Image: Matt Cardy/Getty Images/File
A new study claims it may have finally found the reason behind Stonehenge’s rebuilding thousands of years ago. It shows that the site underwent a reconstruction phase between 2,620 and 2,480 BC to unify people as immigrants poured in from neighboring lands in Europe.
According to Mike Parker Pearson, lead author of the study and a professor of British later prehistory at the University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, “this site on Salisbury Plain was important to the people not just living nearby, but across Britain, so much so that they brought massive monoliths across sometimes hundreds of miles to this one location”.
“Travel by land would have provided much better opportunities for spectacle, pageantry, feasting and celebration that would have drawn people in (the) thousands to witness and take part in this extraordinary venture,” stated the study.
As an island, Britain’s population has changed multiple times. The region’s early farmers descended from people from the Middle East who arrived on the island about 6,000 years ago, bringing agricultural practices with them. The newcomers replaced hunter-gatherer communities that had inhabited Britain previously and formed the majority of the population from 4000 to 2500 BC, Parker Pearson said.
But around 2500 BC, people began to arrive in Britain from Europe, largely from what’s now known as Germany and the Netherlands, and it’s around this time when Stonehenge was rebuilt, according to the study.
The researchers believe that the rebuilding process was “a response to a legitimation crisis brought on by this influx of new people” and an attempt to unite the Neolithic farmer population.
Source: CNN
Image: Matt Cardy/Getty Images/File