Stonehenge is probably the most famous monolith in the western world, although it appears that every culture across the planet stood stones on their ends somewhere in history. There are monoliths even in the deepest parts of the jungle in Brazil!
No one knows why Stonehenge in particular was built, nor can they agree on when it was built. The effort involved in moving the total tonnage of stone to Amesbury from the pits in Wales, over 117 miles away, is staggering when you consider that they hadn’t even got around to inventing the wheel when they built it.
Historians and archeologists have generally agreed that Stonehenge was used to celebrate/mourn/mark the death of people – high profile personages or common man, isn’t determined.
However, recently, a collaboration between British and Austrian archeologists, to map underneath the plains around Stonehenge have uncovered evidence that the simple stone circle that we think of as Stonehenge was in fact only a small part of a huge, city-like series of structures, burial sites, walk ways, and a very large “cursus” – an oblong shaped ditch-and-wall structure containing even more burial pits.
It’s tantalizing, and prods the imagination in wondering what Stonehenge was like it its heyday. It must have been a busy place….