Researchers working to unravel the mysteries of Stonehenge have rolled out a new theory: Building blocks of the structure may have been the recycled remains of a stone circle from Wales.
Cobbling together the exact origins of the mysterious temple of upright rock slabs in Wiltshire County, England, has proved an elusive project.
But new research suggests that some of the dozens of bluestones at Stonehenge were transported from a site called Waun Mawn in Pembrokeshire County, Wales. The findings were published Friday in Antiquity, an archaeology journal.
“I have been leading projects at Stonehenge since 2003 and this is the culmination of twenty years of research,” Mike Parker Pearson, a University College London professor who led the research, said in a statement. “It’s one of the most important discoveries I’ve ever made.”
Parker Pearson said he thought it was likely that other stone circles also contributed to Stonehenge.
The possible secondhand stone collection may have been moved 140 miles as part of migration. Waun Mawn is now mostly barren of stones.
“It’s as if they just vanished,” Parker Pearson said in a statement. “Maybe most of the people migrated, taking their stones — their ancestral identities — with them, to start again in this other special place.”
