Britain has an awful lot of stone circles, but Stonehenge stands head and shoulders above them all, not just for its size, but for its mysterious origins. Other British circles are constructed with local stones, while Stonehenge has several different kinds of stones, the nearest coming from 14 miles away. Recently, a thorough analysis of the Altar Stone has been completed, and its origin has been located in the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland. That means that some Neolithic team transported that stone at least 465 miles! They don't yet know how the 13,000-pound stone was delivered to Salisbury, but there are theories.
The Alter Stone could be an entry in a multi-cultural collaboration to build Stonehenge. The fact that some stones were as close as 14 miles, and others came from Wales, and the Alter Stone from Scotland, hint that different communities contributed their most impressive stones. Read about the Alter Stone and the latest in what Stonehenge might mean at Smithsonian.
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