Stonehenge’s ‘altar stone’ not originally from Wales: Western Australian -led research

    New research led by Western Australia’s Curtin University has revealed Stonehenge’s monumental six-tonne Altar Stone, long believed to originate from Wales, actually hails from Scotland.

    The findings point to unexpectedly advanced transport methods and social organisation at the time of the stone’s arrival at its current location in southern England, about 5000 years ago.

    Curtin researchers studied mineral grains within fragments of the sandstone block, which measures five by one metres and is 50 centimetres thick, at the centre of Stonehenge’s stone circle in Wiltshire.

    Lead author, PhD student Anthony Clarke from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said analysis matched these with rocks from northeast Scotland, and clearly differentiated them from Welsh bedrock.

Nature journal video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HerAs9RRA34