Stonehenge

More than nine hundred stone rings exist in the British Isles and twice that number may originally have been built. These megalithic structures are more accurately called rings rather than circles because they often display non-circular elliptical shapes; Stonehenge, however, is circular. It is difficult to precisely date the stone rings because of the scarcity of datable remains associated with them, but it is known that they were constructed during the Neolithic period, which in southern England lasted from approximately 4000 to 2000 BC. Before the development of archaeological dating methods, 17th century antiquarians assumed that Stonehenge and other megalithic structures were constructed by the Druids. The Druids, however, had nothing to do with the construction or use of the stone rings. The Celtic society, in which the Druid priesthood functioned, came into existence in Britain only after 300 BC; more than 1500 years after the last stone rings were constructed. Historians in the 19th century often attributed the stone rings to Egyptian travelers who were thought to have infused Europe with Bronze Age culture. With the development of Carbon-14 dating techniques, the infusion-diffusion concepts of European Neolithic history were abandoned and the megalithic structures were shown to predate Egyptian culture.
Mid-20th century archaeology generally assumed stone rings were used for ritual activities and recent research has deepened our understandings. Beginning in the 1950’s, Oxford University engineer Professor Alexander Thom and astronomer Gerald Hawkins pioneered the study of the astronomies of ancient civilizations, or archaeoastronomy. Conducting precise surveys at hundreds of stone rings, archaeoastronomers discovered significant celestial alignments indicating that the stone rings were used as astronomical observatories. These studies also revealed the extraordinary mathematical sophistication and engineering abilities with which the stone rings were built.

Stonehenge, the most well known stone ring, is a composite structure built during three periods from 3100 to 1100 BC. Constructed with massive stones weighing as much as twenty-five tons and transported from quarry locations hundreds of miles away, Stonehenge was a structure with multiple purposes. It was a monument of nearly imperishable nature located at a specific site of terrestrial energetic power and celestial significance. It was an astronomical observation device used to predict, in advance of their occurrence, particular periods in the annual cycle when the earth energies were most highly influenced by the sun, moon and stars. It was a temple, built by and for the people, in which festivals of renewal were held at those energetic periods determined by astronomical observations. It was a structure built with certain types of stones, positioned according to sacred geometry, which functioned as a sort of battery for gathering, concentrating and emanating the earth energies of the site. It was also an eclipse predictor of astonishing accuracy.