Stonehenge mystery SOLVED: Scientists uncover origin of ancient stone monoliths

Stonehenge is perhaps the world’s most famous prehistoric site. The iconic set of stones laid out in concentric rings was erected an incredible 5,000 years ago, but nobody knows why. That is until now, following a revolutionary new theory about the ancient stones’ origin.

Stonehenge may be the most iconic example, but tens of thousands of similarly ancient stone sites exist.

Many may be surprised by the number of massive, enigmatically arranged rocks around Europe.

And a startling new study suggests these megaliths could all in fact be inter-linked.

Stonehenge and the others can even be traced back to a single hunter-gatherer culture.

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This ancient race reportedly lived nearly 7000 years ago, in the modern Brittany region of northwestern France.

Michael Parker Pearson, an archaeologist and Stonehenge specialist at University College London said: “This demonstrates absolutely that Brittany is the origin of the European megalithic phenomenon.

The origins of the megalith builders have captivated Dr Bettina Schulz Paulsson since her first megalithic monument excavation 20 years ago.

Back then, most archaeologists believed megaliths originated in the Near East, thousands of miles away.

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And the majority of modern thinkers support the thought they were invented independently in various regions in and around Europe.

The major hurdle, Dr Schulz Paulsson, has been parsing the mounds of archaeological data to find reliable dates for the 35,000 stones , from henges, buildings and tombs.

Dr Schulz Paulsson, a prehistoric archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the study’s sole author: “Everyone told me, ‘You’re crazy, it can’t be done,’ but I decided to do it anyway.”

The archaeologist searched through radiocarbon dating data nearly 2,500 ancient sites across the continent to reconstruct a prehistoric archaeological timeline.

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The radiocarbon dates were mainly supplied by human bodies buried nearby.

Her study did not only examine megaliths, but also pre-megalithic graves featuring elaborate, earthen tombs.

And Dr Schulz Paulsson also took into account information on the sites’ architecture, tool use, and burial customs to confirm dates further.

And the study’s results show the earliest European megaliths were found in northwestern France.

This including the famous Carnac stones, a dense collection of rows of standing stones, mounds, and covered stone tombs known as dolmens.

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These dolmens date to about 4700 BC, when hunter-gatherers roamed the region.

Engravings on standing stones from the region depict sperm whales and other sea life, which suggests the precocious masons may also have been mariners, Schulz Paulsson says.

Northwestern France is also the only megalithic region that also features grave sites with complex earthen tombs that date to about 5000 BC, which is cited as evidence of an “evolution of megaliths” in the region.

This means megalith building likely originated in northwestern France and spread from there.

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source: express.co.uk