00:00Stonehenge wasn't a witchy monument to travel through time.
00:04It was actually constructed as a hope to build a different future.
00:09Recent research just found out that the monument was probably raised
00:13as an attempt to reunite the Britons during a period of big division.
00:18The thread of this story lies on the altar stone,
00:22the monument's most iconic rock.
00:26For years, scientists believed that the stones used in Stonehenge,
00:30including the altar stone, came from the nearby Preseli Hills in Wales.
00:35In this scenario, Stonehenge would have been built by a local community,
00:40that is, Neolithic people, who would have found easy-to-access materials
00:44to build a ceremonial mound, a sundial calendar,
00:48and a final resting place, all in one.
00:52Things changed when another discovery was made.
00:55In 2018, leading-edge research pointed that the altar stone
00:59actually came from the River Tay region in north-eastern Scotland,
01:03which is located over 400 miles away from Stonehenge.
01:08Scientists found similar rocks as such in Scottish monuments.
01:12You see, the altar stone is a recumbent stone, laying on its side.
01:17Many of the rocks were found in ceremonial stone circles in Scotland,
01:21and they are unique to this region.
01:24When this discovery broke through, it got archaeologists thinking.
01:28Maybe Stonehenge wasn't just a local project,
01:31but a wider collaboration between different tribes and communities across Britain.
01:37To understand this, we need to rewind to around 3000 BCE.
01:43That's when Britain still wasn't a unified country per se.
01:47Rather, it was a patchwork of tribes, such as those coming from southern or eastern Europe,
01:52each with their own customs and beliefs.
01:55As an island, Britain's population changed many times.
01:59Britain was mainly composed of farmers, who descended from people from the Middle East
02:04and arrived on the land around 6000 years ago.
02:07This group thrived in the area until 2500 BCE,
02:11when another group coming from the regions of the Netherlands and Germany started to appear.
02:17These ones, also known as the Beaker people,
02:20were responsible for the large population turnover that Britain experienced
02:24during the Neolithic period and the years that followed.
02:28The Beakers were called so because of a specific type of pottery they used to make
02:32and bury their loved ones with after their passing.
02:36It's possible that the original dwellers of the land didn't like it that their land was being repopulated.
02:42And what researchers suggest is that Stonehenge was this attempt
02:46to reunite the original Neolithic farmer population
02:49and regain some type of identity control over their land.
02:54They would have invested a lot of time and energy in bringing the altar stone
02:59all the way down from Scotland, without the help of wheel technology, for example.
03:04You see, the wheel had already been invented in Lower Mesopotamia,
03:09but since there was no Wi-Fi at the time,
03:11the Brits weren't aware of this technology until much later on.
03:16This whole territorial crisis could have driven locals to use their resources
03:21to move the altar stone to Salisbury Plain in England, in order to reunify the land.
03:27You see, Stonehenge wasn't built in one go.
03:31Its history dates to around 3000 BCE.
03:35That's when the monument was just a circular ditch and bank, known as a henge.
03:41Inside, they placed wooden posts and possibly totem-like carvings.
03:46This version of Stonehenge wasn't about rocks yet.
03:49It was more of a ritualistic place, and possibly a final resting place.
03:55They found several cremation pits from this period,
03:58making it the oldest resting place in all of Britain.
04:02It was only around 2600 BCE that the Blue Stones came around.
04:08The naming might be a bit misleading, since they're not literally blue rocks.
04:12They have a bluish tinge to them when they are freshly broken, hence the name.
04:17These smaller rocks probably came from the Pressley Hills in southwest Wales,
04:22which is about 150 miles away from Stonehenge.
04:27Some researchers say that the ancient ones believed that blue stones had healing qualities.
04:33So we can maybe guess why they went through all of the trouble to move them from Wales to Salisbury Plains, huh?
04:40A little bit later than that, circa 2500,
04:44that's when we start having the Stonehenge we know and love today.
04:48That's when the Sarsen Stones started to arrive.
04:51The Sarsens are Stonehenge's huge stones.
04:55I mean, each Sarsen can weigh around 25 tons.
04:59That's as much as three African elephants stacked together.
05:03The Sarsens make that iconic outer ring circle.
05:06Supposedly, that's also when the Altar Stone was moved from Scotland directly to the heart of Stonehenge.
05:13The Altar Stone is the largest of the Blue Stones used to build Stonehenge.
05:18Today, the Altar Stone lies recumbent at the foot of the largest trilithon of the monument.
05:24In case you don't know, the trilithons are the horizontal stones used to form those famous arches we see today.
05:31And here's where the story takes a twist.
05:35For nearly a century,
05:37scientists believed that the Altar Stone came from the same area as the Blue Stones,
05:42the Pressley Hills in Wales.
05:44It made sense back then.
05:46If you're already hauling stones from Wales,
05:49why not grab a special one to be the so-called altar?
05:53Except that theory started crumbling in 2018,
05:57when a team of researchers decided to dig deeper.
06:00They used advanced geochemical analysis to pinpoint where the Altar Stone's sandstone actually came from.
06:07And it turns out, it wasn't Wales.
06:11Instead, the results pointed north,
06:14specifically to the Orcadian Basin in northeastern Scotland,
06:18400 miles from Stonehenge.
06:21This revelation changed the whole script of Stonehenge's story.
06:26How would they move the rocks, you may ask?
06:29Well, there's an old theory known as the Ice Road
06:32that suggests that the rocks were moved by natural icy pathways that formed during the winter.
06:38This way, they could slide the rocks down all the way to Stonehenge.
06:43But hey, if we're talking about a distance of over 100 miles,
06:47that's not too realistic.
06:49Anyways, this theory was debunked because it was warmer back then than it is today.
06:55There's also the River Theory
06:57that suggests that the rocks were floating along the river from the quarry to the site.
07:02But if we're talking about sarsen rocks, they're too heavy to float.
07:07So there goes this theory.
07:09What we're saying is, no one knows how the rocks were moved.
07:13Another interesting info came from all the research done in Stonehenge.
07:18A recent laser survey of the stones revealed the different stone working methods used
07:23and has shown that some parts of the monument were more carefully finished than others.
07:29In particular, the northeast side and the inner faces of the central trilithons were finely dressed.
07:36FYI, a trilithon is one of Stonehenge's most famous shapes.
07:41It's when two huge monoliths receive a third one on top of them, connecting the two together.
07:47This fancy word is just Greek for having three stones.
07:51But anyway, the bigger question and maybe why Stonehenge is so famous
07:56is why it was built in the first place.
08:00You see, Stonehenge's entire layout seems to have been carefully planned
08:05to align with the movements of the sun.
08:08The monument's architecture is particularly attuned to the solstices,
08:12the shortest and longest days of the year.
08:15During the summer solstice, the sun rises perfectly in line with the heel stone,
08:20casting light straight into the heart of the stone circle.
08:24A spectacular, almost magical sight that surely wowed its ancient audience.
08:30But it's the midwinter solstice that seems to hold a special connection to the altar stone.
08:35As the sun sets on that day, its light aligns with the altar stone at the center of Stonehenge.
08:43To the builders of Stonehenge, this alignment may have symbolized more than just celestial precision.
08:50It likely carried profound ancestral and spiritual significance.
08:54The altar stone, illuminated by the setting sun, could have been seen as a bridge between worlds,
09:00connecting the living with their ancestors, the Earth with the cosmos,
09:05and the present with the eternal.
09:08In a world without calendars, clocks, or weather apps, the solstices were everything.
09:14They marked the rhythm of life, guiding agricultural cycles and spiritual rituals alike.
09:20So Stonehenge wasn't just about the stones or the people who built it,
09:25but perhaps a way to honor their ancestral roots in an ever-changing world.
09:31That's it for today.
09:32So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:37Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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