics: scientific equipment, such as ground-penetrating radar, is now used to produce computer-generated images of what lies buried before any invasive excavation is necessary. Using geophysics, it is possible to determine where holes were dug and later refilled, even in the remote past. (Soil strata get all jumbled up when holes are dug, and geophysics reveals where the ground has been disturbed.) Such procedures show where wooden posts for such features as buildings had been set, the location of graves, and where stones had once been erected before later being moved. Still, some features could be gleaned even before these modern methods came into use. During the seventeenth century, Aubrey noticed that a ring of depressions in the ground completely encircled the main monument at Stonehenge, and these features were named after him: the Aubrey Holes. Modern geophysics has determined that there were fifty-six Aubrey Holes, each between 3 and 4 feet wide and dug to a depth of around 3 feet, which, because of crushed rubble excavated from the bottom of the holes, obviously caused by something heavy, are thought to have been pits dug to hold monoliths. Based on the principle that about a third of a monolith needed to be implanted in the ground in order to keep it standing, it is estimated that the Aubrey Holes delineate a now vanished stone circle consisting of fifty-six stones, approximately 6 feet high, 3.5 feet wide, and 2.5 feet thick. As the size and number are approximately those of the bluestones now within the Sarsen Circle, it is generally thought that the ring of Aubrey Holes marks an original stone circle created with the bluestones brought from the Preseli Hills. It seems that they were later moved to create the Bluestone Ring and Bluestone Horseshoe in the final stage of the monument’s construction. Based on all this, archaeologists have determined that Stonehenge was originally a circle of bluestones about 280 feet in diameter, dating from around 3000 BCE. Later, around 2500 BCE, the much bigger sarsen stones, with their lintel arches, were erected in the center of this circle, and the bluestones were moved to eventually form the new ring and horseshoe in the middle of the complex.
When all the data were collated, the original Stonehenge was dated to be an astonishing five thousand years old. However, it would have been very different from the monument we see today: a large circle of 6-foot-tall, freestanding monoliths, about 13 feet apart. Remarkably, we now know that Stonehenge predates the Celts by as much as 2,500 years, the first written records from the British Isles by 3,000 years, and the legendary age of Merlin by 3,500 years, and that it existed 5,000 years before the present. So as you can imagine, solving the mysteries surrounding Stonehenge is going to be easier said than done.
Fig. 1.2. Stonehenge, showing the original stone circle and other features.
Around the same time that the first bluestone circle was erected at Stonehenge, hundreds of other similar, though usually smaller, stone circles were being constructed all over the British Isles. But unlike Stonehenge, the stones they were
fashioned from were usually cut from nearby outcrops of whatever rock was available. Just why the original Stonehenge stones were seemingly transplanted from so far away, and just how that might have been done, is something we shall return to later (see chapter 7). For the moment we should just be aware that the unadorned circles of standing stones, rather than the grander constructions like Stonehenge, which survives today, represent only the initial phase of stone circle building from the Megalithic era. Although Stonehenge might be the most famous megalithic monument, originally it was not the largest or most imposing; neither was it the first.
There are estimated to have been as many as 5,000 stone circles in the British Isles, of which around 1,300 still survive, both partial and almost complete.11 The first stone circles were erected around 3100 BCE, some hundred years before the bluestone circle at Stonehenge, and similar stone circles continued to be built right through the Megalithic era. However, most were smaller than Stonehenge. They average a diameter of about 45 feet and would originally have been composed of between twelve and twenty stones, sometimes with a further single monolith, now referred to as a king stone, standing outside the main circle and aligned to the midsummer sunrise or midwinter sunset as seen from the center of the ring. The Stonehenge Heel Stone is such an example. The height and shape of the stones for these circles varied, depending on the type of rock locally available, most being between 3 and 6 feet high, though some were as tall as 15 feet. These stone circles may have been of different sizes, thought to reflect the extent of the regional population and the type of rock in the area, but they were all built around the same basic principle: a circle of standing stones with monoliths aligned to various heavenly bodies, many also having a so-called king stone. In fact, some scholars have suggested that most stone circles originally had such king stones that have been removed over the centuries, taken out to clear an area for farming, broken up for building material, or dragged away by religious zealots who considered them cursed. All in all, the stone-circle-building obsession continued unabated throughout the British Isles for over three thousand years. Not only were new circles built, but existing ones also were repaired, and judging by the excavation and radiocarbon dating of ancient animal bones that were thought to be evidence of ritual feasting at such sites, they were continuously in use throughout the entire period.
But what is so extraordinary about the Megalithic culture? There are many examples of ancient civilizations building uniform monuments for centuries: the mosques of Islam, the churches of Christian Europe, the mighty temples of ancient Egypt, the colossal shrines of classical Greece, and the stepped pyramids of Mexico, to name just a few. But these monuments were built by cultures that emerged from empires and civilizations with central leadership to initiate such projects, sophisticated infrastructure for communications to organize vast numbers of workers, and armies to implement law and order and to oversee such monumental tasks. But the Megalithic culture of the British Isles appears to have had none of these. It was very different from the civilizations of Christendom, Islam, Rome, Greece, or the Mayans. In fact, the Megalithic culture cannot really be considered a civilization at all—not in the strictest sense of the word. It had no communications network, no central authority, no armed forces, and no cities; it didn’t even have large communities living and working in sizable, permanent buildings. There is no archaeological evidence of any of this in Britain until the arrival of the Romans many centuries after the last stone circles were erected. Although certain individuals appear to have enjoyed higher status than others in Megalithic society, as evidenced by their more elaborate burials, there is no indication that the culture ever had an overall king or central government of any kind. The Megalithic people lived in isolated communities, unconnected by roads, and used no horses or other animals as a form of transport. Each community kept pretty much to itself. Yet although these people lived in scattered settlements over an area of around 121,000 square miles (about the size of New Mexico), the same stone-circle-building tradition continued unabated for centuries. The Megalithic culture—and a culture it must have been, as it collectively created the same kind of monuments—was in fact an enduring, monument-building society without cities or civilization: something virtually unique in world history.
What makes the Megalithic culture all the more remarkable is that the continuation of the stone circle tradition is only part of the story. Around 2600 BCE the next phase of megalithic construction began when the largest stone circles, in the most densely inhabited areas, were spectacularly transformed. They were replaced with much larger stones, often made from a type of rock locally unavailable and required being quarried and transported from miles away (although not as far as the Stonehenge bluestones). These radical innovations were surrounded by so-called henge earthworks, after which Stonehenge gets its name: a circular bank and ditch, with the ditch often dug on the inside of the bank, the opposite way round for it to have been used for defense. The largest of these new stone circles was at Avebury, 17 miles north of Stonehenge. With a diameter of over 1,000 feet, it dwarfs Stonehenge. It originally consisted of around a hundred stones, ranging from 9 to 20 feet high, with some even larger than those at Stonehenge, weighing as much as 40 tons. It was surrounded by a ditch about 30 feet deep and 60 feet wide and an embankment 20 feet high and 40 feet thick.12 About two hundred years later new features were added to these huge stone circles: known as “avenues,” they consist of a pair of long parallel embankments, leading sometimes miles from the henge monuments to further stone circles. The avenue at Stonehenge, for example, leads 2 miles to a site called the West Amesbury Henge (see chapter 7). Then, around 2000 BCE, artificial hills started to be built close to the biggest of these circles, the largest being Silbury Hill near Avebury. Composed mainly of chalk and clay excavated from the surrounding area, the mound stands about 130 feet high and covers about 5 acres. The purpose of these mounds is a complete mystery, as excavations have revealed no signs of burials or any hidden chambers within. These huge stone circles, with their surrounding earthworks, are referred to as complexes, of which there were dozens created throughout the British Isles. Stonehenge was one such complex, but others, like Avebury, were very much bigger. However, Stonehenge was the only stone circle to have rectangular arches formed by lintel stones, which is why it is the most famous. This, along with its being in the most densely populated area of Britain at the time, implies that Stonehenge ultimately became the heart or hub of this remarkable network of prehistoric creations.
Fig. 1.3. Sites discussed in this chapter.
As we have seen, archaeology has shown that the Megalithic people lived in separate communities with no usual infrastructure of civilization, taskmasters, or central leadership. They didn’t even have any form of writing to record and transmit their beliefs. So perhaps the most astonishing thing about these monuments, other than the incredible amount of work, time, and resources needed to build them, is that once the stone-circle-building practice had been established throughout the country, identical periodic modifications and developments happened at precisely the same time right across the British Isles. Archaeologists are mystified as to how the kind of multitribal structure that excavations reveal existed during this entire period and how the tribes could possibly have been consistently united and driven to create and sustain such gigantic projects. Yet for century after century the stone circle obsession continued unabated. The most tempting solution to the mystery of Stonehenge is that it—and the many other stone circles—was built for some religious purpose alone. But if this were true, then going by the fact that these monuments were built to a similar design and underwent synchronous development, it means that the same organized religion survived for millennia without any kind of central authority. Many cultures have built massive structures for purely religious purposes: the great cathedrals of Christendom, the mighty temples of Egypt, and the colossal shrines of ancient Greece, for example. But these cultures emerged from empires and civilizations with
all the trappings that such integrated societies enjoy. Some long-lived religions have endured in fragmented societies, such as the pyramid-building cultures of Central America, Islam throughout the Middle East and Asia, and Christianity in Europe. But all were originally established by a powerful civilization, such as the ancient Mayan Empire in Mexico, the seventh-to-eighth-century Arabian caliphates of the Middle East, and the Romans, who molded the various Christian sects into the organized Catholic Church in the fourth century CE. But as we have seen, no evidence of such a civilization existed anywhere in the British Isles before or during the Megalithic era. There were almost certainly religious aspects to Megalithic society, but it seems highly improbable that some kind of single religion can account for the same stone-circle-building tradition existing among isolated tribal societies, spread over such a large area, and for so long.
So how and where did the tradition begin, and why did it spread so far and wide and last for so long? And why were stone circles built at all? The only way to crack the mystery of Stonehenge is by examining the culture that built these remarkable monuments in its entirety and by gaining an overall perspective of this extraordinary network of prehistoric constructions. In an attempt to solve the enigma we will be piecing together the very latest archaeological discoveries and drawing on crucial historical source material completely overlooked until now. By collating the evidence emerging from recent excavations and other archaeological evidence, together with writings of the Romans, who recorded the beliefs of those living in Britain during their time, and also by examining surviving mythology, legend, and folklore, we will try to finally solve the mystery of Stonehenge once and for all. But to start with let’s examine what the world was like when the Megalithic culture began and what came before.
Wisdomkeepers of Stonehenge Page 2