How and Who In many ways Stonehenge does not seem mysterious The stone circle is huge It can be seen from miles away But the monument’s size does not make it easier to understand Experts have studied Stonehenge for centuries They have found out a lot about how it was built They have learned about the farming people who built it on the plain outside the modern town of Salisbury Today archaeologists use the most up-to-date techniques to analyze the monument They hope that learning more about the stone circle will reveal more about why it was built Could It Be True What are other theories about Stonehenge One of the strangest ideas is that it was built by people from the lost city of Atlantis The huge statues on Easter Island were thought to have been built by aliens 6
What Is Stonehenge The hanging stones are the flat stones across the top of the upright stones Atlantis was a legendary ancient city that was said to have disappeared beneath the ocean To date there is no evidence that Atlantis ever existed Another theory is that Stonehenge was a landing site for alien aircraft The pyramids in Giza Egypt and the statues of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean were also said to be the work of aliens What’s In a Name The name Stonehenge means hanging stones in the language of the Saxons The Saxons were some of the earliest inhabitants of Britain 7
ANCIENT SECRETS How old is it Radiocarbon dating was developed in the 1960s It helped experts to be much more accurate in dating objects All organic or living objects contain carbon After they die the carbon decays Scientists can date how old a tree person or animal is by how much carbon has decayed At Stonehenge scientists dated animal and human bones they found buried close to the stones The results gave them the dates experts use today for the site The name refers to the large flat stones which today are called lintels that lie on top of a horseshoe-shape of standing stones in the center of Stonehenge The flat stones hang in the air These central stones are what people usually picture when they think of Stonehenge In fact they are just one part of the story of a much larger site The Saxons named the site in the 400s ce but does that mean they also built it In the 1960s new dating Radiocarbon dating tests are used by scientists to figure out how old something is 8
What Is Stonehenge The first monument was a circular ditch The white marks are holes that were dug and then filled back in techniques were used on animal bones found near the stones Bones of different ages revealed that Stonehenge had been built in three separate stages Construction took thousands of years from around 3100 bce to around 1100 bce What Came First Around 5,000 years ago the earliest builders at Stonehenge used tools made from deer antlers to dig a large circular ditch The ditch surrounded a very large enclosure with two entrances From the air the shape of the ditch can still be clearly seen today 9
