Stonehenge origins search heats up as Orkney ruled out by Aber scientist

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00:00I think the fact that these stones were brought such long distances, suddenly we're looking

00:22at 700 kilometres, maybe even more, who knows how far up the Arcadian Basin we'd end up

00:29looking. So that's a remarkable feat. I think it says a lot about Neolithic society that

00:35perhaps a layperson doesn't necessarily appreciate. They did have trading routes, undoubtedly.

00:41You can find pottery styles from the Orkneys right down to Stonehenge. You can find mace

00:49heads that were clearly from the North West Highlands, manufactured in the North West

00:52Highlands, probably made in Orkney, so we're told by our archaeological colleagues, and

00:58they turn up here.

01:29I thought I'd stop and have a cup of coffee.

01:32Not a problem.

01:33No, don't worry.

01:35And that movie, this is brilliant.

01:39It really is.

01:41I mean, this is so video-friendly.

01:44It's probably a bit too much information, isn't it?

01:46I mean, it was, wasn't it?

01:48Yeah, yeah.

01:49Whilst you're doing that, I'm just going to get the first minute here.

01:52Yeah, yeah, just let you know.

01:54I'm not going to slow it down.

02:24It's fantastic to be here on a beautiful August morning, and that stone over there,

02:37about to become big news amongst archaeologists and geologists in terms of where it's come

02:42from. It's great. Amazing. For 100 years, it was thought that the altar stone came from

02:48Wales, to suddenly find it's come from three times as far away up in North East Scotland.

02:53Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable.

02:56For Neolithic Britain, it shows that they must have been far more connected than I think

03:01a lot of people appreciate, and I think there's a tendency to think that Neolithic people

03:05weren't particularly organised, civilised and so on, but clearly showing a stone that

03:12weighs six tonnes has been brought 700 kilometres from Scotland to Stonehenge. They must have

03:19been remarkably organised and remarkably efficient and technologically advanced in

03:25terms of how they got the stone down here, by boat or by land, whatever they did. It's

03:30an enormous ask to bring something like that that distance at that time.