Sunset and panoramic view of the megalithic monument of Stonehenge, UK • ISTOCK Sources of legends and fantasies, the megaliths occupy a discreet but deaf place at the heart of the imagination of European prehistory:the adventures of Asterix and Obelix testify to this, with humor and derision, while sowing a lasting chronological disorder. . For better or for worse, societies with "very large stones", in the etymological sense of the term (from the Greek megas , "great", and lithos , "stone"), have nothing to do with the legendary gesture of the Gauls. 2,000 years separate the supposed world of Obelix from the end of the megalithic civilization, an interval equivalent to that which separates us from the "irreducible Gauls". In addition, the term "megalith" includes a very wide variety of upright, raised or even split stones, which are found scattered along the roads or crossroads of Atlantic Europe, from Portugal to Scandinavia, passing through England. Undoubtedly because it seems to be a real architectural construction, of homogeneous and monumental circular form, the site of Stonehenge can certainly claim one of the first places in the collective memory, and this from the Middle Ages, as attested by the very etymology of the place which means in Old English "hanging stone". For a long time, as evidenced by an illumination of the Roman de Brut in the XII th century, the site is one of the curiosities, not to say the imaginary landscape, of the British archipelago. Medieval chronicles indeed associated these stones with a people of giants, more or less connected to the mythical times of the Round Table. After a century and a half of works and excavations of all kinds, the legends nevertheless seem to die hard, and the stones, which proudly defy the offenses of time, risk celebrating their 5,000 th anniversary without archaeologists completely agreeing on their function or their raison d'être. Remains before the Celts Especially since this scientific discourse struggles to counterbalance collective appropriations:before access to the site was strictly regulated, a few years ago, druidic ceremonies brought together at Stonehenge tens of thousands of people who came there thinking of reconnecting with the motivation of Celtic or Gallic cults. As improbable as they are mysterious, these supposed archaic religions, articulating the cosmic with the terrestrial, seemed to have to find their main sanctuary in its large rough stones erected towards the sky. Today, the visit, even tourist, takes place at a distance from the circle of stones, which makes it lose much of its charm. Also read:The Gauls, Celts like the others? The religious dimension of the place was however very early called into question. From the end of the 18 th century, the first archaeologists became aware of the antiquity of the remains and of the very different functions from those imagined for centuries. First of all because what we have before our eyes is nothing more than the eroded form of several successive monuments built of multiple and perishable materials, of which the stones form only the skeleton. We had to gradually resolve that the famous dolmens were not sacrificial altars on the scale of "giants", but rather the buried corridors of ancient mounds, or tumuli, having lost their earthen cover. . As for the isolated menhirs, they were probably also in the first place milestones or territorial landmarks for societies which were then in the process of sedentarization. "What dismay! Until the middle of the 19 th century, “our ancestors the Gauls” had temples, even if they were made of rough stone. Here are the scholars removing the only vestiges that seemed to materialize them,” says Christian Goudineau, former holder of the chair of National Antiquities at the Collège de France. The site of Stonehenge would have been built in order to observe the position of the rising sun on the horizon during the summer solstice and thus establish the solar calendar. Standing stone architecture survives in part because it has been taken over for hundreds of years. The dolmens date from the V th millennium BC. AD and will be built until around 3000 BC. The Carnac alignments date from around the end of the 4th th millennium BC. The cromlechs, or circles of standing stones, are probably later. That of Stonehenge begins to be built at the very end of the III th millennium BC. AD and continues, for more than 1,000 years, to be rebuilt. Around 1600 BC. J.-C., we can consider that the megalithic era ends. That is more than 500 years before we start talking about Celts or Gauls, whose oldest material remains date back to around 1100 BC. AD The society, essentially rural, which developed during the IV th millennium BC. J.-C. century. The megaliths, symbolically designed to protect or remember certain dead, testify to the strength of the rites and techniques deployed. But, beyond a response to the probable hierarchy of society, they also attest to the religious aspirations and political challenges that architects and priests were keen to freeze for eternity. The megalithic architecture is thus a celestial and terrestrial landmark in the landscape, certainly more spectacular than what we can observe today. For many archaeologists, Stonehenge was erected to observe the position of the rising sun on the horizon on the day of the summer solstice, and thus establish the solar calendar and that of the rural works of which ancestors or gods carved in perishable materials. A sacrifice stone? Recent archaeological excavations at Stonehenge have revealed the existence of large collective burial mounds more than 1,000 years before the first phase of construction at the site. Here, late Neolithic farmers built a median and a circular ditch some 110 meters in diameter. About a century later, wooden structures were built inside the embankment, as evidenced by the "postholes", hollow traces left by these structures and observed during the excavation. Then, between 2100 and 2000 BC. J.-C., the monument arises in a form similar to that which we know today. Built in blue stones, extracted from a quarry located more than 250 kilometers away, in Wales, this first monument was entirely rebuilt a second time, during the 2 th millennium BC. Some of the stones were reused to build the structure that we have partly in front of us. Also read:Easter Island, the land of stone giants. It could be described as follows:an outer circle 30 meters in diameter with 30 blocks of sandstone 4.30 meters high, skilfully worked and joined together by gigantic lintels (horizontal supports). These sandstone stones come from a quarry located 25 kilometers from the site. 57 bluish basalt stones, from the first monument, form a second circle inside the first. In the center of the device, a structure in the shape of a horseshoe, composed of 5 blocks of 3 monoliths, one of which serves each time as a lintel, opens towards the northeast and contained in its center another ovoid circle in bluish basalt. In the center of the monument, finally, an "altar stone" has been identified, but it may well be a collapsed block, the function of which poses all the more problems as it was immediately assimilated. at a sacrificial table. Finally, outside the circle, a standing stone (but not recut) – the heel stone, "heel stone" - suggests the existence of an axis which could be that of the rising sun. From there to imagine a basic sundial... It could just as well be an old door, sealing a buried structure. A solar observatory Even considering that the transport of the ancient Stonehenge stones was reduced because most of them had been transported naturally by the ice during the last ice age and had therefore simply been cut on site, the work required remains considerable. Such an investment of time and energy necessarily involves a public and extraordinary purpose. All the researchers agree that it is an observatory of astronomical cycles, in particular of the Sun. "According to the stones between which the day star rises, the cromlechs would have made it possible to determine the time at which it is appropriate to sow, to harvest, etc. confirms Jean-Pierre Mohen, specialist in the Neolithic and Protohistory. However, a simple necropolis could also have a relationship with the orientation of the stars, and especially the Sun, as the necropolises of Pharaonic Egypt and many other civilizations testify. Discoveries of tombs of foreign individuals reveal that Stonehenge was a place whose influence extended beyond the borders of the region. In order to go beyond this consecrated astronomical idea, it is important to understand why more than 80 generations have invested this place to build a colossal monument. To do this, a small return to Neolithic times seems essential. The first agricultural communities were totally dependent on the cycle of the seasons, which involved, in fact, periods of abundance and deficiency. Thus, it is quite logical to note that the axis of the site is aligned with the rising sun of the summer solstice and the setting sun of the winter solstice. Without any extrapolation, we can conclude that this situation was conceived in the light of a ritual activity linked to the seasons and that the notions of productivity, fertility, life and death played a preponderant role in it, including in the case of a site dedicated to burials. Also read:The echo of Stonehenge The existence of ritualized burials on the site was highlighted in 2008 by the discovery of around sixty remains of cremations dated between 3000 and 2500 BC. Moreover, the discoveries of two tombs of foreign individuals and associated with exotic prestige goods show that Stonehenge was a place whose importance exceeded the borders of the surrounding territory. Whether it was an astronomical observatory or a monumental collective tomb, an ossuary or a "columbarium", the circle of stones still keeps some of its secrets today. Find out more • Megaliths, stones of memory, J.-P. Mohen, Découvertes Gallimard, 1998.• The Prehistoric Stone Circles, J. Briard, Errance, 2000.• Protohistory, M. Otte, De Boeck University, 2008.Internet The Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, lbi-archpro.org/cs/stonehenge/The Stonehenge Riverside Project, www.sheffield.ac.uk/archaeology/research/2.4329/index Timeline XII e century Geoffroy de Monmouth writes a book on the history of England, Histoire des rois de Bretagne in which he associates the site of Stonehenge and the legend of King Arthur.XVII e century Inigo Jones attributes to Stonehenge, in 1652, a Roman origin, in the first book devoted to the site. In 1665, John Aubrey associated the monument with an ancient Celtic population.XVIII th century William Stukeley, pioneer of archaeological research, asserts in 1740 that Stonehenge is linked to Druidism. In 1860, James Ferguson imagined it to be a Buddhist temple.XX th century Norman Lockyer established in 1906, for the first time, a connection between Stonehenge and the summer solstice. In 1966, Gerald Hawkins saw it as an astronomical observatory. The Other Circles of Salisbury In 1500 BC. AD, Salisbury Plain was dotted with earthen structures, already abandoned by this time. Three kilometers northeast of Stonehenge is Durrington Walls, a spherical structure twenty times larger than Stonehenge. It included circular wooden buildings, like Woodhenge, another nearby circle. A Neolithic village, dating from 2600-2500 BC. AD, comprising 300 cob dwellings, with wooden roofs and dirt floors, was found at Durrington Walls. Archaeologists believe the place was only occupied seasonally, when people gathered to celebrate the summer and winter solstices. From Stonehenge and Durrington Walls branch off avenues leading to the River Avon, suggesting a ritual link between the two sites. Technology provides answers Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes project is a project led by archaeologists from the University of Birmingham and the Austrian Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, whose objective is to discover what is hidden in the soil of Stonehenge and its surroundings. Surprising results were obtained during the summer of 2014. Innovations in ground-penetrating radars and magnetometers led to the discovery of a complex located under the surface of Salisbury, including 17 unknown constructions of 10 to 20 meters in diameter, a large wooden structure 33 meters long which may have been used for funeral ceremonies, wells appearing to respond to an astronomical alignment and a circle of 60 posts which at the time surrounded the circle of Durrington Walls. The traveler who came from the Alps It was in 2002, in Amesbury, a locality close to Stonehenge, that a tomb from the early Bronze Age was discovered. The burial, dating from 2400-2300 BC. AD, contained the remains of an individual in his forties, who was referred to as the "Amesbury Archer" because of the weapons found in the tomb. Judging by the quantity and value of the objects buried with him (about a hundred), he must have been a high-ranking individual. The study of the remains indicates that the archer, who suffered from a slight lameness, came from the continent, more precisely from the region of the Alps. This demonstrates that Europe experienced significant population movements 4,000 years ago. But many questions remain about the archer, such as the reason for his trip, his identity and how an outsider could become an important member of the community. Riddles that may remain forever unanswered.
