What was Stonehenge for? The Answer Might Be Simpler Than You Think.


Mike Parker Pearson, a professor at University College London who has made major discoveries about Stonehenge, including the settlement of Durrington Walls, said Stonehenge was built at a time when the population was drastically reduced and dispersed. There were very few villages, and the community was “trying to create a sense of unity and cooperation among its members,” he explained.

Built on the site of an old cemetery, Stonehenge was a “memorial monument” and an “expression of unity” that brought people together in pursuit of a common effort.

Still, “People don’t want it to be as simple as an explanation,” he said.

“A government minister once told me that what we did was a great shame because of course we were solving the mystery,” and “it adds to the number of visitors,” Parker Pearson said.

Much of this mystery stems from the fact that writing didn’t exist in England until the Romans arrived 2,500 years later—so there’s no written history of Stonehenge and the people who uncovered it, Parker Pearson said.

The people of prehistoric England also did not leave any representations of human figures, Curator Wilkin said. They “had an almost secretive attitude towards their religion,” perhaps with the intent to “exclude others from religion,” so their spiritual practices are also undocumented.

Technology may soon help solve some mysteries.

Analysis of stable isotopes – atoms with additional or missing neutrons – is used to study bones, tooth enamel and food residues in vessels and elsewhere to determine what a man of time ate and how much he moved. Wilkin explained that tooth enamel contains a type of chemical record of the climatic and geological conditions in which a person grew up, allowing archaeologists to map how far people have traveled from where they were born and map migration and mobility. It also gives insight into their diet.



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