Stonehenge mystery is SOLVED after 5,000 years - as scientists finally crack why the mysterious monument was built

A symbol of British unity? Wiltshire's famous stone circle is one of the world's most iconic historic sites and a British cultural icon - but its intended purpose has long divided academics
Alzay

Welcome to this weeks video which takes a look at the recent discovers regarding Stonehenge's Altar Stones.
The Stonehenge Altar Stone Mystery | 11:47
Paul Whitewick | 150K subscribers | 163,455 views | November 24, 2024

--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:04 · August 2024 and a paper was written and it would change the way we see the Neolithic landscape the
0:12 · people and what they did the focus of the paper was on Stone 80 from Stonehenge the alter Stone
0:19 · currently led flat in the ground pretty much buried underneath Stone 55 another megalithic
0:25 · Sarcen which probably at some point landed on top of it now we don't know if this altar Stone was in
0:31 · the position it's in now or if it was actually upright either way there has to date only been
0:39 · one excavation on that stone back in the 1950s and the records of that excavation have been
0:45 · completely lost so when this paper was published in August 2024 it claimed two things one that
0:53 · this altar stone weighing around 6 tons and around 2 m in length was sourced from over 750 km away
1:01 · from its now location in the Stonehenge Circle in southern Britain its source was The Orcadian Basin
1:08 · in Northeast Scotland and two that the difficult long distance Journey would have been made by the
1:16 · Sea welcome to the story of the problem with the altar
1:22 · Stone so we've known for we've known for some time now that the inner blue
1:30 · stones of the Stonehenge Circle in Monument where they were quarried in South Wales in
1:35 · presilli and likely moved over land either in one go from their quarried position to where
1:41 · we see them today or perhaps in stages and maybe used in other Stone circles on Route
1:46 · laid there for centuries and taken up again and moved to where we see them today but the outside
1:52 · ones the huge megalith that surround Stonehenge well let me just grab the camera of those ones
2:00 · we now know were sourced from this exact Valley that I'm stood in now not even 300 yd that way
2:07 · or 300 yards that way this Valley I standing right now I went to some very clever people at Brighton
2:12 · University led by David Nash we now know that the megaliths of Stonehenge were sourced and quarried
2:18 · from right here in what is now the Westwoods 25 km or so north of Stonehenge but the altar Stone we
2:27 · never really knew the best guess was at Southwest Wales that was up until the last few years when
2:33 · well sources were slowly being ruled out but this new paper not only confirmed that Wales
2:38 · was not on the cards at all but also told us we've been looking in entirely the wrong direction the
2:45 · paper published on the 14th of August 2024 gave us the first clue in its title a Scottish Providence
2:53 · for the altar Stone of Stonehenge Scotland well that in itself was staggering but the paper went
3:00 · further than that and highlighted an area of the old red Sandstone of The Orcadian Basin Northeast
3:07 · Scotland so this Stone this Stone made this journey south from North East Scotland whether
3:17 · it stopped along the way we don't know but nevertheless Northeast Scotland as
3:23 · a crow flies that's probably 700 km but it's not going to do it as the crow flies
3:28 · it's going to be avoided perhaps mountain ranges natural features what a Monumental
3:34 · Journey okay so I'm not going to not going to pretend to be anything I'm not I'm not an
3:40 · archaeologist a historian I'm not academically trained I guess I'm a Storyteller on YouTube and
3:46 · perhaps I'm like you because you clicked this video so you want to know about this story here
3:50 · we are in Westwoods and we had the problem of moving megalist from here 25 km South but we're
3:56 · now talking about 30 times that distance or be it with a 6 tonne object rather than a 30 tonne so
4:02 · what I'm going to try and do is I'm going to put all of the sources the original sources which are
4:07 · quite complicate to read in the description below so you can read them yourself and make your own
4:11 · interpretation I'm also trying to use some Modern academics and archaeologist interpretations of
4:16 · those papers if that makes sense so let's try and unpick this the altar stone itself is the only non
4:25 · megalithic Sarcen in that it's Sandstone so it is unique in in that Stonehenge setting we also don't
4:32 · know if it would have been in that recumbent sort of flat laid down position or if it would have
4:36 · been upright at any point I doubt we're ever going to know that for the time being but on
4:42 · to the study there's a heck of a lot of words as I'm describing which I don't understand I can't
4:48 · even pronounce so we'll get to the important bit the alter Stone and Neolithic Britain and
4:53 · they conclude the trace elements indicate that the alter Stone of Stonehenge has Providence from the
5:00 · ORS in the orcadian Basin of Northeast Scotland such a transport for the alter stone is difficult
5:07 · to reconcile with ice sheet reconstructions that show North's movement of glasses and one more
5:14 · really key important sentence we posit that the alter Stone was anthropogenically transported to
5:22 · Stonehenge from Northeast Scotland consistent with the evidence of Neolithic inhabitation
5:28 · in this region so in other words it was done by people not by any ice sheets glaces [Music] Etc
5:38 · okay it's time for a new segment called advice you didn't ask for when it's 0° Centigrade don't
5:44 · sit your backside on a megalith a Sasson Stone so that was it that was it until 60 days later
5:51 · when another paper was published by science direct and this turned things on its head a bit because
5:57 · the title was in the clue of the paper was the Stonehenge alter Stone sourced from Arney okay
6:04 · so we're going to we're going to get a little bit more Niche now which is a good thing that's what
6:08 · the Brighton University and David Nash and his team did with that original core they had it was
6:14 · returned from America so they had something they could compare a whole load of sites in southern
6:18 · Britain to and therefore come up that this was the spot that the megaliths were qued from but
6:23 · we didn't have that luxury with the Altar Stone we just had what we seen I think as fragments
6:28 · so this science Direct paper where they used and forgive me for using my notes Raman spectroscopy
6:33 · and automated sems-eds and that showed there to be no match between the orkney samples and the alter
6:40 · Stone and they went on to conclude that well that meant that the alter Stone unequivocally didn't
6:45 · come from orne now all that does really is just ru that out we still have Northeast Scotland maybe
6:53 · the Shetland Islands I think as a possible sight that was that but there was another significant
6:59 · problem. Problem number two I recently read a Blog from Brian John he taught at Durham University and
7:09 · studied at Oxford a geologist I figure he cites a number of shortcomings in the recent publication
7:16 · from Richard Thomas and I'll summarize them briefly one they make no consideration as to
7:21 · whether the pXRF is a suitable method to conduct this study two the samples taken meant the pXRF
7:28 · technique had to be used as no fresh cor sbles had been taken English Heritage would not allow
7:34 · it three what is the evidence that these fragments did actually come from the alter stone that was
7:40 · lacking and again not addressed even if it was from the stone it really needs to come from a core
7:46 · okay so this goes on quite a lot in fact there's another five points I'm not here to take signs I'm
7:50 · not scientifically qualified and that way there's a lot of geology and chemistry involved there and
7:55 · it's not something I completely understand does however seemingly raise quite a few questions
7:58 · about the tech techniques used and of course we do have a few luxuries missing so we're not here
8:04 · to completely pick holes in it let me know what you think in the description below and
8:08 · there was another significant consideration one that I am a bit more qualified to answer purely
8:13 · because I've been doing this channel for five or six years probably more come and take a look at
8:18 · [Music]
8:22 · this so when we learned the megaliths came from here the Stonehenge megaliths came from
8:31 · this exact site I spent ages with a map so of pieced it all together on my kitchen desktop
8:37 · and trying to work out a route that those stones would have taken from here 25 km
8:42 · South to Stonehenge did they take the single most direct route the path of leas resistance
8:47 · the most efficient or did they perhaps take the Avon not sure how a 30 tonne megalith would sit
8:53 · in any raft or boat or perhaps they took their time perhaps they went via some sort of site
8:59 · of importance to them some long barrows some significant hilltops it's quite a mystery and
9:06 · one that I really enjoy either way we now have a significant new puzzle we have a trip of over
9:14 · maybe 750 km with a 6 tonne Stone now you will recall the claim of the initial paper in August
9:23 · that difficult long journey would have been made by sea it suggests that one reason is
9:28 · because the land is heavily forested so consider that a 6 tonne alter Stone being shipped to the
9:35 · south of Britain now this was an object they clearly held dearly they were prepared to move
9:40 · it 7 or 800 km for me the risk to take that by sea would be one that was far too great and of
9:51 · course moving stuff by sea well that implies you're in quite a rush to get this from A to
9:56 · B but let's consider the words of Mike pitts because he looks at it from a very different
10:00 · perspective one that throws a whole new light on this this would have been possible for the neic
10:05 · people and what's more land transport allows for engagement with people and communities on
10:10 · Route the journey could have taken decades paing for a period erecting in a place of significance
10:17 · before then may be moving on the end goal in sight that may have taken generations and given
10:23 · Stonehenge the prominence in the landscape that underpins its important perhaps on a continental
10:29 · scale so above all this has been a fascinating paper it really has it's helped us understand
10:36 · a lot more about the neic people there were some flaws I think Mike pittz points out that when they
10:42 · did the press conference the sort of the the her as our article well there were no archaeologists
10:47 · present and of course all the news outlets the massive news outlets of today they wanted to know
10:52 · more about the neic people the the the route they took and of course I don't want to take anything
10:56 · away from that team absolutely not they're are more qualified than I am and it's really helped
11:01 · our understanding of the neic people their ability to move six tonne block over 700 miles it's really
11:08 · moved things forward and added another building block of our understanding of Stonehenge and its
11:13 · landscape one that we'll probably never fully understand at least in my lifetime we just need
11:17 · more um science um and archaeology to understand that and maybe we can ask English Heritage very
11:24 · nicely if we can have a little bit of a core of the alar stone now I know what you're asking I
11:28 · know what thinking in fact you're thinking I want to know more about the Stonehenge Mystery House
11:33 · will if you do click on that link just there and I'll see you next week my God it's cold [Music]

Doesn't sound like a study, more like leftist agitprop. Paul W's vid has been back-burnered for a few weeks, this seemed like a good spot for it.

>

It was this, in metric:

Unity! Makes me sad about kacklemala. NOT! I’ve been to 4 corners before.

[Stonehenge mystery is SOLVED after 5,000 years - as scientists finally crack why the mysterious monument was built]

It was built for “European Vacation”?

they don’t know at all. It’s a theory, one of many

I thought it was used to make Halloween masks.

Years ago, I spent a week in England visiting Friends in London. Took a day trip on a tour bus and walked around those rocks at Stonehenge. I was disappointed it was so small. Maybe people were smaller then too.

The villages we passed through were absolutely delightful.

'Stonehenge' in title search results:

The Unsolved Mystery of The Stonehenge Fence [11:25] [08/25/2024]
Altar at Stonehenge Was Transported from Nearly 500 Miles Away, New Study Finds [08/20/2024]
Altar Stone at Stonehenge May Have Originated in Scotland [08/16/2024]
Astronomy Picture of the Day - Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge [08/12/2024]
Did Humans Move Stonehenge Bluestones? Boulder Discovery Raises Doubts [08/07/2024]
2 activists arrested for vandalizing Stonehenge in climate protest [06/19/2024]
Environmental activists 'Just Stop Oil' spraypaint Stonehenge as Good Samaritan tries to stop them in wild video [06/19/2024]
Research Suggests Stonehenge Altar Stone is Not From Wales [10/22/2023]
Children's Book Claims Blacks Built Stonehenge [09/21/2023]
A new 'book' claims that black people built Stonehenge! [09/20/2023]
4,000-Year-Old Stonehenge-like Sanctuary Unearthed in the Netherlands [06/22/2023]
All hail the rising sun! Stonehenge welcomes 8,000 visitors for the summer solstice [06/21/2023]
Vast cemetery of Bronze Age burial mounds unearthed near Stonehenge [06/18/2023]
Nope, Stonehenge Isn't an Ancient Calendar After All, Scientists Say [03/27/2023]
4,000-year-old 'shaman' burial near Stonehenge has a golden secret [12/16/2022]
What Do Stonehenge and Japanese Stone Circles Have in Common? [10/04/2022]
Enigmatic 7,000-year-old structure recently discovered near Prague is older than Stonehenge, Egyptian pyramids [09/24/2022]
Prehistoric faeces reveal parasites from feasting at Stonehenge [05/21/2022]
Before Stonehenge monuments, hunter-gatherers made use of open habitats [05/03/2022]
New tests show neolithic pits near Stonehenge were human-made [12/12/2021]
Stonehenge Plaques Hold Secret Cultural Data, Says New Study [11/05/2021]
Stonehenge under the hammer: stones sold 100 years ago for £6,600 [09/21/2021]
Stonehenge - the rock venue! Architect's concept that the famous stones were simply the base for a vast Neolithic temple is brought to life by mesmerising models [07/02/2021]
Mysterious Elongated Skull Discovered In Russia's Stonehenge, Recreated In 3D [06/23/2021]
Summer solstice: Hundreds attend Stonehenge despite advice [06/23/2021]
Astronomy Picture of the Day - Sunrise Solstice over Stonehenge [06/20/2021]
N.J. man indicted for QAnon defacement of America's Stonehenge in Salem [04/21/2021]
This Wooden Sculpture Is Twice as Old as Stonehenge and the Pyramids [03/26/2021]
Man accused of QAnon vandalism at 'America's Stonehenge' [03/03/2021]
Prophecy Watchers: Stonehenge links [02/20/2021]
The original Stonehenge? A dismantled stone circle in the Preseli Hills of west Wales [02/12/2021]
Ancient graves and mysterious enclosure discovered at Stonehenge ahead of tunnel construction [02/11/2021]
Why was Stonehenge built? [01/09/2021]
9,000-Year-Old Stonehenge-Like Structure Found Under Lake Michigan [12/19/2020]
9,000-Year-Old Stonehenge-Like Structure Found Under Lake Michigan [12/19/2020]
About 30 previously unknown stones discovered at Carahunge (the Armenian Stonehenge) [08/11/2020]
HS2 uncovers Iron Age murder victim and timber Stonehenge-style formation during excavations near Wendover [07/15/2020]
Comet NEOWISE over Stonehenge (Astronomy Picture of the Day) [07/14/2020]
Archaeologists Suggest Stonehenge's Huge Blocks Arrived by Land, Debunk Raft Theory [07/07/2020]
Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge [06/23/2020]
Scientists find huge ring of ancient shafts near Stonehenge [06/22/2020]
Stonehenge will livestream its summer solstice celebration for the first time ever [05/17/2020]
A temple that predates Stonehenge reveals architectural planning may be older than we think [05/16/2020]
Henges: Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Avebury & Stanton Drew [05/04/2020]
Spanish Stonehenge revealed: 5,000-year-old megalithic temple [08/23/2019]
Stonehenge's Massive Megaliths May Have Been Moved into Place with Pig Lard [07/21/2019]
Scotland's crannogs are older than Stonehenge [06/16/2019]
Thanks to pig remains, scientists uncover extensive human mobility to sites near Stonehenge [03/17/2019]
Quarrying of Stonehenge 'bluestones' dated to 3000 BC [02/25/2019]
Ancestors of Stonehenge people could be buried inside uncovered 'house of the dead' [09/03/2018]
Stonehenge: First residents from west Wales [08/03/2018]
Famed British Geologist Was Spectacularly Wrong About Stonehenge [07/12/2018]
Stonehenge builders used Pythagoras' theorem 2,000 years before Greek philosopher was born, experts [06/20/2018]
Archaeologists may have found architects' camp for Stonehenge [02/16/2018]
Will Unfinished Train Overpasses Become California's Stonehenge? [01/25/2018]
Will Unfinished Train Overpasses Become California's Stonehenge? [01/25/2018]
The images of Stonehenge they DON'T want you to see [09/18/2017]
Michigan Man May Have Solved The Mystery Of Stonehenge And The Pyramids [09/06/2017]
Did Dutch Hordes Kill Off The Early Britons Who Started Stonehenge? [05/25/2017]
'Sicilian Stonehenge' Discovered by Amateur Archaeologists [01/07/2017]
Thousands gather at Stonehenge to celebrate the shortest day of the year [12/21/2016]
A 'Stonehenge,' and a mystery, rises in the Amazon [12/15/2016]
Huge, Mysterious Settlement Discovered Near Stonehenge [11/22/2016]
Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Sunrise Solstice over Stonehenge [06/20/2016]
Stonehenge May Not Have Been So Difficult To Build After All, Archaeologists Have Found [05/31/2016]
Bronze Age burial near Stonehenge discovered by badger [02/13/2016]
Once a 'majestic roundhouse' - architect Sarah Ewbank believes she's solved Stonehenge's... [01/30/2016]
Stonehenge First Built in Wales, Study Claims [12/07/2015]
America's Stonehenge: New Hampshire rocks history or hoax? [09/25/2015]
Stonehenge II is found! Radar search reveals giant line of standing stones from 4,500 years ago [09/07/2015]
Strange 'conehead' skeleton unearthed at Russia's Stonehenge: [07/29/2015]
Gold Sun Disc from time of Stonehenge revealed to the public [06/23/2015]
Stonehenge Damaged with Chewing Gum and Graffiti During Winter Solstice [03/07/2015]
Stonehenge dig finds 6,000-year-old encampment [12/20/2014]
Siberia's Whale Bone Alley: Stonehenge's Eerie Russian Cousin [12/15/2014]
Underground map reveals mysteries of Stonehenge (+video) [09/10/2014]
Barack Obama Enjoys 'Tête-à-Tête Across the Barbed Wire' With Family During Stonehenge Visit [09/08/2014]
President Obama Checks Stonehenge Off His Bucket List [09/06/2014]
Stonehenge 'complete circle' evidence found [09/06/2014]
'Knocked that off the bucket list': Obama makes surprise visit to Stonehenge following NATO summit [09/05/2014]

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/29025

This one isn’t terribly far from here:

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13125

Google street view (through the trees)

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0647085,-86.0757324,3a,31.4y,299.03h,80.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1smzZMvAxNrU_9w-QFcMt6HQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D9.407538885354697%26panoid%3DmzZMvAxNrU_9w-QFcMt6HQ%26yaw%3D299.02908530825727!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Google Earth view of the real one

How would scientists come to such conclusions? That’s not science.

What a crock!
Everyone knows that it was built by galactic aliens to entrap the Doctor in the box...

“A thing of glory”

A few seconds later....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DewEKz9TzmM

Brought their own local stones

I know it's early and I haven't had my morning covfefe yet, but...

A tanning booth for when the Loch Ness monster went on vacation.

“The Pandorica”

--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:04	·	August 2024 and a paper was written and it would change the way we see the Neolithic landscape the
0:12	·	people and what they did the focus of the paper was on Stone 80 from Stonehenge the alter Stone
0:19	·	currently led flat in the ground pretty much buried underneath Stone 55 another megalithic
0:25	·	Sarcen which probably at some point landed on top of it now we don't know if this altar Stone was in
0:31	·	the position it's in now or if it was actually upright either way there has to date only been
0:39	·	one excavation on that stone back in the 1950s and the records of that excavation have been
0:45	·	completely lost so when this paper was published in August 2024 it claimed two things one that
0:53	·	this altar stone weighing around 6 tons and around 2 m in length was sourced from over 750 km away
1:01	·	from its now location in the Stonehenge Circle in southern Britain its source was The Orcadian Basin
1:08	·	in Northeast Scotland and two that the difficult long distance Journey would have been made by the
1:16	·	Sea welcome to the story of the problem with the altar
1:22	·	Stone so we've known for we've known for some time now that the inner blue
1:30	·	stones of the Stonehenge Circle in Monument where they were quarried in South Wales in
1:35	·	presilli and likely moved over land either in one go from their quarried position to where
1:41	·	we see them today or perhaps in stages and maybe used in other Stone circles on Route
1:46	·	laid there for centuries and taken up again and moved to where we see them today but the outside
1:52	·	ones the huge megalith that surround Stonehenge well let me just grab the camera of those ones
2:00	·	we now know were sourced from this exact Valley that I'm stood in now not even 300 yd that way
2:07	·	or 300 yards that way this Valley I standing right now I went to some very clever people at Brighton
2:12	·	University led by David Nash we now know that the megaliths of Stonehenge were sourced and quarried
2:18	·	from right here in what is now the Westwoods 25 km or so north of Stonehenge but the altar Stone we
2:27	·	never really knew the best guess was at Southwest Wales that was up until the last few years when
2:33	·	well sources were slowly being ruled out but this new paper not only confirmed that Wales
2:38	·	was not on the cards at all but also told us we've been looking in entirely the wrong direction the
2:45	·	paper published on the 14th of August 2024 gave us the first clue in its title a Scottish Providence
2:53	·	for the altar Stone of Stonehenge Scotland well that in itself was staggering but the paper went
3:00	·	further than that and highlighted an area of the old red Sandstone of The Orcadian Basin Northeast
3:07	·	Scotland so this Stone this Stone made this journey south from North East Scotland whether
3:17	·	it stopped along the way we don't know but nevertheless Northeast Scotland as
3:23	·	a crow flies that's probably 700 km but it's not going to do it as the crow flies
3:28	·	it's going to be avoided perhaps mountain ranges natural features what a Monumental
3:34	·	Journey okay so I'm not going to not going to pretend to be anything I'm not I'm not an
3:40	·	archaeologist a historian I'm not academically trained I guess I'm a Storyteller on YouTube and
3:46	·	perhaps I'm like you because you clicked this video so you want to know about this story here
3:50	·	we are in Westwoods and we had the problem of moving megalist from here 25 km South but we're
3:56	·	now talking about 30 times that distance or be it with a 6 tonne object rather than a 30 tonne so
4:02	·	what I'm going to try and do is I'm going to put all of the sources the original sources which are
4:07	·	quite complicate to read in the description below so you can read them yourself and make your own
4:11	·	interpretation I'm also trying to use some Modern academics and archaeologist interpretations of
4:16	·	those papers if that makes sense so let's try and unpick this the altar stone itself is the only non
4:25	·	megalithic Sarcen in that it's Sandstone so it is unique in in that Stonehenge setting we also don't
4:32	·	know if it would have been in that recumbent sort of flat laid down position or if it would have
4:36	·	been upright at any point I doubt we're ever going to know that for the time being but on
4:42	·	to the study there's a heck of a lot of words as I'm describing which I don't understand I can't
4:48	·	even pronounce so we'll get to the important bit the alter Stone and Neolithic Britain and
4:53	·	they conclude the trace elements indicate that the alter Stone of Stonehenge has Providence from the
5:00	·	ORS in the orcadian Basin of Northeast Scotland such a transport for the alter stone is difficult
5:07	·	to reconcile with ice sheet reconstructions that show North's movement of glasses and one more
5:14	·	really key important sentence we posit that the alter Stone was anthropogenically transported to
5:22	·	Stonehenge from Northeast Scotland consistent with the evidence of Neolithic inhabitation
5:28	·	in this region so in other words it was done by people not by any ice sheets glaces [Music] Etc
5:38	·	okay it's time for a new segment called advice you didn't ask for when it's 0° Centigrade don't
5:44	·	sit your backside on a megalith a Sasson Stone so that was it that was it until 60 days later
5:51	·	when another paper was published by science direct and this turned things on its head a bit because
5:57	·	the title was in the clue of the paper was the Stonehenge alter Stone sourced from Arney okay
6:04	·	so we're going to we're going to get a little bit more Niche now which is a good thing that's what
6:08	·	the Brighton University and David Nash and his team did with that original core they had it was
6:14	·	returned from America so they had something they could compare a whole load of sites in southern
6:18	·	Britain to and therefore come up that this was the spot that the megaliths were qued from but
6:23	·	we didn't have that luxury with the Altar Stone we just had what we seen I think as fragments
6:28	·	so this science Direct paper where they used and forgive me for using my notes Raman spectroscopy
6:33	·	and automated sems-eds and that showed there to be no match between the orkney samples and the alter
6:40	·	Stone and they went on to conclude that well that meant that the alter Stone unequivocally didn't
6:45	·	come from orne now all that does really is just ru that out we still have Northeast Scotland maybe
6:53	·	the Shetland Islands I think as a possible sight that was that but there was another significant
6:59	·	problem. Problem number two I recently read a Blog from Brian John he taught at Durham University and
7:09	·	studied at Oxford a geologist I figure he cites a number of shortcomings in the recent publication
7:16	·	from Richard Thomas and I'll summarize them briefly one they make no consideration as to
7:21	·	whether the pXRF is a suitable method to conduct this study two the samples taken meant the pXRF
7:28	·	technique had to be used as no fresh cor sbles had been taken English Heritage would not allow
7:34	·	it three what is the evidence that these fragments did actually come from the alter stone that was
7:40	·	lacking and again not addressed even if it was from the stone it really needs to come from a core
7:46	·	okay so this goes on quite a lot in fact there's another five points I'm not here to take signs I'm
7:50	·	not scientifically qualified and that way there's a lot of geology and chemistry involved there and
7:55	·	it's not something I completely understand does however seemingly raise quite a few questions
7:58	·	about the tech techniques used and of course we do have a few luxuries missing so we're not here
8:04	·	to completely pick holes in it let me know what you think in the description below and
8:08	·	there was another significant consideration one that I am a bit more qualified to answer purely
8:13	·	because I've been doing this channel for five or six years probably more come and take a look at
8:18	·	[Music]
8:22	·	this so when we learned the megaliths came from here the Stonehenge megaliths came from
8:31	·	this exact site I spent ages with a map so of pieced it all together on my kitchen desktop
8:37	·	and trying to work out a route that those stones would have taken from here 25 km
8:42	·	South to Stonehenge did they take the single most direct route the path of leas resistance
8:47	·	the most efficient or did they perhaps take the Avon not sure how a 30 tonne megalith would sit
8:53	·	in any raft or boat or perhaps they took their time perhaps they went via some sort of site
8:59	·	of importance to them some long barrows some significant hilltops it's quite a mystery and
9:06	·	one that I really enjoy either way we now have a significant new puzzle we have a trip of over
9:14	·	maybe 750 km with a 6 tonne Stone now you will recall the claim of the initial paper in August
9:23	·	that difficult long journey would have been made by sea it suggests that one reason is
9:28	·	because the land is heavily forested so consider that a 6 tonne alter Stone being shipped to the
9:35	·	south of Britain now this was an object they clearly held dearly they were prepared to move
9:40	·	it 7 or 800 km for me the risk to take that by sea would be one that was far too great and of
9:51	·	course moving stuff by sea well that implies you're in quite a rush to get this from A to
9:56	·	B but let's consider the words of Mike pitts because he looks at it from a very different
10:00	·	perspective one that throws a whole new light on this this would have been possible for the neic
10:05	·	people and what's more land transport allows for engagement with people and communities on
10:10	·	Route the journey could have taken decades paing for a period erecting in a place of significance
10:17	·	before then may be moving on the end goal in sight that may have taken generations and given
10:23	·	Stonehenge the prominence in the landscape that underpins its important perhaps on a continental
10:29	·	scale so above all this has been a fascinating paper it really has it's helped us understand
10:36	·	a lot more about the neic people there were some flaws I think Mike pittz points out that when they
10:42	·	did the press conference the sort of the the her as our article well there were no archaeologists
10:47	·	present and of course all the news outlets the massive news outlets of today they wanted to know
10:52	·	more about the neic people the the the route they took and of course I don't want to take anything
10:56	·	away from that team absolutely not they're are more qualified than I am and it's really helped
11:01	·	our understanding of the neic people their ability to move six tonne block over 700 miles it's really
11:08	·	moved things forward and added another building block of our understanding of Stonehenge and its
11:13	·	landscape one that we'll probably never fully understand at least in my lifetime we just need
11:17	·	more um science um and archaeology to understand that and maybe we can ask English Heritage very
11:24	·	nicely if we can have a little bit of a core of the alar stone now I know what you're asking I
11:28	·	know what thinking in fact you're thinking I want to know more about the Stonehenge Mystery House
11:33	·	will if you do click on that link just there and I'll see you next week my God it's cold [Music]