Stonehenge isn’t the oldest prehistoric stone circle in the world, it isn’t the biggest and it isn’t the most ornate. Yet it grips the global imagination like no other stone circle. And now the question is being asked: What was at that site in Amesbury before Stonehenge was built?
Was it really forest dense enough to preclude group inhabitation, as is generally thought? Or was there continuity from the earliest occupation of the British Isles? Could it be that the builders of Stonehenge elected to erect their monument at the site because it was already considered sacred?
The first Stonehenge circle arose about 5,000 years ago, and the fourth and last phase was built about 3,500 years ago. Older stone circles must begin with Göbekli Tepe and 11 other tepes in Turkey built more than 11,000 years ago. There are stone circles in the Sahara aged more than 7,000 years and the Carnac Stones in France have been dated to 6,500 years ago. Orkney, off the coast of northern Scotland, also has monuments that predate Stonehenge.
