November Speaker Meeting: All about Stonehenge

In the picture: Club President Mike Helyer with the guest speaker, Barbara Hornsby, and standing behind is the meeting's host, Rotarian Philip Matthews.

Stonehenge is one of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom and is regarded as a British cultural icon.

Barbara described it as the MECCA of the stone age.

She drew a contrast between the classic picture of stone age man as brutish, wielding a stone club and dragging his wife by the hair and the sophisticated society which was necessary to build Stonehenge. Its thought that the builders stayed at nearby Durrington Walls, a settlement of some 1,000 houses. There is evidence to show that people travelled from all parts of Britain to Durrington to both build the monument and celebrate.

It is widely known that the stones of Stonehenge align for the summer solstice when the sun rises over the heel stone. But the stones also align for the winter solstice and it is likely that this was even more significant to the builders as it heralds the end of winter and the coming of spring.

Barbara said that the large Sarsen Stones weighing from 20 to 30 tons have been traced to West Woods on the edge of the Marlborough Downs, though exactly how they were transported remains a mystery. The smaller bluestones weigh between 2 and 5 tons and have been traced to specific quarries in the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, about 200 miles away! There is some debate as to whether they came overland or by sea via Milford Haven.

Barbara said: "All this points to a highly developed civilisation with excellent communications capable of coordinating the huge effort needed to build this timeless monument and organise the celebrations."

Note
The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown Estate and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.  Stonehenge was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The famous circle of large sarsen stones were placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the bluestones were given their current positions between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.