Archaeologists doing work in Durrington, southwest England found evidence of at minimum 20 prehistoric shafts — a lot more than 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter and 5 meters (16 ft) deep — on the historical internet site exactly where Stonehenge sits.
The shafts merge to type a circle more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) in diameter, archaeologists from the University of St Andrew’s claimed.
The monument is most most likely Neolithic and was developed extra than 4,500 decades back, they added. The to start with stage of Stonehenge was made about 3,000 BC.
“Clearly refined methods display that the folks were so in tune with normal situations to an extent that we can barely conceive in the modern-day globe we are living in right now,” stated Richard Bates, of university’s the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
The staff consider the shafts — positioned about two miles northeast of Stonehenge — were constructed as a boundary to a sacred space or precinct connected with the henge. The Neolithic time period, all through which the first farmers in Britain worked, is characterized by the development of ornate, substantial ritual structures and enclosures, which includes the famous stone circle at Stonehenge.
“Even so, no comparative prehistoric composition in the Uk encloses such a significant place as the circle of shafts at Durrington, and the structure is at this time unique,” the college said in a press launch.
The work invested in building the freshly identified monument implies an significant cosmological url between it and Stonehenge, the workforce included.
“The existence of such significant options, and potentially an internal publish line, guided persons towards the spiritual web sites in just the circle or may perhaps have warned individuals who have been not permitted to cross the boundary marked by the shafts,” the college reported.
While the reason of Stonehenge remains not known to contemporary archeologists and historians, the famed stones are positioned in relation to the solstices and the sun’s actions.
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