(CN) — Civilizations in the Stone Age may have had more societal organization than previously thought, scientists discovered after pinpointing the origin of Stonehenge's Altar Stone to Scotland.
The Altar Stone, located directly in the center of the Neolithic circular formation in southern England, has long been thought to have been sourced from Wales, but a team of researchers now say in a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, the stone likely came from Scotland, around 466 miles away. The findings suggest advanced transportation methods were used to move the stone.
A team of researchers led by Curtin University in Australia studied the age and chemistry of mineral grains from two fragments of the Altar Stone to make the connection.
“Our analysis found specific mineral grains in the Altar Stone are mostly between 1,000 to 2,000 million years old, while other minerals are around 450 million years old,” lead author PhD student Anthony Clarke from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences said in a statement.
Clarke and his colleagues analyzed zircon, apatite and rutile grains from the stone and compared them to other sedimentary deposits in Britain and Ireland. They found a distinct similarity to Old Red Sandstone in the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland.
The research was performed in collaboration with the University of Adelaide, Aberystwyth University and University College London and was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project.
Chris Kirkland, a professor at the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group at Curtin and co-author of the study, said the findings have implications for understanding how ancient communities functioned.
At the time Stonehenge was constructed, around 2600 BC, transporting a six-ton block would have been challenging given the terrain spanning the long distance, suggesting the stone may have been transported by sea.
“Our discovery of the Altar Stone’s origins highlights a significant level of societal coordination during the Neolithic period and helps paint a fascinating picture of prehistoric Britain,” Kirkland said.
Kirkland said part of that picture is the possibility that there may have been a marine shipping route along the coast of Britain.
“This implies long-distance trade networks and a higher level of societal organization than is widely understood to have existed during the Neolithic period in Britain,” Kirkland said.
Aberystwyth University professors and study co-authors Nick Pearce and Richard Bevins, joined by other researchers, spent the last 15 years studying the provenance of the stones at Stonehenge.
“The Altar Stone really was the last remaining, it was the odd one out, megalith or rock at Stonehenge where we didn’t know where it came from,” Clarke said.
The researchers said it is unknown if the flat-laying stone was ever upright or exactly when it was brought to southern England.
“While we can now say that this iconic rock is Scottish and not Welsh, the hunt will still very much be on to pin down where exactly in the north-east of Scotland the Altar Stone came from,” Bevins said in a statement.
For Clarke — who grew up in the Mynydd Preseli in Wales, one source of some of the stones used in Stonehenge — the finding is personal.
“I first visited Stonehenge when I was one year old, and now, at 25, I returned from Australia to help make this scientific discovery — you could say I’ve come full circle at the stone circle,” Clarke said.
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