Brief History of Stonehenge

Every aspect of Stonehenge's changing cults and evolving architecture is reconsidered in Aubrey Burl's new analysis. Burl explains for the first time how the outlying Heel Stone long predates Stonehenge itself, serving as a trackway marker in the prehistoric Harroway. He uncovers new evidence that the Welsh bluestones were brought by glaciation, not man. Burl reveals how the design of Stonehenge was influenced by Breton styles and cults of the dead. Meticulous research sets the record straight on the matter of astronomical alignments. Although the existence of a sightline to the midsummer sunrise is well known, the alignment and the viewing position are critically different from popular belief. And the existence of an earlier alignment to the moon and later one to the midwinter sunset had been largely unrealized. Another puzzle remains. The Stonehenge circle sits at the heart of a six-mile wide neolithic graveyard, but before it was built there appears to have been a mysterious gap two miles across on that site. Burl offers an exciting new theory that earlier totem-pole style constructions served a ceremonial purpose for the living--to celebrate success in the hunt.Burl, Aubrey is the author of 'Brief History of Stonehenge ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780786719648 and ISBN 0786719648.