Stonehenge

Hello, my names Katarinna. I'm the daughter of Chris and John Springman, who have asked me to write the post for Stonehenge because I was the only one that had the audio guide. I've never written on this blog before, so forgive me if I make any mistakes.

Stonehenge is an ancient mystery and has been an archeological site of interest ever since it was found by English travelers. It's constructed of a ring of standing stones set in ditches to keep them upright. In the middle are stones called bluestones found in the southern part of the UK. Outside of the ring of standing stones are ditches, now called Aubery Holes after the man who discovered them.

When you first think about Stonehenge, you usually think of the circle of standing stones, but Stonehenge is so much more. It's believed that Stonehenge was originally used as a burial site for important figures. This was thought because of the multiple cremated bones of 2300-year-old bodies. Some of the bodies were buried with iron armbands and an assortment of iron-age weapons. Many of these relics are missing today due to the fact that early archeologists were mainly interested in collecting these artifacts, and would often take them and leave behind the bones of the person they dug up. It's believed that over 1500 people are buried at Stonehenge, but they're not positive as only half of Stonehenge has actually been dug up.

Beside the burials situated around Stonehenge, archeologists and historians were asking the question "Why?" Why was Stonehenge built? What was it used for? Originally it was thought to be some kind of temple for the Druid people, due to a rock on the outside looking as if it were stained with blood. This theory was quickly dismissed, however, due to the fact that Stonehenge was much older than the Druids, and that red stain was discovered to be a weathered color brought on by salt and fungi. Later it was found that the structure lined up perfectly with the summer and winter solstices. This brought on a theory that it was used as a sort of clock. Finally, after bringing in a scientist from Madagascar and finding a similar structure made of wood about 3 miles away, it was found that Stonehenge was made as a sort of temple for the ancestors/dead.

The mysterious part, though, is that even with all these questions asked, we still don't know for sure why it was built, and why so many people were intent on dragging stones all the way from Wales to that specific spot. We also have so many other things to discover and learn from it, considering that only half of it has been dug up. One thing's for sure, though. Aliens did not make this structure despite popular belief.