Super-Stonehenge found in England

Researchers using ground-penetrating radar in England, have discovered another massive stone monument only 2 miles from Stonehenge.  Vince Gaffney, an archaeologist from Bradford University, described it as ‘archaeology on steroids’.  Previously, Stonehenge was thought to be an isolated monument standing in the middle of prairies, but now researchers realize that it is actually at the heart of a huge landscape of ancient chapels, massive pits and ritual shrines. 

Among the many discoveries, researchers from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute at the University of Birmingham found two massive pits to the north of Stonehenge, in a 3 km-long monument called the Cursus.  Like Stonehenge, they appear to have astronomical alignments.  On midsummer’s day, the eastern pit is aligned with the sunrise, and the western pit is aligned with sunset.  The pits predate Stonehenge by about 400 years.

However, the feature that knocks Stonehenge from its Neolithic throne is the mile-wide arena found in Durrington Walls built about 4500 years ago.  Its C-shape is made up of 90 standing stones, 30 intact at 4.5 meters tall while the other 60 are fragmented.  With these new discoveries, it will take archaeologists decades to sort through all the data. 

Researchers wondered if Stonehenge was originally circular or was it C-shaped as the monument in Durrington Walls.  When a sprinkler system used to water the grass around Stonehenge performed less than expected, patches of brown grass began to appear where missing stones may have once stood.  Therefore, Stonehenge was a full circle, but now the mystery is what happened to the missing stones.  When I visited Stonehenge three years ago, the audio tour said that the site has been vandalized and cannibalized for centuries, noblemen using the stones for their houses, or people wanting a piece of one of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  No mystery there. 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/archaeology-on-steroids-huge-ritual-arena-discovered-near-stonehenge/ar-AAe0XKH?ocid=ansmsnnews11