Naked Science - Who Built Stonehenge?

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Stonehenge England's most mysterious ancient monument on a site older than the pyramids of ancient Egypt 85 massive stones some weighing more than 40 tons stand guard on a remote and windswept plain why is it here what's it for how was it built the answers are lost in the mists of time myth linked Stonehenge to England's mysterious druids Celtic priests said to a practiced ritual sacrifice now naked science asks the question who built Stonehenge and unmasks the face of a man who may have helped build this astonishing ancient monument forget Manhattan skyline or the stone carved sculptures of America's Mount Rushmore this construction job was really tough no cranes no hoists no machinery just massive rocks some heavier than a fully laden 18-wheel truck a structure so old that the rocks could only have been heaved into place by sheer muscle power alone still standing thousands of years later dramatic and moody Stonehenge dominates Salisbury Plain in southern England it has fascinated people since before recorded history and still captures imaginations today amazingly unlike most ancient ruins this is not in complete ruin it's pretty much today how its architects wanted it to be very open plan great ventilation a little light on a roof but a strong and ultimately long-lasting construction no one knows what such a design might have been for it's not recognizable as a church or a temple or a long abandoned building it just sits there in massive ancient splendor being Stonehenge one thing it has done over thousands and thousands of years is fascinate all those who come here to think the people that built this did all that they did to build it it's tremendous I mean just look at it it's unbelievable it's a it's a magical place in the public mind Stonehenge has long been associated with one mysterious people's the Druids the Druids were known as wise men teachers and religious priests for the Celtic peoples ruling much of northern Europe more than 2,000 years ago they believed in the immortality of the soul sometimes making human sacrifices to aid Celtic warriors in battle or as a ritual to cure the gravely ill those claiming to follow the ancient druid ways still meet here at summer solstice June 21st the longest day of the year when the Sun rises directly into the heart of the circle the monuments central axis aligns closely with the midsummer sunrise nowadays these summer solstice celebrations turn into lengthy public parties but in times past long before the birth of Christ these stones have probably witnessed real druid ceremonies bodies have been found in this area not the victims of druids sacrifice but human remains more than 4,000 years old could such bodies help solve the mystery of who erected these stones it is a structure that lies at the heart of an area of England steeped in monuments to now long-forgotten pagan religions in this mystical heartland of England there seems to hint association with circles mounds that are circular circles of rocks shapes from our distant past and even today mysterious links seem to flourish the area is famous for crop circles incredibly complex patterns appearing literally overnight in cornfields people marvel at huge crop circles made in the dead of night by a secret network of hoaxers though some still credit their creation to alien visitors and yet however intricate and huge the crop circle designs become none can rival the mysteries of Stonehenge the design evolved over many generations first a circular ditch and Bank then a second phase of timber structures the third phase or the arrival of stones some then repositioned over the years the largest stones are 23 feet tall and weigh more than 44 tons that's the same as six double-decker buses in total more than 1,500 tons of rock the weight of 10 steam locomotives perhaps most amazing is the precision with which it's been built some believe that the massive stones have been carefully aligned with stars in the heavens a distinctly non pocket-sized astronomical calendar at some stage in its creation the circle of upright stones was topped by huge carved rock lintels these huge lintel stones are nearly perfectly level despite being built on sloping ground within this sits a circular arrangement of smaller uprights known as blue stones and in the middle is a horseshoe of the largest of all the stones a series of three slab constructions known as the trial Athens Stonehenge is unique nothing quite like it has been built before or since but the question remains who built it there are a lot of likely suspects the first britain's at the end of the last ice age were primitive hunter-gatherers then came waves of settlers and invaders from Europe and the ancient world druids Celtic priests were preeminent until they in turn were swept away by the Romans the empire building civilization who 2,000 years ago conquered most of the then known world could any of these peoples be good candidates for the job of the Stonehenge design and construction crew how can we decipher the available evidence to uncover who was really responsible the answer we need some exact dates to weed out the losers Stonehenge does not give up its secrets easily but there are clues to be found if you know where to look deep under the stones early archaeologists found antler horns pottery and even human remains in the area modern radiocarbon dating offers new and more accurate dates to work with superseding less reliable tests of the past scientists can now test artifacts like this antler horn to tell exactly how old it is and because it was buried directly underneath the stones it tells us the most likely date when Stonehenge was built in tests published in 1995 scientists discover that some previous estimates had been wrong the final phase of Stonehenge was older than they thought it was built as far back as 4000 years ago it's been stunning news for archeologists such as Mike Pitts the new radiocarbon dating of Stonehenge has had the biggest impact on our understanding of the monument since recognized it as something created by people many centuries ago it is the first hard evidence of a date and it knocks those druids who only came to britain around 2,000 years ago right out of contention in fact it eliminates many of our usual suspects our search for the builders of Stonehenge needs to travel much further back in time it's certainly not a Roman building it isn't the work of the Druids nor those immigrant waves of settlers from all over Europe Stonehenge is far older than all those civilizations with the first phase predating the Great Pyramids of Egypt the test suggests that Stonehenge is the work of ancient Britons a primitive and little-known people it seems unbelievable 4,500 years ago Britain was nearing the end of the Stone Age and the start of the Bronze Age its people were hand-to-mouth subsistence farmers technologically undeveloped just starting to understand how to work with metal how could such primitive people have pulled off such an incredible construction project could the dates be wrong or is there other evidence suggesting these primitive individuals were indeed able to build one of the world's longest lasting monuments we hunt out that evidence in the very structure of the rocks in the construction methods used and by blasting Stonehenge like rocks from the hills examining Stonehenge naked science has so far looked at ancient druid rituals mysterious crop circles and the idea that a primitive ancient people could somehow have erected this astonishing monument could our Stonehenge builders possibly have been late Neolithic early Bronze Age man this was by anyone's standards a big construction job the first problem any ancient builders faced was getting hold of the construction materials the stones that make up Stonehenge and that was far from easy there are two types of stones at Stonehenge the smaller ones are called the blue stones believed to have been hauled to the site before the larger sarsen stones but once the sarsen ring had been erected the builders seemed to have had second thoughts the smaller blue stones were repositioned over the years within it no one knows why and there is another puzzling question just where had all these stones come from in one case the answer is easy similar rocks to the large sarsen stones can be seen some 20 miles from Stonehenge using manpower to haul the rocks to the site would be tough but not impossible but the bluestones are a different matter they're not from this neighborhood at all in fact even tracing their source isn't easy the clues to where they originated can be found with the rock experts at the British Geological Survey here in a vast collection our rock samples from all over Britain every one with its characteristic crystalline texture preserved as a microscope slide and each specimen cross-referenced to the geological map of Britain is there a match between the rock type of the blue stones and a sample in the collection and can that reveal the source of the stones anywhere in the British Isles under the microscope the distinctive crystalline texture of the blue stones are a close match with samples already in the collection they can even be traced to one specific location the Preseli mountain range in southwest Wales it's a clever piece of deductive science but it poses as big a riddle as it solves the Preseli mountains are more than 2-hundred way from stonehenge the journey kicks off in tough terrain and then just to make it tougher involves crossing england's biggest tidal estuary so how could stones weighing as much as four turns be carried such a long way with just the primitive technology of ancient Britons some 4,500 years ago perhaps one answer is they never were carried perhaps ancient Britons just found the stones lying around on Salisbury Plain deposited there by a powerful force of nature the movement of ice England's Ice Age when massive ice sheets spread down from the Arctic as far as southern England glaciers so powerful they could easily sweep huge rocks across the landscape could such glaciers be responsible for shifting the bluestones naked science visits the remote mountains of Wales to seek the answers local author and researcher Robin Heath is a man passionate about the mysteries of the Preseli blue stones and ancient Britons I get excited about coming up here because these are my ancestors and this is the culture of britain keith has been exploring here for the last 20 years cataloging peculiarities about the stones old artifacts which provide the latest clues for our investigation many of the stones here priscilly have giant stone wedges stuck between them someone at some time has tried to prise them away from the rock face and there is even more compelling evidence that these rocks have been shaped and worked on there are some stones that have show evidence of being cut to sized and there are other stone tools being found by several people that appear to have been used for dressing the stone somewhat before its journey the Stone Age tools found nearby suggests that these rocks were being worked by men around the time that the blue stones appeared at Stonehenge but the most damning evidence that the glacier theory is most likely wrong lies or rather doesn't lie at Stonehenge itself there are no other blue stones to be found where the monument stands on the vast expanse of Salisbury Plain what sort of glacier would deposit only these few massive rocks and leave no other trace of its passage the probable conclusion it was our late Stone Age candidate who transported those stones which begs the next question how did they do it perhaps examining the management of modern construction projects which shed light on how primitive man could achieve such a seemingly impossible feat naked science needed some rocks naked science is hot on the trail of the people who built Stonehenge so far we have learned of a newly confirmed date for the construction of the final phase of this fascinating World Heritage Site a date which seems to prove that late Stone Age Britons must have built this incredible construction and that these primitive people were somehow responsible for hauling some of the massive stones hundreds of miles across rough terrain and tidal estuaries can naked science help establish just how they achieve such a feat we call in a professional an undoubted expert in managing massive scale construction projects someone with a passion for both construction engineering and ancient archaeology a qualified engineer with an interest in Stonehenge Rick smiles I got interested in archaeology and anxious and construction primarily based on my background in construction and my love of history I was always curious like most folks are well how did they do that modern United States construction X maybe 4,000 years and an ocean away from Stonehenge and the tools they use just couldn't be more different but the basic principles bridge the centuries between them well first thing that we would look at is the actual site itself on a normal construction project when the project is finished we have as built drawings identify everything that was put into the project the case of Stonehenge we obviously don't have the drawings what we have the actual structure itself using stone henges structure as a project blueprint smiles works backwards to the basic steps required for such a construction task step one get your construction materials to the building site step two work out how to use those materials to create your structure step 3 calculate how much labour all this involves using smells as three steps it may be possible to work out how Stonehenge was built our first step getting the materials the 40-ton sarsen stones are relatively easy they are believed to have been brought to Stonehenge from a site about 20 miles away how did ancient Britons move such massive weights a decade ago a team of engineers tried to solve this problem with the help of volunteers a wooden sled and a lot of grease they moved a 40-ton rock hundreds of feet still nothing compared to the 20 miles that the ancient Britons would have faced even trickier would have been getting those blue stones 240 miles from the place where they were quarried in the mountains of South Wales to Salisbury Plain it's something that Robin Heath has a theory about well as an engineer you want to get the stones onto water quickly in prehistoric times if you could have got it down to the clever River three miles away you've then got water most of the way to Stonehenge could Stone Age people possibly have had the technology to carry these four ton rocks over water and can naked science devise a test to see if such a feat was truly possible we need to build a boat but what type archaeological evidence suggests that people from the Stonehenge era used a variety of different types of boats the most common were log boats a type of dugout canoe cut from an oak tree is it possible that these log boats could carry the sort of heavy stones required in the construction of Stonehenge an unusual discovery at shard lo quarry near Nottingham England in 1998 offers evidence that they could when a flood washed away the mud from what appeared to be an old tree stump something unusual appeared where a river had once been emerged the remains of an ancient Bronze Age log boat even more interestingly the boat was carrying an unexpected payload more than half a ton of quarried rock so a log boat seems the logical choice for our rock carrying demonstration for that we need a very large tree fortunately we find foresters calling some older oak trees from a hardwood forest perfect for our boat now we have a log we need someone to sculpt it into our boat not many people make ancient log boats for a living but naked science tracks down ancient wood work expert Damien good burn who takes up the challenge what we're setting out to do here to make a vessel that'll carry the stones with the maximum buoyancy and reasonable stability is to take a pair of dugout boats and link them together with a simple platform of poles and then the stone will be something like that so that's all right the practicalities of it may be quite difficult but that's what we we reckon should work like tools for the job and help from some friends Goodwin thinks the boat can be ready in two weeks what I have here is a very simple diagram of the boat we're trying to build a very very simple shape the design is straightforward the log will be hollowed out to form a wide flat bottom boat suitable for carrying heavy loads these will carry the maximum possible cargo on the shallowest possible draft so it seems to me this could be an ideal early Bronze Age barge for moving heavy weights which is what we're about the first task is to cut off the top of the log a technique called splitting which uses chunks of wood to cleave apart the heavy oak wander fingers the team shows that the technology of the time would have worked completing the whole boat by hand would be authentic but time-consuming to speed up the process naked science calls in the chainsaws our boats construction is well underway almost ready for its two greatest tests a will it float and B can it carry a Stonehenge sized stone assuming it floats we need a very big rock because the Preseli mountain is a protected national park we blast out a boulder the same size and weight as the blue stones from this granite quarry a substantial crane lowers the massive weight onto a sled at our boat yard the team suddenly realizes what an immense task they have taken on we've always known it's going to be too much to balance such a load on our one finished log boat to make it work another log boat built by good burn 14 years ago is standing by if the team doesn't get the boat finished soon they will miss the high tide essential for launching the heavy weight of the boat the plan is to lever the boat over oiled skits and slide and pivot it down to the water's edge it's a nice idea in theory but in practice it seems good Bern may have underestimated the weight not just of the stone but of the boat eventually with some extra effort the log boat begins to gather some momentum tinkling that's it stop what but not for long the team is worried about the jetty not holding up under the one-ton way of the boat break these not all right just fairly rotten three Batu's and I'm not sure that's gonna take a ton wait never had this trouble in the front it's all fine are you pulling no we were pushing on these ropes are you ready brushing aside the problems with the precarious jetty good burn decides that one last push should be enough to launch the boat and instructs our chainsaw operator to get in and row okay hold the gunnel it might not have been the most elegant of launches but the log boat now safely floats in the water but the team doesn't have time to waste they still need to launch the other boat and lash the two together but one of them is sinking undeterred the team presses on with lashing the boats together which involves drilling holes in the side of the boat not something naked science would normally advise with the boat secured the task of getting the stone on board begins in earnest okay you ready people yes 1 2 3 ha ha worried that the stone might slide too quickly good burn changes tactics so try a gentle push on 3 okay 1 2 3 nothing at all um I think you should put a lever behind that big cross piece with the lever in place the stone begins its slow crawl down to the boats next the volunteers control the weight of the stone as its placed on a bridge that will tilt it toward the boats okay okay as they take the strain good burns plan is to have them slowly release the sled relax lot but then disaster strikes good burn is too distracted to notice what has happened but the stone is still slipping and he hasn't realized that the sled is now stuck underneath the poles on which it is supposed to be resting by the time they notice what has happened the tide has started to turn against them and a frantic rescue plan is devised now what we really want if there's only chance on earth you can pull up til there the idea is to winch the sled up reposition it and then remove the bridge all before the boat gets grounded on three one two right yes enough hold it slingback you can't pull it your best the sled is now in the right place but there is a much more pressing problem the boats are dangerously close to sinking they plugged the leak with flax and lard which should last at least a couple of hours with the boat temporarily repaired it's time to remove the bridge can you pull it right out now please gently not too fast okay you can just pull it clear okay now what do we do fortunately someone comes up with a solution and with one last use of the indispensable lever the stone is leveled I'm leaking through that pay can you tap into this but only jet but with the leak still threatening to sink the boat it's time to get a float and run our experiment the moment of truth could the combined technology of log boats and human power move a four-ton stone across a tidal estuary or with the weight of the stone proved too much naked science has finally done it we have proved beyond doubt that Britain's in the period between the late Stone Age and the early Bronze Age could have moved bluestones from Wales to England to build Stonehenge but we had it easy we cheated with modern tools to make just one boat to move just one stone a few hundred yards on calm waters our ancient cousins seemingly built boat after boat and move stone after stone hundreds of miles across open sea the scale of investment of time human effort and ingenuity is almost beyond comprehension and this from a supposedly primitive people once the stone arrived on the site it still had to be raised this is step two in smells his guide on how to build stone back at the attempt ten years ago the team of engineers thought that this could be done most efficiently using a ramp to provide a pivot point Wow it seemed that raising the large top stones or lintels was not beyond Bronze Age Britons either all you needed was a big wooden scaffold so we had our answer ancient Britons could have built Stonehenge with a little engineering know-how and some simple levers and ramps armed with all the data can smiles calculate just how many man-hours of labor it would have taken to carry out all of the work we're looking at probably a peak workforce of maybe 300 people taking on the short end the quickest it could be built maybe two and a half three years and using in the order of a million a half to 3 million labor hours the work may have been spread out over generations much like a medieval cathedral but what could have possibly motivated them to undertake such a huge project to find out naked science travels to Las Vegas and the University of Nevada to meet an expert in the relationship between architecture and the corresponding societies that create it dr. Ronald Smith as you look at these places they're reflections of us the reflections of a culture the reflections of emotions that we express they are in fact a study of us Smith thinks that the way a building is built gives us information about the intentions of the people who built it so analyzing Stonehenge's size structure and shape will help us understand why it was constructed Smith explains his theory with a modern example Las Vegas why for example are all the buildings so big large in America is seen as good as seen as beautiful we are a country of large things from buildings to cars everything large is good here an interesting theory but then when you start to look around you realize that people do interact with buildings and structures in an emotional way so going back a few millennia was there something about the size of the stones at Stonehenge that reflects why the monument was built the great appeal of Stonehenge the size of these huge stones it's a place to celebrate a place to worship a place to acknowledge something greater than what is human something bigger than what we are bigger than the tribe bigger than the community it follows that the size of the stones might have been designed to tower over worshipers reminding them of an omnipresent God just like cathedrals through the ages Stonehenge as a religious site is also a theory favored by Mike Pitts they weren't accountants Stonehenge was not a housing estate it was a religious monument perhaps the mountain the Boselli Hills was a sacred mountain and there was something about the rocks on it that when they brought them to Salisbury Plain allow them to bring something of that magic into their own world there are so many possible explanations whatever was going on I think we can be pretty sure that there were many of these things happening all this new information starts to reveal that ancient Britons at the time of Stone Edge might not be the primitive people we once thought in our probe into the origins of Stonehenge we have established that its builders had solved difficult engineering problems and coordinated construction on a massive scale we underestimated the abilities of these ancient Britons how could we build a more complete picture of these people to reveal the truth about the builders of Stonehenge in April 2003 construction workers unearth human remains at Boscombe down just three miles from Stonehenge Flint arrowheads found with the bodies earn them the nickname the Bascom Bowman could they offer evidence about the people who were alive when Stonehenge was built they've been studied by Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex archaeology to start with it didn't look all that special it was only as the excavation was done that we realized there was something very unusual Mountain Grave skeletons have been uncovered near Stonehenge before but until now they have either been foreign visitors or much later bodies buried many years after it was constructed the new Grave was quite different so what does this excavation reveal there are hundreds of bones suggesting multiple burials something not usually known from this period who were these individuals could there remains hold the key to unlocking the mystery of who built Stonehenge the next clues about this unusual burial come from Jackie McKinley one of the first things I do when I get material like this into laboratory is lay everything out and we've quite a lot of work it was possible to work out that we had parts of seven individuals but why had they all been buried together a closer investigation of the bones of the skulls reveals that this was probably a family grave unfortunately the condition of the bones means that a genetic test is out of the question is there another way of uncovering the relationship between the bodies the breakthrough comes from a new test capable of identifying the likely location where people were born by identifying chemical markers absorbed in their teeth could the forensic teeth test tell us if the bodies had come from the same place the technique traces chemicals taken up by tooth enamel during childhood to reveal where someone was brought up these traces come from the food we eat the water we drink and from the general environment the teeth enamel is tested for two separate chemicals levels of oxygen isotopes and the isotopic level of the element strontium each reading is compared to a map of known levels of oxygen and strontium to reveal the locality that is left these telltale chemical fingerprints in the teeth it seems logical to think that the bodies dug up near Stonehenge might have originated in the local area around the monument site but the teeth tests reveal an unexpected result the people buried thousands of years ago in this mass grave had all grown up more than 200 miles away from Stonehenge in South Wales from where the Stonehenge bluestones had all been hauled it's a link that fascinates researchers such as Andrew Fitzpatrick we think that these men come from Wales and the obvious thing with Stonehenge is that many of the stones come from Wales it's an incredible finding strong evidence that the men and the stones originated from the same place a tantalizing suggestion that these bodies were involved in transporting the stones from South Wales and possibly in the very building of Stonehenge itself but our quest is still not over if these men built Stonehenge can we go just one step further and actually see what the builders of Stonehenge might have looked like can we use the technology of our day to breathe life back into the men whom the technology of their own day to such monumental effect taking the most complete skull naked science conducts a unique experiment on a forty-three hundred year-old stonehenge man his bones are scanned into a computer creating a three-dimensional image of all the skull fragments and the computer calculates just how to rearrange the pieces of bone into an anatomically correct order then it's up to the facial reconstruction team to try and assemble the jigsaw puzzle into a fully formed face here at the University of Manchester experts use this new technique skilled facial anthropologists use advanced software to build layers of muscle the system allows the operator to feel the contours of the skull layer by layer to create a three-dimensional model it takes many weeks of computer time but finally the mysterious and long dead Welshman is ready to be revealed we are about to become the first people for over 4000 years to see the features of one of the men who may have built Stonehenge our quest to uncover the builders of Stonehenge has taken naked science from England Salisbury Plain to the mountains of Wales we have proved how ancient Britons could have hauled vast slabs of rock miles across land and sailed them across water to construct the monument examination of ancient graves has given us a face and shed new light on the origins of the peoples who might have come from far and wide to build Stonehenge what the new science is telling us is that people were moving about not just within Britain but clearly all over Europe and that one I think imagines now that the construction of Stonehenge would have been known about at least all over southern Britain and that this was almost part of the purpose of it for the people who built it it was a statement about their power we still remain with an enduring mystery and nothing but many different theories as to why it was built the only certainty remains the stones themselves a monument that has stood proud and immovable for thousands of years an incredible monument to the incredible ingenuity of the human mind you

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Channel: Naked Science

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Keywords: prehistoric, wiltshire, famous, standing, earthworks, neolithic, bronze, iron, age, burial, mounds, world, heritage, site, etymology, history, king, saxons, knights, salisbury, function, theory, folklore, legend, devil, tale, prayer, god, merlin, sun, moon, doorway, rise, neopagan, new, beliefs, neo, religious, significance, festival, order, archaeological, research, restoration, project, equinox, excavations, secret, solstice, ceremony, celebration, warrior, meditation, healing, precious, golum, ring, fire, dance, goddess, sing, architect, life, immortal

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Length: 50min 7sec (3007 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2013

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