Stonehenge was built to unify Britain, researchers conclude

Building Stonehenge was a way to unify the people of Stone Age Britain, researchers have concluded.

22-06-12. Teams working on the Stonehenge Riverside Project believe the circle was built after a long period of conflict between east and west Britain.

Researchers also believe the stones, from southern England and west Wales, symbolize different communities.

Prof Mike Parker Pearson said building Stonehenge required everyone "to pull together" in "an act of unification".

The Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) has been investigating the archaeology of Stonehenge and its landscape for the past 10 years.

In 2008, SRP researchers found that Stonehenge had been erected almost 500 years earlier than had originally been thought.

Now teams from the universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton, Bournemouth and University College London, have concluded that when the stone circle was built "there was a growing island-wide culture".

"The same styles of houses, pottery and other material forms were used from Orkney to the south coast - this was very different to the regionalism of previous centuries," said Prof Parker Pearson, from University of Sheffield.

"Stonehenge itself was a massive undertaking, requiring the labour of thousands to move stones from as far away as west Wales, shaping them and erecting them.

"Just the work itself, requiring everyone literally to pull together, would have been an act of unification."

Stonehenge may also have been built in a place that already had special significance for prehistoric Britons...

... BBC

Actualización 24-06-12. Una nueva teoría sostiene que Stonehenge fue un monumento dedicado a la unificación de Gran Bretaña.

Después de 10 años de estudios arqueológicos, investigadores británicos han concluido que Stonehenge fue construido como un monumento a la unificación de los pueblos de Gran Bretaña, después de un largo período de conflictos y diferencias regionales entre las zonas oriental y occidental de Gran Bretaña.

Sus piedras se cree que simbolizaban a los antepasados de los diferentes grupos de las comunidades agrícolas más antiguas de Gran Bretaña, con algunas piedras provenientes del sur de Inglaterra y otras desde el oeste de Gales.

Equipos de las universidades de Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton, Bournemouth y el Colegio Universitario de Londres, han trabajo juntos en el Stonehenge Riverside Proyect (SRP), explorando no sólo Stonehenge y su paisaje, sino también el amplio contexto social y económico de las etapas principales de la construcción del monumento, entre el 3.000 y 2.500 a.C... terraeantiqvae.com