I have previously provided an overview and timeline of prehistoric art and provided deep dives into two examples: The Venus of Willendorf (Willendorf, Austria, 28,000 - 25,000 BCE) and The Lion Man of Hollenstein-Stadel (Hollenstein-Stadel, Germany; 30,000 - 28,000 BCE). Both of these items originate in the Paleolithic era and are relatively small in size.
In the Neolithic period, humans had acquired the skill to work with large pieces of stone and created works which are referred to as megaliths (or megalithic art). “Megalithic art embraces any artistic entity involving the use of large stones, notably carving, relief sculptures and … megalithic architecture.” Stonehenge, located on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, falls into this class and is the subject of the current post.
Stonehenge: Location and Construct
According to Wikipedia,
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical Sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilothons, two bulkier vertical Sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument … is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds).
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| Stonehenge (londonforfree.net) |
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| Geographic positioning of Stonehenge |
Timelines for the construction can be found in writings from Stonehenge Tour Guide, English Heritage, and Britannica.
Bluestones
These are the oldest of the stone structures at Stonehenge. According to stonehenge.co.uk, a total of 82 stones from the Preseli Hills eventually made their way into the monument that is Stonehenge. The stones are a mix of igneous and volcanic rocks; weigh, on average, between 1 and 2 tons; and were originally sourced from two ancient quarries located in the Preseli Hills of west Wales.
These stones did not make their way directly from the Preseli Hills quarries to Stonehenge, however. Radiocarbon dating showed activity at the quarries 300 to 500 years "before the earliest installation of bluestones at Stonehenge."
Archaeological studies have shown that some of these stones were initially associated with Waun Mawn, an arc of four standing stones located on Waun Mawn Hill, a site located three miles from the Preseli quarry. Waun Mawn is approximately 5000 years old and is located 124 miles northeast of Stonehenge. Excavations have shown that the site was originally home to a complete circle of stones. The stones missing from the circle were removed and transported to the Salisbury Plain sometime around 3000 BCE.
According to Brittanica, a bluestone circle measuring 30 feet in diameter was built along the banks of the Avon River, approximately 1 mile distant from Stonehenge. This site, known as Bluestonehenge, was discovered in 2009 by the Stonehenge Riverside Project and it is postulated that its 25 stones were incorporated into Stonehenge during one of its building stages.
Th total of 82 bluestones posited by Stonehenge.co.uk exceeds the number of stones scavenged from Waum Maun and Bluestonehenge combined, so it is likely that some of the Bluestones emplaced at Stonehenge, while also originating from the Preseli Hills, utilized another route to get there.
According to Stonhenge.co.uk, the bluestones were installed as an incomplete double circle during the second phase of Stonehenge construction and then rearranged into the circle (60 stones) and horseshoe that we see today sometime around 1500 BC.
Sarsen Stones
These represent the bulk of the building material at Stonehenge. This silicified sandstone is generally found as scattered blocks on the chalk of southern England. Standing at 7 meters tall, and weighing 20 tons on average, this stone type represents all the stones found in Stonehenge's central horseshoe, the uprights and lintels of the outer circle, and outlying stones.
The main circle consists of 30 large stones, many of which are tipped over. There are 10 additional stones within the circle and four stones outside.
The 52 stones visible today are thought to be the remnants of 85 stones originally installed in 2620 - 2480 BCE. Fifty of these stones have been traced to West Woods, a site 25 km north of Stonehenge. Stones 26 and 60 do not match up (composition-wise) to the other stones, to each other, or to any proximate quarry site.
Stonehenge Landscape Prior to Monument Construction
According to a study conducted by the University of Southampton: "Four thousand years before Stonehenge was constructed, land within the World Heritage Site was covered by open woodland, with meadow-like clearings, inhabited by grazing animals and hunter-gatherers ..." Animals resident on the landscape during this period included aurochs, red deer, elk, and wild boar, a bounteous offering for the co-resident humans.
Research from the University of Birmingham and Ghent University indicate that the area was a hunting hotspot for a lengthy period. The research has "uncovered hundreds of what appear to be large prehistoric pits dug to trap large prehistoric game ..." The earliest of the excavated pits dates from 8200 - 7800 BCE, with a 7000 year span between that and the youngest, indicating utilization of this hunting method from the early Holocene to "later Bronze Age inhabitants of farm and field."
Who Built Stonehenge?
Stonehenge was not built by the hunter-gatherers who had roamed the island for millenia before its construction. Rather, DNA analysis shows that this native population had been supplanted by migrant farmers descended from a group which had originated in Anatolia (Turkey), settled temporarily in modern-day Iberia, and then made its way to Britain. Let us take a more detailed look at the origin of these farmers.
Sedentary farming communities are thought to have emerged independently -- in the 10th millenium and early 9th millenium (BCE) -- in parts of the Fertile Crescent and in Central Anatolia. "The spread of farming and Neolithic migration is evidenced by the abandonment of Neolithic settlements across the region in the 7th millenium. This abandonment drove migration to NW Anatolia, western Anatolia, and SW Europe." By the period covering 7000 - 5000 BC, the migration had reached SE Europe.
Prior to the expansion of these agriculturists, Europe had been populated by hunter-gatherers but they were overwhelmed by migration waves using either the Danube or Mediterranean routes. The migrants who used the Danube route brought agriculture to central and western Europe. Some of the migrants using the Mediterranean route made their way to Iberia where they settled temporarily before continuing on to Britain. By 4000 BC they had made landfall in Cornwall and Wales.
"The majority of the population in Britain at the time of the construction of Stonehenge ... were descended from those who settled in Iberia." These migrants brought farming techniques, pottery, and new religious cultures and beliefs.
Stonehenge: Reason for Being
A number of reasons have been advanced over the years as to the purpose of Stonehenge: burial site, celestial observatory, religious site, proof of alien visitation to Earth, etc. None of the foregoing have been widely accepted. We do know that between 150 and 240 men, women, and children were interred at the site during the first phase of its construction -- and between the first and second phases -- but, given the paucity of burials in subsequent phases, that could not have been its sole purpose.
Professor Timothy Darvil of Bournemouth University in England has recently advanced the theory that the monument functioned as a solar calendar. The calendar is, according to Dr. Darvil, built around the Sarsen stones which, in addition to having been installed at the same time (around 2500 BC), have retained formational integrity throughout time (unlike the bluestones, which were rearranged around 1500 BC). According to Darvil, the monument "served as a physical representation of the year ... and helped the ancient inhabitants of Wilshire keep track of the days, weeks and months."
The schema for the proposed calendar is as follows:
- Each of the 30 stones in the Sarsen circle represented a day in a month
- The months were divided into 3 weeks of 10 days each
- Distinctive stones in the circle marked the beginning of each week
- An intercalary month of 5 days and a leap day every 4 years mapped the system to the solar year
- The intercalary month was represented by the five Trilothons at the center of the site
- The four station stones outside the circle provide markers to count off to the leap day
- The winter and summer solstices were framed by the same two stones every year
According to the professor, such a solar calendar was developed in the eastern Mediterranean in the centuries after 3000 BC, was adopted in Egypt as the Civil Calendar around 2700 BC, and was widely used at the start of the Old Kingdom around 2600 BC.
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The early stages of Stonehenge was built by Neolithic farmers who, in supplanting the hunter-gatherers, brought farming techniques, pottery, and new religious and cultural beliefs to the island. With the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, the monument is surrounded by the burial mounds of the elite: "farmers, traders and warriors who were deeply intertwined with Continental Europe."
And it is to that Bronze Age we next turn in this survey of art history.
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