Call now! (ID:121746)+44-20-3695-1294
HomeAncient HistoryStonehenge mystery deepens as scientists find another connection to Wales

Stonehenge mystery deepens as scientists find another connection to Wales

Stonehenge mystery deepens as scientists find another connection to Wales
Stonehenge mystery deepens as scientists find another connection to Wales
Stonehenge in Wiltshire (Credits: Getty Images/EyeEm)

Stonehenge may have been built from a dismantled larger stone circle in Wales, academics believe.

The mysterious formation in Salisbury, Wiltshire, contains bluestones brought from a Welsh hillside, and may comprise of relics from larger circle Waun Mawn in the Preseli Hills, close to bluestone quarry sites.

Waun Mawn, if complete, would be the third largest stone circle in Britain after Avebury in Wiltshire and Stanton Drew in Somerset, but soil matches suggest it was dismantled just before Stonehenge was erected.

Dr Tim Kinnaird, of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of St Andrews, used a technique called optically-stimulated luminescence dating to determine the age of Waun Mawn.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of an ancient stone circle in Wales which they believe could have been dismantled and rebuilt as Stonehenge. (Credits: PA)
Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of an ancient stone circle in Wales which they believe could have been dismantled and rebuilt as Stonehenge. (Credits: PA)
Professor Alice Roberts and Mike Parker Pearson as they appear in BBC Two's new programme Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed, which airs Friday at 9pm. (Credits: PA)
Professor Alice Roberts and Mike Parker Pearson as they appear in BBC Two’s new programme Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed, which airs Friday at 9pm. (Credits: PA)

One of the empty stone sockets at Waun Mawn has an unusual cross-section which matches one of the bluestones at Stonehenge, and chippings in that hole are of the same rock type as the Stonehenge stone.

Researchers were able to date the soils that infill the dismantled stone sockets with surprising results and found the stones were removed immediately prior to the known date of construction of Stonehenge 1, at around 3000BCE.

Dr Tim Kinnaird said: ‘It is the hidden information preserved in the soils that provides the chronology for the construction, then the dismantlement of the Waun Mawn stone circle, which appears to have intriguingly occurred just before similar stones were erected at Stonehenge.

The stone circle, named Waun Mawn, was found in the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, in the area where the smaller 'bluestones' found at Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, are known to have come from. (Credits: PA)
The stone circle, named Waun Mawn, was found in the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, in the area where the smaller ‘bluestones’ found at Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, are known to have come from. (Credits: PA)

‘Combined with the fact that the Waun Mawn bluestones came from the same quarries as Stonehenge, this led us to conclude that Waun Mawn was likely dismantled and became the source of many of the bluestones used at Stonehenge.’

The research published in Antiquity also found that Waun Mawn has an identical diameter to the ditch surrounding Stonehenge, of 110 metres, and that it is also aligned on the midsummer solstice sunrise.