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Stonehenge, one of the most outstanding prehistoric monuments in Britain, was built in stages between 3000 and 1500BC. The larger stones, known as Sarsen stones, were brought from Marlborough Downs 19 miles away. The smaller stones, known as Blue stones came from the Preseli Mountains in Wales, which meant they completed a journey of 240 miles to get to Stonehenge. This was a ceremonial centre for a local civilisation, and standing at Stonehenge there are traces of this past culture all around in burial mounds that dot Salisbury Plain.
Geoffrey Wainwright in his book The Henge Monuments has suggested that a period of crisis preceded the building of Stonehenge and similar monuments. From about 2500BC a period of relative prosperity for Britain's neolithic farmers came to an end. Formerly cultivated land in Norfolk, Suffolk and Wessex became infested with weeds and scrub. It is possible that a preceding period of success in agriculture led to soil exhaustion. Fortified hilltops seem to indicate an increase in conflict between communities struggling for scarce resources. Out of this crisis came the tradition for monument building which, in Wainwright's view: "is most plausibly to be viewed as a method of integrating different parts of an embryonic society in a single undertaking." Interestingly the religious monuments with their banks and ditches are very reminiscent of hilltop forts. Sites of symbolic security were built along the same lines as sites designed for physical security. At Stonehenge there was a circular bank and ditch, still visible today. For added security hilltop forts would place wooden uprights along the top of their circular banks. These would be mimicked by wooden uprights at religious sites, at "Woodhenge" near Stonehenge for example. Later wooden uprights were replaced with representative stone uprights, and it is these we see so dramatically at Stonehenge. In addition to this mimicry of military architecture there is a ceremonial way that leads across the downs to Stonehenge. It is fitting that ritual processions approaching on the ceremonial way should be, in the words of walking historians Nicholas Rudd-Jones and David Stewart, an "expression of togetherness and resolution" (see Pathways P31). What this really means is that a procession mimics an army on the move, marching on its symbolic way to a symbolic castle. Finally as an extension of the symbolic protective circle at Stonehenge, the stones were precisely arranged to emphasise the circling seasons and the sun's dependable return every year. If someone stands within Stonehenge and looks through the entrance down towards the "heel stone" they will see the sun rise directly over the heel stone on the summer solstice. Many burials took place in and around Stonehenge, hoping perhaps to call upon the symbolic security of Stonehenge when all attempts at physical security had failed.
People had to learn to work together, learning the new idea of specialised roles in a stratified society, which was slowly replacing a typically egalitarian hunter gatherer society. They worked together on creating structures designed around religious symbolism and ceremonial. Religion seems to have been involved generally in the evolving art of social control. John E Pfeiffer, a writer on ancient culture, suggests that leaders who claimed authority bestowed by some kind of unseen god were difficult to challenge: leaders who based their authority on plain old competence could always be challenged. They could make a mistake, their claims to greatness could be checked. Far better to claim authority from a source that could never be checked. In the opinion of Olga Soffer, professor of archeology at UCLA, this kind of social organisation seems to have evolved during the ice ages (see The Upper Paleolithic of the Central Russian Plain). The pressure of those times resulted in societies that used religion to bind themselves tightly together. Society became more stratified at this time, which has the potential for allowing more efficient specialisation of tasks. And part of this development required the emergence of a leader who bolstered his position with a religious authority which was difficult to challenge in any rational sense. Perhaps a similar development took place in the crisis preceding the building and use of henge monuments. Even today, when the divine right of kings is a distant memory, people look to charismatic leaders, rather than to a competent person who in all probability could do a better practical job, but who wouldn't make such a good leader. Charisma, with all its possibilities and perils, is still a force to be reckoned with
It isn't usually possible to walk amongst the stones now, which gives a strangely moving processional quality to a circular walk around the stones. Perhaps this might evoke associations with processions which once approached Stonehenge along its associated ceremonial way. Watching lines of people walking around Stonehenge today seems to bring back something of those times. There is no access to the centre circle during normal opening hours, but private access can be arranged out of hours by calling the contact number below.
Many objects excavated at Stonehenge can be viewed at Salisbury And South Wiltshire Museum in nearby Salisbury.
Opening Times: Stonehenge is open every day except 24th and 25th December.
1st April to 31st May 9.30am - 6pm
1st June to 31st August 9am - 7pm
1st September to 15th October 9.30am - 6pm
16th October to 15th March 9.30 - 4pm
16th March to 31st March 9.30am - 6pm
26th December and 1st January 10am - 4pm
Opening hours can vary around the Summer Solstice. Check with customer services on 0870 333 1181
Directions: Stonehenge lies beside the A303 in Wiltshire. Turn onto the A344 and then into the car park. Click here for an interactive road and satellite map centred on Stonehenge. Switch to satellite view and zoom in to see the overall pattern of this ancient landscape. Postcode SP4 7DE.
Access: There is good wheelchair access, a Braille guide, and a hearing loop.
Contact:
e-mail: info@stonehenge.co.uk
telephone: 0870 333 1181
web site: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge/