Stonehenge’s Function and Significance

_Elsa_

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‘If the facts surrounding the architects and construction of Stonehenge remain shadowy at best, the purpose of the arresting monument is even more of a mystery. While historians agree that it was a place of great importance for over 1,000 years, we may never know what drew early Britons to Salisbury Plain and inspired them to continue developing it. 

There is strong archaeological evidence that Stonehenge was used as a burial site, at least for part of its long history, but most scholars believe it served other functions as well—either as a ceremonial site, a religious pilgrimage destination, a final resting place for royalty or a memorial erected to honor and perhaps spiritually connect with distant ancestors.

In the 1960s, the astronomer Gerald Hawkins suggested that the cluster of megalithic stones operated as an astronomical calendar, with different points corresponding to astrological phenomena such as solstices, equinoxes and eclipses. While his theory has received quite a bit of attention over the years, critics maintain that Stonehenge’s builders probably lacked the knowledge necessary to predict such events or that England’s dense cloud cover would have obscured their view of the skies. 

More recently, signs of illness and injury in the human remains unearthed at Stonehenge led a group of British archaeologists to speculate that it was considered a place of healing, perhaps because bluestones were thought to have curative powers. ’ (Source)

‘‘The significance of Stonehenge itself can be summarised as follows:

• Stonehenge is the most architecturally sophisticated and only surviving lintelled stone circle in the world.

• The earliest stage of the monument is one of the largest cremations cemeteries known in Neolithic Britain.

• The stones were brought from long distances – the bluestones from the Preseli Hills, over 150 miles (250km) away, and the sarsens from West Woods, 15 miles (25km) north of Stonehenge on the edge of the Marlborough Downs.

• The stones were dressed using sophisticated techniques and erected using precisely interlocking joints, unseen at any other prehistoric monument.

A Unique Landscape - Stonehenge does not stand in isolation, but forms part of a remarkable ancient landscape of early Neolithic, late Neolithic and early Bronze Age monuments.

Containing more than 350 burial mounds and major prehistoric monuments such as the Stonehenge Avenue, the Cursus, Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, this landscape is a vast source of information about the ceremonial and funerary practices of Neolithic and Bronze Age people.

It can also help our understanding of regional and international contacts from the 4th to 2nd millennia BC and shed light on how prehistoric society was organised.’ (Source)

Let’s continue - Building Stonehenge

Start at the beginning – Jean-Luc time travels to the Stonehenge