Get the facts on the iconic ancient monument, including how it once ended up on the auction block and what the wizard Merlin and Charles Darwin have to do with it.
1. Stonehenge was built in phases.
Around 3000 B.C. a circular earthwork was constructed at the site, consisting of a ditch (dug using tools made from antlers) with an inner and outer bank. Inside the bank were 56 pits, which became known as the Aubrey Holes, after antiquarian John Aubrey, who identified them in 1666. Archaeologists estimate Stonehenge was home to 150 or more cremation burials from approximately 3000 B.C. to 2300 B.C., and they’ve called it Britain’s biggest known cemetery of the time.
The two types of stones at the center of the monument, the large sarsens and smaller bluestones, arrived at the site sometime around 2500 B.C. Afterward, they were shaped using various stoneworking techniques and arranged in formations. The final stage of construction was a ring of pits now referred to as the Y holes, dug sometime between 1600 B.C. to 1500 B.C. The Y holes encircled another ring of pits called the Z holes, which were dug at an earlier time and surrounded the sarsens. Researchers are unclear as to whether the Y and Z holes served any purpose. It’s also unknown how long Stonehenge continued to be used after the Y holes were dug.
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