Scientists discover Superhenge, may have finally figured out what Stonehenge really is

Out of all the mysterious structures in the world, the Easter Island Moai and the large slabs of Stonehenge are perhaps the most famous. They achieved their fame for similar reasons — being too large to have been dragged from far away, then somehow constructed using the limited technology available at the time. Stonehenge is arguably more famous — perhaps due to its more easily accessible location as a tourist attraction — and now, it just got much more mysterious. Using high-tech mapping techniques, scientists have discovered a host of monuments, burial mounds, ritual circles, and even a near-mile-long Superhenge located beneath the circle of stones we all know and love.
Stonehenge is extremely old — radiocarbon dating suggest the stones were raised sometime in 2400 and 2200 BC, but another theory places the construction all the way back at 3000 BC. As you know, Stonehenge is most famous for its mysterious origin; it was built by a culture who essentially left neither a record of themselves nor a record of how they moved and lifted the large slabs of stone. There is also no record suggesting what Stonehenge was actually used for, though the two most popular theories suggest it was either some sort of observatory or a religious site. Now, however, the discovery of the Superhenge, burial mounds, and monuments may shed some light on this age-old mystery.
The discoveries were made thanks to the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, which has spent the past four years building a 3D, high-res map of what lies beneath and surrounds the Stonehenge site. Led by scientists from the UK’s University of Birmingham and Austria’s Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, the team used high-res magnetometers and ground-penetrating radar to map as deep as ten feet in a span of around 3,000 acres.

A digital map of the Superhenge site surrounding Stonehenge. Credit: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute

The project discovered hundreds of burial mounds, 17 ritual monuments, and remains of what appears to be a large mortuary, possibly used to house bodies after their flesh was removed. At the nearby Durrington Walls, a site two miles northeast of Stonehenge, the team discovered what is now being called Superhenge, which once consisted of around 60 giant stone or wood pillars, in a site that stretched for nearly a mile.

Vince Gaffney, University of Birmingham professor of landscape archaeology, theorizes that the arrangement of the structures around Stonehenge suggest that Stonehenge could’ve been used as one of the first instances of human ceremonial procession or liturgy. Stonehenge has long been thought to be an isolated monument, which always added to its air of mystery. Now, though, it turns out the slabs are only a drop in a sea of long-forgotten monuments and structures.

As time goes on, science is advancing enough to begin cracking age-old mysteries. We now know how the Death Valley sailing stones crawl across a desert floor seemingly on their own, and have made strides cracking the most mysterious text in the world, the Voynich Manuscript. Now, we’re much closer to knowing exactly what Stonehenge is.

 

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