archaeologists have found several recesses in rock formations in Wales that match the size and shape of Stonehenge's bluestones, leading to theories that the monument may have been erected in Wales first, before being moved to its present site in Salisbury Plain.
The researchers also discovered evidence of what they described as “a loading bay" from where the massive boulders could have been dragged away.
— artnet.com
Wales is over 130 miles / 209 kilometers from Stonehenge's current site in Salisbury Plain – a distance that would have taken Neolithic people over 500 years to transport the monoliths over, according to Professor Mike Parker Pearson, a British late prehistory professor at UCL who led the study.
Researchers involved in the project find it unlikely that, after the bluestones had been removed the quarry, the harvesters would have immediately set a course for Salisbury Plain. What is perhaps more likely is that the stones were used for a monument in Wales first, and were then transported to their current site through a massive coordination effort with people living in both areas.
“One of the latest theories is that Stonehenge is a monument of unification, bringing together people from across many parts of Britain," Pearson told The Guardian.
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