Prehistoric Sailors May Be Responsible for Stonehenge, Other Megaliths

[Judi Lynn]

By Yasemin Saplakoglu, Staff Writer | February 12, 2019 09:11am ET

Stonehenge and similar large, arranged rock structures around Europe may have a common origin.

Hunter-gatherers in northwestern France might have first created these megaliths around 7,000 years ago and spread them throughout Europe, according to a new study published yesterday (Feb.11) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It was previously thought that megaliths originated in the Near East, but nowadays more and more anthropologists agree that they were independently invented in various places across Europe, according to the magazine Science.

In this new study, Bettina Schulz Paulsson, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, searched through the literature to find radiocarbon data (a method that reveals ages of rocks and structures) for over 2,400 sites across Europe. She looked at megaliths, pre-megalithic graves, and any information she could find on how the rocks were crafted and the customs of the hands that crafted them. [In Photos: A Walk Through Stonehenge]

More:
https://www.livescience.com/64746-stonehenge-megalith-common-origin.html