Stonehenge: The latest “Mystery that isn’t”

Stonehenge, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster can always be guaranteed to be trotted out by the Mainstream Media on an annual basis to distract us from the real headlines. Here’s the latest “bombshell, perplexing” revelation with a fairly simple answer.

Martin Harris 16/8/24

Image copyright Shutterstock

I drove home from work last night listening, as always, to the radio talkback show. Stonehenge was the topic. Callers with theories and anecdotes galore. The host marveling at the ingenuity or madness of the ancient Brits. You see, according to (here we go again) a new study, while most of the huge “blue Stones” that make up the most visible part of the structure, are made of rock that originated in Wales. However, the central altar stone has been determined to have come from Scotland. And not just a skip across Hadrian’s Wall either, but from the remote Orkney islands.

Stonehenge Altar Stone hails from Scotland (heritagedaily.com)

“How the stone was transported such a massive distance is speculated, but this latest revelation demonstrates a high level of societal organisation with intra-Britain transport from prehistoric times.

Study co-author, Professor Chris Kirkland, said: “Our discovery of the Altar Stone’s origins highlights a significant level of societal coordination during the Neolithic period and helps paint a fascinating picture of prehistoric Britain”.

“Transporting such massive cargo overland from Scotland to southern England would have been extremely challenging, indicating a likely marine shipping route along the coast of Britain,” added Professor Kirkland.

Wow! The evidence seems incontrovertible. So how did they do it, and why? Or perhaps they didn’t…

Here’s some theories for you to consider:

1- Aliens did it. Because aliens did everything for which there is no immediately apparent answer, especially if it involves large scale construction work in ancient times.

2-It was Atlanteans. Same reason as above but appeals to those who prefer human ingenuity over a reliance on aliens to do everything for us.

3-Merlin the magician did it. well, at least he came (allegedly) from Wales so he could have brought the stones with him…but now he had to have had a Scottish accomplice perhaps.

4-All of the above is pure nonsense. The inhabitants of Salisbury clearly ignored the locally available stone and instead spent years, maybe decades, hauling colossal blocks across hill and vale for hundreds of miles, or perhaps used rafts to transport some of these stones by water.

The latter seems to be the path down which many academics seem to be treading.

However, applying Occam’s razor, there appears to be a simpler and more logical solution for which there is evidence aplenty:

5-Thousands of years ago we had an ice age, Glaciers moved across much of the British landmass from North to South.

The ice picked up and transported boulders and deposited them hundreds of miles from their source.

This is nothing new. Britain is littered with thousands of such rocks, which are geologically termed “erratic boulders”.

Read about it here:

Where did the boulders come from? | Erratic Project (erraticsproject.org)

Incudes a great video demonstrating exactly how erratics were transported across Britain.

The only mystery about this news is why its news at all. Nature, not human agency, transported most of those stones to the locality where they were utilized to erect the Stonehenge structure.

I did leave a comment at Nature magazine’s site to pass on to the authors of the study offering the likely solution, but I’m not an academic, so what do I know? Possibly someone better qualified might claim credit for the solution…

Martin