Stonehenge has been a mystery for centuries, but scientists may have just cracked the code! New research suggests that this ancient stone circle wasn’t just a random monument—it was actually used as a giant solar calendar. The arrangement of the stones aligns perfectly with the solstices, helping early people track the passage of time. This means Stonehenge may have been an advanced tool for marking seasons, guiding agriculture, and even planning festivals. It’s incredible to think that people over 4,000 years ago built something so precise without modern technology! So, was Stonehenge just a clock, or did it have an even deeper meaning? Credit:
Original inhabitants of the British Islands: by Meyrick, Sir Samuel Rush; Smith, C.H, British Library archive, https://imagesonline.bl.uk/asset/14281/
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Ring of Brodgar: by Mike McBey, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ring_of_Brodgar,_Orkney_(26397983368).jpg
Avebury: by Gordon Robertson, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Avebury_4_(5620659990).jpg, https://flic.kr/p/9yFmoS
Barbury Castle Horse Trials: by Jonathan Hutchins, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barbury_Castle_Horse_Trials,_Stonehenge_cross-country_obstacle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_4260352.jpg
Stonehenge closeup: by Chris Gunns, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehenge_closeup_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2534986.jpg
Sarsen stones: by Andrew Smith, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarsen_stones,_Fyfield_Down_-_geograph.org.uk_-_412186.jpg
sarsen stones: by JimChampion, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fyfield_Down_NNR_sarsen_stones.jpg
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Original inhabitants of the British Islands: by Meyrick, Sir Samuel Rush; Smith, C.H, British Library archive, https://imagesonline.bl.uk/asset/14281/
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/:
Ring of Brodgar: by Mike McBey, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ring_of_Brodgar,_Orkney_(26397983368).jpg
Avebury: by Gordon Robertson, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Avebury_4_(5620659990).jpg, https://flic.kr/p/9yFmoS
Barbury Castle Horse Trials: by Jonathan Hutchins, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barbury_Castle_Horse_Trials,_Stonehenge_cross-country_obstacle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_4260352.jpg
Stonehenge closeup: by Chris Gunns, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehenge_closeup_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2534986.jpg
Sarsen stones: by Andrew Smith, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarsen_stones,_Fyfield_Down_-_geograph.org.uk_-_412186.jpg
sarsen stones: by JimChampion, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fyfield_Down_NNR_sarsen_stones.jpg
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
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Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
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https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
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For more videos and articles visit:
http://www.brightside.me
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00Stonehenge wasn't a witchy monument to travel through time.
00:04It was actually constructed as a hope to build a different future.
00:09Recent research just found out that the monument was probably raised
00:13as an attempt to reunite the Britons during a period of big division.
00:18The thread of this story lies on the altar stone,
00:22the monument's most iconic rock.
00:26For years, scientists believed that the stones used in Stonehenge,
00:30including the altar stone, came from the nearby Preseli Hills in Wales.
00:35In this scenario, Stonehenge would have been built by a local community,
00:40that is, Neolithic people, who would have found easy-to-access materials
00:44to build a ceremonial mound, a sundial calendar,
00:48and a final resting place, all in one.
00:52Things changed when another discovery was made.
00:55In 2018, leading-edge research pointed that the altar stone
00:59actually came from the River Tay region in north-eastern Scotland,
01:03which is located over 400 miles away from Stonehenge.
01:08Scientists found similar rocks as such in Scottish monuments.
01:12You see, the altar stone is a recumbent stone, laying on its side.
01:17Many of the rocks were found in ceremonial stone circles in Scotland,
01:21and they are unique to this region.
01:24When this discovery broke through, it got archaeologists thinking.
01:28Maybe Stonehenge wasn't just a local project,
01:31but a wider collaboration between different tribes and communities across Britain.
01:37To understand this, we need to rewind to around 3000 BCE.
01:43That's when Britain still wasn't a unified country per se.
01:47Rather, it was a patchwork of tribes, such as those coming from southern or eastern Europe,
01:52each with their own customs and beliefs.
01:55As an island, Britain's population changed many times.
01:59Britain was mainly composed of farmers, who descended from people from the Middle East
02:04and arrived on the land around 6000 years ago.
02:07This group thrived in the area until 2500 BCE,
02:11when another group coming from the regions of the Netherlands and Germany started to appear.
02:17These ones, also known as the Beaker people,
02:20were responsible for the large population turnover that Britain experienced
02:24during the Neolithic period and the years that followed.
02:28The Beakers were called so because of a specific type of pottery they used to make
02:32and bury their loved ones with after their passing.
02:36It's possible that the original dwellers of the land didn't like it that their land was being repopulated.
02:42And what researchers suggest is that Stonehenge was this attempt
02:46to reunite the original Neolithic farmer population
02:49and regain some type of identity control over their land.
02:54They would have invested a lot of time and energy in bringing the altar stone
02:59all the way down from Scotland, without the help of wheel technology, for example.
03:04You see, the wheel had already been invented in Lower Mesopotamia,
03:09but since there was no Wi-Fi at the time,
03:11the Brits weren't aware of this technology until much later on.
03:16This whole territorial crisis could have driven locals to use their resources
03:21to move the altar stone to Salisbury Plain in England, in order to reunify the land.
03:27You see, Stonehenge wasn't built in one go.
03:31Its history dates to around 3000 BCE.
03:35That's when the monument was just a circular ditch and bank, known as a henge.
03:41Inside, they placed wooden posts and possibly totem-like carvings.
03:46This version of Stonehenge wasn't about rocks yet.
03:49It was more of a ritualistic place, and possibly a final resting place.
03:55They found several cremation pits from this period,
03:58making it the oldest resting place in all of Britain.
04:02It was only around 2600 BCE that the Blue Stones came around.
04:08The naming might be a bit misleading, since they're not literally blue rocks.
04:12They have a bluish tinge to them when they are freshly broken, hence the name.
04:17These smaller rocks probably came from the Pressley Hills in southwest Wales,
04:22which is about 150 miles away from Stonehenge.
04:27Some researchers say that the ancient ones believed that blue stones had healing qualities.
04:33So we can maybe guess why they went through all of the trouble to move them from Wales to Salisbury Plains, huh?
04:40A little bit later than that, circa 2500,
04:44that's when we start having the Stonehenge we know and love today.
04:48That's when the Sarsen Stones started to arrive.
04:51The Sarsens are Stonehenge's huge stones.
04:55I mean, each Sarsen can weigh around 25 tons.
04:59That's as much as three African elephants stacked together.
05:03The Sarsens make that iconic outer ring circle.
05:06Supposedly, that's also when the Altar Stone was moved from Scotland directly to the heart of Stonehenge.
05:13The Altar Stone is the largest of the Blue Stones used to build Stonehenge.
05:18Today, the Altar Stone lies recumbent at the foot of the largest trilithon of the monument.
05:24In case you don't know, the trilithons are the horizontal stones used to form those famous arches we see today.
05:31And here's where the story takes a twist.
05:35For nearly a century,
05:37scientists believed that the Altar Stone came from the same area as the Blue Stones,
05:42the Pressley Hills in Wales.
05:44It made sense back then.
05:46If you're already hauling stones from Wales,
05:49why not grab a special one to be the so-called altar?
05:53Except that theory started crumbling in 2018,
05:57when a team of researchers decided to dig deeper.
06:00They used advanced geochemical analysis to pinpoint where the Altar Stone's sandstone actually came from.
06:07And it turns out, it wasn't Wales.
06:11Instead, the results pointed north,
06:14specifically to the Orcadian Basin in northeastern Scotland,
06:18400 miles from Stonehenge.
06:21This revelation changed the whole script of Stonehenge's story.
06:26How would they move the rocks, you may ask?
06:29Well, there's an old theory known as the Ice Road
06:32that suggests that the rocks were moved by natural icy pathways that formed during the winter.
06:38This way, they could slide the rocks down all the way to Stonehenge.
06:43But hey, if we're talking about a distance of over 100 miles,
06:47that's not too realistic.
06:49Anyways, this theory was debunked because it was warmer back then than it is today.
06:55There's also the River Theory
06:57that suggests that the rocks were floating along the river from the quarry to the site.
07:02But if we're talking about sarsen rocks, they're too heavy to float.
07:07So there goes this theory.
07:09What we're saying is, no one knows how the rocks were moved.
07:13Another interesting info came from all the research done in Stonehenge.
07:18A recent laser survey of the stones revealed the different stone working methods used
07:23and has shown that some parts of the monument were more carefully finished than others.
07:29In particular, the northeast side and the inner faces of the central trilithons were finely dressed.
07:36FYI, a trilithon is one of Stonehenge's most famous shapes.
07:41It's when two huge monoliths receive a third one on top of them, connecting the two together.
07:47This fancy word is just Greek for having three stones.
07:51But anyway, the bigger question and maybe why Stonehenge is so famous
07:56is why it was built in the first place.
08:00You see, Stonehenge's entire layout seems to have been carefully planned
08:05to align with the movements of the sun.
08:08The monument's architecture is particularly attuned to the solstices,
08:12the shortest and longest days of the year.
08:15During the summer solstice, the sun rises perfectly in line with the heel stone,
08:20casting light straight into the heart of the stone circle.
08:24A spectacular, almost magical sight that surely wowed its ancient audience.
08:30But it's the midwinter solstice that seems to hold a special connection to the altar stone.
08:35As the sun sets on that day, its light aligns with the altar stone at the center of Stonehenge.
08:43To the builders of Stonehenge, this alignment may have symbolized more than just celestial precision.
08:50It likely carried profound ancestral and spiritual significance.
08:54The altar stone, illuminated by the setting sun, could have been seen as a bridge between worlds,
09:00connecting the living with their ancestors, the Earth with the cosmos,
09:05and the present with the eternal.
09:08In a world without calendars, clocks, or weather apps, the solstices were everything.
09:14They marked the rhythm of life, guiding agricultural cycles and spiritual rituals alike.
09:20So Stonehenge wasn't just about the stones or the people who built it,
09:25but perhaps a way to honor their ancestral roots in an ever-changing world.
09:31That's it for today.
09:32So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:37Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!