The 6-ton Altar Stone at Stonehenge's center came from northeast Scotland, over 700 km away, per Dr. Anthony Clarke's 2024 research. New work by Clarke and Sheffield Hallam collaborators modeled transport options. Glacial ice could have moved it partway, but sea transport remains the most likely full explanation—the stone's origins are rewriting how we think about Neolithic engineering.
Stonehenge Altar Stone likely traveled by sea from northeast Scotland
Key facts
- The Altar Stone is a 6-ton Old Red Sandstone boulder at the center of Stonehenge, confirmed by Dr. Anthony Clarke's 2024 research to originate from northeast Scotland, over 700 km away
- New paper by Clarke and collaborators at Sheffield Hallam University examined transport methods, combining Clarke's provenance work with glacial flow modeling
- Modelling showed that if the stone originated from southern outcrops, glacial ice could have transported it 5-700 km toward the now-submerged Dogger Bank, but humans would still have been needed for the final transport
- Dogger Land was submerged thousands of years before Stonehenge construction began, complicating the ice-transport theory
- Clarke considers sea transport the most parsimonious explanation, though he acknowledges ice may have reduced the distance humans had to move the stone
Sources
nature.com
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