Pictures: Stonehenge "Twin" Revealed

Stonehenge: Solstice Central

Photograph by David Lyons, Alamy

Each summer solstice the sun rises above Stonehenge's outlying Heel Stone (at top center), casting its rays into the center of the monument. The newfound henge is also oriented to the solstice sunrise, with entrances to the northeast and southwest.

"This new monument is part of a growing body of evidence which shows how important the summer and winter solstices were to the ancient peoples who built Stonehenge," said Amanda Chadburn, an archaeologist with English Heritage, the government agency that manages the Stonehenge World Heritage site.

(Also see "Stonehenge 'Hedge' Found, Shielded Secret Rituals?")

Published July 23, 2010

Putting New Henge on the Map

Map courtesy University of Birmingham

Stonehenge's newfound sister henge—marked as the "New Henge" in the map above—may add to the slowly emerging picture of the region's prehistoric spiritual landscape.

Stonehenge itself is linked to a timber circle called Woodhenge via the River Avon and an ancient road called the Avenue. Though close to Stonehenge, the newfound site is even closer to the Cursus, a huge, stretching earthwork dated to around 3,500 B.C.

"Before Stonehenge was constructed, [the Cursus] was the principal monument in that landscape," said Joshua Pollard, an archaeologist at the University of Bristol who isn't involved in the new survey.

It's possible that the Stonehenge complex started off "with a series of small stone circles which are actually focused on the Cursus itself," Pollard said.

(Related: "Stonehenge Was Cemetery First and Foremost, Study Says.")

Published July 23, 2010

Swift Survey at Stonehenge

Photograph courtesy University of Birmingham

For this first ever systematic geophysical survey of the area surrounding Stonehenge, the survey team pulled ground-penetrating instruments behind an ATV in July, as pictured.

The new henge was found via a combination of radar imaging and magnetometry, a technique that maps changing patterns of magnetism in the soil.

The method was surprisingly successful, and surprisingly fast. The new site emerged within the first two weeks of the three-year project to map 5.5 square miles (14 square kilometers) of the Stonehenge landscape.

(Take a Stonehenge quiz.)

Published July 23, 2010

Ghost Henge

Magnetometry reading of underground pits near Stonehenge. Image courtesy University of Birmingham.

A mosaic of magnetometry readings reveals the newfound, 82-foot-wide (25-meter-wide) circular feature just over half a mile (900 meters) from Stonehenge.

The segmented ditch is dotted with 20 or so large holes—suspected to have been postholes for a timber, rather than stone, circle, the team says. (Also see "Wooden 'Stonehenge' Emerges From Prehistoric Ohio.")

The circle's estimated date of 2,500 to 2,200 B.C. suggests "it was operating when Stonehenge was in its final and most dramatic form," survey leader Vince Gaffney told National Geographic News (interactive Stonehenge time line).

Published July 23, 2010