Researchers recently made a flurry of fascinating discoveries about the origins and purpose of Stonehenge. Back in August, researchers found evidence that the altar Stone, the big monolith at the center of Stonehenge, was transported from hundreds of miles away about 5,000 years ago from what is now considered northeastern Scotland.
Another study was able to more specifically pinpoint its origin by ruling out an island off the northeastern coast of Scotland called Orkney. Another found that some of its stones came from Wales and parts of southern England.
Using all that research as a jumping-off point, scientists now think that Stonehenge was brought over from Scotland (with some parts coming from other regions of what we would now consider the UK) and reconstructed in England sometime between 2620 and 2480 BC in an attempt to unify ancient Britons as newcomers arrived from Europe.
Stonehenge might’ve been a prehistoric version of the Statue of Liberty, a shining beacon reassuring immigrants that they were welcome here.
This reconstruction may have coincided with the arrival of the Beaker people, prehistoric hunter-gatherer types named after the type of pottery they often left in burial sites. They brought such innovations as the wheel and metalworking along with them. A lot of these newcomers migrated over from what we now consider Germany and the Netherlands.
With this new knowledge, Stonehenge makes a lot more sense. It’s a monument made up of stones from a variety of regions symbolizing unification and an effort to consolidate disparate communities.
So there you have it. A site that was once theorized by a variety of New Age wackos to be either constructed by or constructed in honor of ancient alien civilizations is actually just a symbolic art display built by people who just wanted to say hello to newcomers.
Stonehenge, it turns out, is no different than the public art displays designed by local artists situated near major airports.
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