Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries by Brian Haughton Page A

during this
phase was the Avenue, a ceremonial
pathway consisting of a parallel pair
    of ditches and banks stretching for 1.86
miles from the monument down to the
River Avon.
    Around 2300 B.C. the bluestones
were dug up and replaced by enormous
sarsen stones brought from the
Marlborough Downs, 20 miles away.
The sarsens, each around 13.5 feet
high, 6.8 feet wide, and weighing
around 25 tons, were arranged in a 108
foot diameter circle with lintels (horizontal stones) spanning the tops.
Within this circle a horseshoe-shaped
setting of five trilithons (two large
stones set upright to support a third
on their top), of dressed sarsen stone,
was added, its open end facing northeast. The enormous stones, which
made up the central horseshoe arrangement of 10 uprights and five lintels, weighed up to 50 tons each. Later
in this period, between 2280 to 1930
B.C., the bluestones were re-erected
and arranged at least three times, finally forming an inner circle and
horseshoe between the Sarsen Circle
and the Trilithons, mirroring the two
arrangements of sarsen stones. It is thought that more bluestones were
transported from Wales to the site at
this time. Between 2000 and 1600 B.C.
a double ring of pits, known as the
Y and Z holes, were dug outside the
outermost sarsen circle, possibly to
take another setting of stones. However, for whatever reason, no stones
were added and the pits were allowed
to silt up naturally. After 1600 B.C.
there was no further construction at
Stonehenge, and the monument appears to have been abandoned. Nevertheless, the site was still occasionally
visited, as is evidenced by finds of Iron
Age pottery, Roman coins, and the
burial of a decapitated Saxon man
dated to the seventh century A.D.

    There has been considerable speculation as to how Stonehenge was built.
An experiment in the 1990s showed
that a team of 200 people, using a
wooden sledge on laid timber rails covered with grease, could have transported all 80 sarsens from the
Marlborough Downs to Stonehenge in
two years, or longer if the work was
seasonal. The experiment illustrated
that the maneuvering of the stones
into position could have been accomplished using timber A-frames to
raise the stones, which could then
have been hauled upright by teams of
people using ropes. The lintels may
have been raised up gradually on timber platforms and levered into position when the primitive scaffolding
reached the top of the upright stones.
A fascinating aspect of the construction of Stonehenge is that the stones
were worked using carpentry techniques. After being hammered to size
using stone balls known as mauls, examples of which have been found at the
site, the stones were fashioned with
    mortise and tenon joints so that the
lintels could rest securely on top of the
uprights. The lintels themselves were
joined together using another woodworking method known as the tonguein-groove joint.
    Much more interesting than how
Stonehenge was built is why it was
built. Unfortunately, for such an important structure the archaeological
finds from Stonehenge have been relatively meager. This is partly due to the
fact that until the last couple of decades
research at the site had been, on the
whole, poorly performed and insufficiently documented. Skeletons were
lost or seriously damaged, artifacts
misplaced, and excavation notes
destroyed. Despite these losses, the
evidence from surviving burials discovered at or near the site gives a fascinating insight into the lives of Early
Bronze Age peoples in the area.
    The main burials at Stonehenge
are all broadly contemporary with
each other, dating from 2400 B.c.-2150
B.C. (the Early Bronze Age period). Examination of a skeleton buried in the
outer ditch of the monument revealed
that the man had been shot at close range by up to six arrows, probably
by two people, one shooting from the
left, the other from the right. Was this
an execution or some form of