It has now helped solve the question of where the enormous stones are from.He later took it with him when he emigrated to the US and its existence remained largely unknown for six decades, until he expressed a wish for it to be returned on the eve of his 90th birthday.To erect a stone, people dug a large hole with a sloping side. Expert archaeologists estimate that it took nearly 1,500 years for Stonehenge to be completed. One theory suggests Stonehenge was a sacred burial site, while another proposes that it was used for celestial and astronomical alignments. It used to be believed that it was created as a Druid temple but we now know that Stonehenge predated the Druids by around 2000 years. The earliest, dated to about 3000BC, comprised a roughly 100m-diameter circular enclosure bounded by a … Here's what we know about one of the UK's oldest historical sites. Around 500 years later, the stones were brought to the site and erected; these were mainly large sarsens from the nearby Marlborough Downs and smaller bluestones quarried in Wales. All the stones formed well-spaced uprights without any of the linking lintels inferred in Stonehenge 3 III. The horizontal lintels of the stone circle were joined at their edges using a tongue & groove arrangement.The sarsens were shaped using sarsen hammerstones, whilst the harder bluestones were used in rougher state. Company employee Robert Phillips then kept it in pride of place in his office.The stone would be pushed lengthways into the hole and hauled upright using plant fibre ropes and probably a wooden A-frame.All rights reserved. Built on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, Stonehenge was constructed in several stages between 3000 and 1500 B.C., spanning the Neolithic Period to the Bronze Age. New excavations in recent years, however, have unearthed a different theory based on hundreds of human bones found at the site, dating across 1,000 years and showing signs of cremation before burial. Around 3000 BC an earthwork enclosure was built, consisting of a circular bank and ditch. It took nearly 30 million hours of labor, and was constructed in several stages and most likely by many different groups. Stonehenge is a complicated and long-lived monument constructed in five main phases. Somehow these enormous stones were transported to the Salisbury Plains. According to folklore, Stonehenge was created by Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, who magically transported the massive stones from Ireland, where giants had assembled them. The core was removed by a Basingstoke diamond-cutting business as part of measures to use metal rods to reinforce one of the upright stones in 1958. Read on for some of the key facts. Around 2200 BC the bluestones were rearranged, and around 1750 BC carvings started to be made on the upright sarsens. These calculations are based on approximations related to the available labor force at the time, and the weight of the stone blocks, including the distances that … Dave Fowler • History in Numbers • All third party trademarks are hereby acknowledged.Above: A reconstruction of a possible method used to transport the stones, at the Stonehenge Visitors Centre (image © David Fowler)Whilst the upright sarsen stones were carefully shaped to be squared-off, beneath the ground the bases of the stones – which were not intended to be seen – are rough and irregular.Stonehenge was built in a number of stages.