The majestic, seemingly timeless sight of Stonehenge, standing for millennia on the Salisbury Plain, is one familiar to many, drawing the attention of artists for centuries, among them Turner, Constable, and Henry Moore. The image we have of vast trilithons – trios of stones resembling doorways – conjures up permanence, but the monument as we know it today was not the first at the site, nor was it alone in its surrounding landscape.
Between about 5,000 and 3,500 years ago, Stonehenge saw intense activity and many transformations, reflecting its enduring importance for successive generations of people. It bore witness to wider developments in prehistory, with the arrivals of newcomers from continental Europe, as well as new metal technology, contributing to innovations in material culture. The iconic monument stands as a powerful stony testament to people finding their place in the cosmos. This was not something that happened in isolation in south-west England, but, as a new British Museum exhibition explores, on a wider scale in Ireland, the Scottish Islands, the Danish coast, Germany, and many other places across Europe. The first Stonehenge – a circular earthwork enclosing an inner space – was built using antler tools around 3000 BC. In its interior was a ring of 56 pits for holding timber or stone posts, now known as the Aubrey Holes. Even before this, the wider Stonehenge landscape served as a monumental meeting place. An older earthwork – the Larkhill causewayed enclosure – was constructed as early as 3750-3650 BC, just 4km away from the famous stone circle.
Around 4,500 years ago, work on Stonehenge as we know it began. The vast, imposing sarsens – a hard sandstone, sourced from Marlborough Downs 25km away – were set up in a horseshoe in the centre of the now 500-year-old enclosure. Unusually, the stones were pounded to make them smooth and more rectangular, extra attention to detail afforded to this special monument. The placement of the horseshoe carefully considered the sun. To the north-east, its axis aligns with the rising sun at the summer solstice, and the setting midwinter sun to the south-west. For the Neolithic farming communities who worked on this monumental feat, the passage of the sun and these turning points during the year were crucial. The all-powerful sun determined the well-being of crops.
