Giant megalithic mystery #2: Stonehenge!

The statues of Easter Island and Stonehenge have evoked mystery and wonder for both of us. Getting to see each of these sites is a real gift. Our guide Nick picked us up at 8 AM. We really lucked out with his great energy.  He is very knowlegable and knows everyone at all the sites we visited. But most importantly he is a positive energetic person and we hit it off right away. We had the best time learning from him. He started off immediately telling us about the local geography and how that determined how the earliest settlers would have survived. His depth of understanding was great. He informed us that due to a very dry summer last year over 150 new sites have been discovered. In addition they have learned more about Stonehenge in the last three years that they have in the last 100 years.  Modern science is being brought into the discussion, radiocarbon dating, ground penetrating radar, lidar and trace elements analysis. An example is that just this April trace elements analysis has identified that the pig bones from 3500 BC came from animals that ranged from all over Great Briton, some as far away as Scotland. So ancient pepole traveled to this site from hundreds of miles away and brought thier own picnics with them. There is a cursus structure that is 800 years older than Stonehenge. So the site has been important for a very long time. Rick further enlightened us with the following data. The largest stones are silcila-sandstone and can weigh up to 30 tons. The site where some of the blue stones came from is 400 km away.  This is one of 1200 stone circles scattered throughout Great Britain. If you were to superimpose a perfect circle on top of the structure it would deviate by only 2 to 3 inches. They are anchored up to 5 feet into the underlying chalk substrate.  So much we did not know.

The anniversary treat from the night before. They saved it for our breakfast 

And here is the breakfast 

Yums

The landscape affords great sight lines 

We see it from a dustance

A burial mound close to Stonehenge,  the more important you were the closer you can get buried 

The new visitor center is over 2 km away

Looking out in anticipation 

At last we are here

Henge means ditch and bank and this is the ditch and bank that surrounds the entire structure 

Massively old items and also Stonehenge 

Like any good story teller Rick has props

A crow on his perch

The sun comes our!

This is as close as we could get 

One of the tallest stones still stands, its pair has fallen

A marker that identifies where one of the Aubrey holes was located. They ringed the entire structure

Another Aubreys hole. There were bones found in these holes that contained mostly female bones. 

Rick described the layout of these holes 

You can see the heel stone in the distance it is the farthest right

Can you see a face?  There was talk that charcoal fires were placed at the bases of the stones and shapes could be seen 

The view from the heel stone, perhaps this stone was the first and that is why it was not dressed or finished

There is an Avenue here that has a "natural" alignment with the sun. The Avenue is made by two glacial scars in the landscape. A unique situation that may have been recognized thousands of years ago and built up from these beginnings

A couple of faces ?

Behind this stone is the " slaughter" stone, misnamed as no sacrifices were ever performed here.  We could not get close enough to take pictures of the Slaughter stone. However its geological makeup is distinct from both the lintle stones and the bluestones.

Such fun

And now we must go