Stonehenge was moved from Wales

[Plazma Inferno!]

It's been known fact that Stonehenge's bluestones were quarried in Wales 500 years before they were put up in Wiltshire. But the new discoveries prompt hypothesis that Stonehenge is ‘second-hand monument’, older than previously thought, first used as a local monument and then dismantled and dragged off from Wales to Wiltshire.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/07/stonehenge-first-erected-in-wales-secondhand-monument

 

[exchemist]

It's been known fact that Stonehenge's bluestones were quarried in Wales 500 years before they were put up in Wiltshire. But the new discoveries prompt hypothesis that Stonehenge is ‘second-hand monument’, older than previously thought, first used as a local monument and then dismantled and dragged off from Wales to Wiltshire.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/07/stonehenge-first-erected-in-wales-secondhand-monument

That is a very interesting article. If true it would lay to rest the idea that the bluestones got from Wales to Wiltshire via glacial movement, i.e that they were glacial erratics that happened to pitch up near Salisbury Plain. By the way I always wondered what "bluestones" were. I've now looked this up and it seems they are a form of dolerite, i.e. altered igneous rock. In this case from Preseli in Wales. Salisbury Plain is chalk, i.e. Cretaceous sedimentary, so quite different.

 

[sculptor]

Thanks for the information.
More information?
From the article, it seems that we have dates for campfires.
Is it too much of a leap to call these quarrymens campfires?

 

[timojin]

It's been known fact that Stonehenge's bluestones were quarried in Wales 500 years before they were put up in Wiltshire. But the new discoveries prompt hypothesis that Stonehenge is ‘second-hand monument’, older than previously thought, first used as a local monument and then dismantled and dragged off from Wales to Wiltshire.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/07/stonehenge-first-erected-in-wales-secondhand-monument

What is the distance that the big boulders were transported ? If the distance is large I assume people then had a better thing to do the transport the big boulders

 

[iceaura]

From the article, it seems that we have dates for campfires.

And also apparently for the installation date of the silica sandstone that is part of Stonehenge, aside from the bluestone. (they don't say, but probably by measuring various weathering features on the exposed vs unexposed surfaces - http://www.jstor.org/stable/1550624?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents )

 

[exchemist]

What is the distance that the big boulders were transported ? If the distance is large I assume people then had a better thing to do the transport the big boulders

About 240 miles (380km). A lot of it is thought to have been by water - down and up rivers and round the coast. But it is all conjecture, as no traces of the transport process have been found. The blocks weight about 4t. So biggish, but by no mean too big for transport by raft.