Superhenge Found On Stonehenge Site In England [Watch]
“Superhenge” was discovered near Stonehenge in England. The massive rock formation was built about 4,500 years ago, archaeologists believe. Like the bluestone columns of the mysterious Stonehenge, researchers have no clue who built the 90-stone structure, or how it was created.
Archaeologists found the Superhenge stone monuments about two miles from Stonehenge. The Neolithic-period columns were found beneath the Durrington Walls. The walls have also been called a superhenge, and are the largest known monuments built before the famous Stonehenge. Researchers believe the Durrington Walls were built approximately 3,500 years ago.
Forget Stonehenge. Larger stone remains have been found nearby, say archaeologists http://t.co/x1P2mcMptr #Superhenge pic.twitter.com/Jb22sfdfgF
— CNN International (@cnni) September 8, 2015
High-resolution ground penetrating radar was used to reveal Superhenge. Some of the 90 stones survived after falling over, CNN reports. Professor Wolfgang Neubauer said a huge bank was placed over the stones.
“In the east up to 30 stones, measuring up to size of 4.5 x 1.5 x 1 meters (14.7 x 5 x 3.3 feet), have survived below the bank whereas elsewhere the stones are fragmentary or represented by massive foundation pits,” the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology professor added.
An excerpt from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Superhenge report follows.
“The henge surrounds several smaller enclosures and timber circles and is associated with a recently excavated later Neolithic settlement. The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project team, using non-invasive geophysical prospection and remote sensing technologies, has now discovered evidence for a row of up to 90 standing stones, some of which may have originally measured up to 4.5 metres in height, Many of these stones have survived because they were pushed over and the massive bank of the later henge raised over the recumbent stones or the pits in which they stood. Hidden for millennia, only the use of cutting edge technologies has allowed archaeologists to reveal their presence without the need for excavation.”
Superhenge may have surrounded a dry valley and traces of springs leading from the ancient Avon River.
This newly discovered ‘Superhenge’ may have been buried in prehistoric religious revolution: http://t.co/FuV3uWxlmb pic.twitter.com/bjuPApwE5P
— VICE News (@vicenews) September 8, 2015
“Not only does this new evidence demonstrate an early phase of monumental architecture at one of the greatest ceremonial sites in prehistoric Europe, it also raises significant questions about the landscape the builders of Stonehenge inhabited,” the Ludwig Boltzmann report goes on to note.
Superhenge project lead historian and University of Birmingham archaeologist Paul Garwood shared details about the new mystery on the Stonehenge site.
“The extraordinary scale, detail and novelty of the evidence produced by the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, which the new discoveries at Durrington Walls exemplify, is changing fundamentally our understanding of Stonehenge and the world around it. Everything written previously about the Stonehenge landscape and the ancient monuments within it will need to be rewritten.”
How and why do you think Stonehenge and Superhenge were built?
[Image via Shutterstock]
