Ancient World Review

The Almendres Cromlech Stone Circle In Portugal

"The Cromlech of the Almendres ... is a megalithic complex (commonly known as the Almendres Cromlech), located ...  in the Portuguese Alentejo. The largest existing group of structured menhirs [standing stones] in the Iberian Peninsula (and one of the largest in Europe), this archaeological site consists of several megalithic structures: cromlechs and menhir stones, that belong to the so-called 'megalithic universe of Évora', with clear parallels to other cromlechs [in and around the same region], such as Portela Mogos and the Vale Maria do Meio Cromlech [next video]." (Wikipedia)

Note: A cromlech is a megalithic structure of stone blocks. The Alemendres Cromlech and other structures mentioned above date back to the 6th millennium BC.

The Almendres Cromlech has been restored using the original stones:

"Many of the stones were unearthed where they stood/fell, and were rebuilt/erected by [archaeologist?] Mario Varela Gomes, based on criteria established from research and rediscovery of the original bases. The complex's latitudinal position is about the same as the maximum moon elongation (38.55 degrees for 1500 BC); comparably, another latitude where this occurs is associated with Stonehenge (51.18 degrees for 2000 BC)." (Wikipedia) Like Stonehenge, "[i]t is believed that the monument either had a religious/ceremonial purpose or functioned as a primitive astronomical observatory."

Old Photos Of Stonehenge Show Restoration Work

There's a conspiracy theory floating around out there that Stonehenge is actually fake, having been constructed in the 1950s. This theory is based on old photographs which supposedly show construction work being carried out at the site decades ago. As it turns out, some of these photographs are authentic (see 1:09 and on in the video, for example).

According to English Heritage, Stonehenge was partially restored back in 1914 when some of the capstone lintels (which had collapsed) were lifted back into place using cranes and concrete was used to patch some of the standing stones. The land around the site was also cleared to some extent and I think this work is still going on. At any rate, the Stonehenge that exists today is, in a certain sense, a reconstruction.

This kind of restoration / preservation work isn't uncommon in archaeology and it sometimes has unintended consequences. For instance, efforts have been made to keep Egypt's oldest known pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser, from collapsing completely, but this may actually have made things worse, according to a 2014 story in Smithsonian Magazine.

The Stonehenge Burials

Stonehenge "maintains its less explored, darker aspects, not least of which are the enigmatic burials scattered in and around this famous Neolithic monument. What can these burials, both cremation and inhumation, tell us about the rituals and activities that went on at Stonehenge more than four millennia ago?" Source: "The Stonehenge Burials," Ancient History Encyclopedia.

"...During the 20th century CE nearly 60 cremation burials were uncovered at Stonehenge, with perhaps a couple of hundred more remaining in unexcavated areas of the monument. Interestingly, the latest of these cremations has been radiocarbon dated to c. 2300 BCE, which illustrates that cremation was still being practiced at Stonehenge long after the bluestones and sarsens had been erected."

Video from 2017.

Related: Stonehenge May Have Been Burial Site For Stone Age Elite.

"In Stonehenge's early years, ancient people used it as a cemetery. In fact, excavations from 1919 to 1926 revealed the cremated remains of up to 58 people, 'making Stonehenge one of the largest Late Neolithic burial sites known in Britain..." Source: Live Science (2018).

"These cremated remains were discovered in the Aubrey Holes, a series of 56 pits at Stonehenge that were named in honor of the 17th-century antiquarian John Aubrey, who first wrote about them. All of the human remains were moved into Aubrey Hole 7, which was then re-excavated in 2008."

Video from 2018.

Related: Lives before and after Stonehenge: An osteobiographical study of four prehistoric burials recently excavated from the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.

A "Druid Priest" Explains Stonehenge

Video from 2009.

Comment:  For a video titled "Druid priest explains Stonehenge," there isn't much information here at all. The idea that the Stonehenge builders slid the rocks they used across the ice-covered ground is plausible, I guess, but in general this Grand Druid doesn't "explain" anything about Stonehenge that isn't common knowledge. That's not too surprising, though. "Neopagans" talk a lot about ancient megaliths, but they don't seem to know much about them.

I've ranted about this before, but I have to point out that this character isn't actually a "Druid priest." How could he be? Nobody knows anything about the Druids' actual practices, so whatever he may think he's doing at Stonehenge it has nothing to do with actual history and authentic paganism.

"Almost everything we know about Druids is second-hand knowledge. Surviving texts that mention them were written by non-Druids, something that poses a problem to modern-day historians trying to understand who they were and how their role changed over time." Source: Live Science (2014)

It doesn't really matter, anyway. Even if we did know all about the Druids' religious beliefs, it wouldn't make any difference because Stonehenge was built long before the Druids or the Celts arrived in Britain. If the Druids used the site, their rituals probably had little to do with the reasons it was originally constructed.

Modern neo-Druids are anachronisms. They're fake Druids staging made-up ceremonies at an ancient site that probably had nothing to do with the real Druids at all. This "priest" is actually a thoroughly modern PC liberal following a makeshift religion thrown together from an assortment of New Age beliefs all mixed up with Greeny politics and heavily influenced by Hollywood fantasy movies. For instance, whoever built Stonehenge, it's highly doubtful that they did things like run around the stone circle naked in the middle of the night, one of the "activities" this guy mentions in the video.

This Druid-impersonator mentions that his group is protesting to gain access to the stone circle for their made-up ceremonies. He doesn't mention that English Heritage has been forced to put up fences and control access to the site in order to prevent the massive damage caused by the invasions of neopagans, gawkers, stoners, ravers and tourists which occur during every solstice and equinox, and other times of the year. This vandalism has been going on for so long that I would be in favor of the police using dogs and water cannons to drive these mobs away.

Next video (2017) covers the damage tourism causes to several historic sites. Stonehenge is covered at 5:15.

More on Stonehenge here.

Stonehenge Circles May Have Started Off As Commemoration Of Ancient Elite Family

"The massive and ancient stone circles around Stonehenge and Avebury in southern England may have all started with the commemoration of a single Neolithic house that probably belonged to an elite family, archaeologists now say." Source: Live Science.

"Using ground-penetrating radar, the researchers found that the monumental stone circles of Avebury, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Stonehenge, were centered on an early Neolithic habitation, with the concentric stone circles and large earthen embankment being built around it probably centuries later."

Stonehenge First Built In Wales?

Video from 2015.

"The iconic megaliths that make up Stonehenge may have once stood in a temporary monument, not too far from where they were quarried in Wales, before they were transported to their final destination in Salisbury Plain, a new study suggests." Source: Live Science (Feb. 19, 2019).

"The site of this possible temporary monument, known as Banc du, is a couple of miles to the southwest of two Stonehenge quarries. Ancient humans used Banc du as a gathering place about 700 years before Stonehenge was built. But recent evidence, from radiocarbon-dated charcoal found at Banc du, suggests the site was used again around 3000 B.C.— right about the time of Stonehenge's construction."

Comment: I'm not sure if this is an old or new story. The video report was made in 2015, but the 2019 Live Science article says this theory is based on a new report. In either case, it's highly speculative. The idea that a massive megalithic structure like Stonehenge was set up, then taken down and moved to another location doesn't seem very likely, to say the least.

Some Of The People Who Built Stonehenge Came From Wales

Video from 2017.

"Despite over a century of intense study, we still know very little about the people buried at Stonehenge or how they came to be there. Now, archeologists suggest that a number of the people that were buried at the Wessex site had moved with and likely transported the bluestones used in the early stages of the monument's construction, sourced from the Preseli Mountains of west Wales." Source: Science Daily (2018).

This study was based on a strontium isotope analysis of cremated remains found at Stonehenge:

"Analysis of small fragments of cremated human bone from an early phase of the site's history around 3000 BC, when it was mainly used as a cemetery, showed that at least 10 of the 25 people did not live near Stonehenge prior to their death. Instead, they found the highest strontium isotope ratios in the remains were consistent with living in western Britain, a region that includes west Wales -- the known source of Stonehenge's bluestones."

Video from 2017.

Archaeologists have known for years that the Stonehenge bluestones came from Wales, but they only identified the actual quarry sites [1] a few years ago:

"The very large standing stones at Stonehenge are of ‘sarsen’, a local sandstone, but the smaller ones, known as ‘bluestones’, come from the Preseli hills in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Geologists have known since the 1920s that the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge from somewhere in the Preseli Hills, but only now has there been collaboration with archaeologists to locate and excavate the actual quarries from which they came." Source: University College London (2015).

[1]: Some archaeologists questioned the idea that the bluestones came from Wales, claiming that there was no evidence that the Presili sites were ever used as quarries. I'm not sure where this controversy stands today. If the bluestones, some weighing up to four tons, were quarried in the Presili hills -- and the current consensus seems to be that they were -- they would have had to be transported around 140 miles to Stonehenge. 

If accurate, this analysis of the cremated remains at Stonehenge not only supports the theory that the bluestones were quarried in Wales, but suggests that some of the quarry workers traveled with the stones to the Stonehenge site and were most likely involved in the early stages of its construction.

Did Stonehenge Bluestones Travel By Sea From Wales?

"The [~4 ton] bluestones were arranged in a circle inside the sarsen circle [the outer circle of stones]. They were also set into a horseshoe arrangement within the sarsen trilithon horseshoe. However, there were many changes in the stone settings prior to the arrangement that we see today, and archaeologists have found traces that indicate that the bluestones may originally have been set in a double circle. Regardless, only 43 of these foreign bluestones have been identified in these smaller stone settings at Stonehenge. Of these, 16 are still standing; the others are either leaning, lying on the ground or traceable only through buried stumps. No one knows how many bluestones might have been there originally." Source: Earth Magazine

Note: "The term 'bluestone' in Britain is used in a loose sense to cover all of the 'foreign' stones at Stonehenge," according to Wikipedia. "It is a 'convenience' label rather than a geological term, since at least 20 different rock types are represented."

Quarrying Of Stonehenge Bluestones Dated To 3000 BC

"Excavations at two quarries in Wales, known to be the source of the Stonehenge 'bluestones', provide new evidence of megalith quarrying 5,000 years ago, according to a new UCL-led study." Source: Phys.org.

"Geologists have long known that 42 of Stonehenge's smaller stones, known as 'bluestones', came from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. Now a new study published in Antiquity pinpoints the exact locations of two of these quarries and reveals when and how the stones were quarried."

Megalith Culture Originated In Europe?

"The mystery of Stonehenge may be solved, thanks to a new study that reveals the iconic rock structure may have originated from a single hunter gatherer society in France 7000 years ago." Source: Russia Today.

"...A new study suggests the impressive ring of stones was created thanks to a hunter gatherer society in Brittany in northwest France, which first started building the impressive structures and monuments 7,000 years ago."

Note: The RT article is kind of misleading. This study doesn't actually "solve the mystery" of Stonehenge since it doesn't explain why the monument was built. If you check the study itself, it's mostly concerned with the origin of the megalith culture.

According to this research, the monuments in Britain were probably built by Stone Age sailors who crossed over from the area of modern Britanny on the northwestern coast of France. In other words, this is a maritime diffusion model. If accurate, the study provides evidence that megaliths were first constructed in Europe:

According to the study, "a Bayesian statistical approach to 2,410 currently available radiocarbon results from megalithic, partly premegalithic, and contemporaneous nonmegalithic contexts in Europe" suggests that "megalithic graves emerged within a brief time interval of 200 y to 300 y in the second half of the fifth millennium calibrated years BC in northwest France, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic coast of Iberia."