Stonehenge - Update

You might remember my post earlier this year about an archaeological dig at Stonehenge. The purpose of the dig was to find out what Stonehenge was really used for. At the time they were trying to reveal if a new theory that 'Stonehenge was built to heal the sick' was in fact true.

The latest issue of the BBC history magazine reveals some of the findings:

Until now, Stonehenge has normally been percieved as having been in use, as a functioning religious site, for just 1,500 years (3000 to 1500BC). However the new research suggests that the location might have been considered sacred ground for almost 9,000 years, with the monument itself constructed halfway through that timespan.

Two archaologists Dr Michael Allen and Dr Charles French suggest that a bizarre natural phenomenon that originated in the Ice Age first led prehistoric people to regard the spot as sacred.

The phenomenon - a geological one, known as pariglacial stripes - manifests itself, especially in dry weather, as a series of strking parallel stripes in the grass. - are caused by the presence of alternating bands of poorer and richer sub-soil nutrients. During the Ice Age, freeze/thaw processes massively accentuated previousl minor undulations in the surface of the chalk bedrock, with nutrient-rich win-blown silt being deposited the the 'troughs'.

It was totally coincidental that these stripe aligned themselves with the the midsummer sunrise and the mid winter sunset (summer and winter solstice).

Evidence from this a previous excavations suggest that around 9,000 years ago Stone Age people built sacred structures with using totem-style post. A burnt pine wood fragment was found during the current excavation and previous digs have unearthed appropriately sized post holes.

The dig has also revealed that some sort of ritual activity was taking place 300 years before the first phase of Stonehenge was built in c2950 BC and possibly also in medieval times almost 3000 years after the last building phase.