Phase
2
The
early Bronze Age people living around Stonehenge were herders and farmers
living in an open grassland environment and burying their important
dead in barrow mounds. They remodeled Stonehenge to suit their own needs.
Limited
radiocarbon evidence from phase two indicates that construction took
place between 2000 and 1500 BCE. Sometime around 2000 BCE, the ditch
and bank enclosure was realigned along an axis of symmetry that allows
for the observation of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset. An
Avenue was constructed leading into the enclosure from the northeast.
Around this time, it appears also that the Heel Stone was erected in
a small ditched enclosure in the Avenue. Two other standing stones were
also erected in the avenue.
Inside
the enclosure several more standing stones were erected, including two
atop structures known as the North and South Barrows. An incomplete
double stone circle of two to three meter high bluestones was erected
in the center of the enclosure. Bluestone is an inclusive term that
refers to any stone with a vaguely bluish color that comes from a restricted
area within the Preseli Mountains in southwest Wales.
The
bluestones at Stonehenge include blocks of rhyolite, spotted dolorite,
volcanic ash, Cosheston sandstone, and calcareous ash. For many
years, it was thought that industrious Neolithic people manually
transported the 80 four to six ton bluestones from Wales to Wessex,
a distance of over 200 miles through the dangerous tidal waters
around Wales and then over land from the coast to Stonehenge. It
is now generally accepted that the bluestones were transported to
the surrounding countryside in Wessex by glacial action and their
transportation to Stonehenge, while difficult, would not have required
superhuman efforts.
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