Numerous prehistoric remains are scattered across the open countryside around Stonehenge. They stand as testimony to the strong collective activity of our distant ancestors, who grazed their cattle, grew their crops, and worshipped their Gods on and around Salisbury Plain. In around 3500 BC work was begun to build Stonehenge, which it has been established, was built in three phases over a period that spanned around 1500 years. The first stage was the construction of the circular bank and ditch that contains the Aubrey holes - named after the 17th century antiquarian John Aubrey, who included a plan of Stonehenge in his lengthy and discursive Monumenta Brittanicca. It was at this time that the first of the standing stone was erected outside the single entrance to the circle. The second stage began some 200 or more years later. It was during this phase of the construction that the Bluestones were transported to the site from Wales. However, not long afterwards, these were taken down and the giant stones that dominate the site today, and which form most peoples most abiding impression Stonehenge’s appearance, were re-erected in their place. Some of these stones weigh around 26 tons and stand eighteen feet high by 7 feet wide, so it is safe to assume that a veritable army of workmen must have struggled over their erection. They were evidently skilled craftsmen, for they wrought the stones to make them slightly convex, slotted them into place with lintels that covered each of the two vertical stones and then hinged them into place by use of ball and socket joints. These trilithons - so called because three stones were fitted together - were constructed in the circle and horseshoe shape that is still visible today. Later the dismantled bluestones were rebuilt
Some 1500 years after the beginning of Stonehenge the final changes took place. The bluestones were dismantled yet again and re-erected inside the circle where they can be seen today and where they give the distinct impression of cowering beneath the colossal trilithons. At the same time, the stone now known as the Altar Stone, a large block of green sandstone from Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, was set up in front of one of the trilithons. The thousands of man hours that those who constructed the stones, together with the detailed planning, testify to Stonehenge’s being very important to the peoples of that time. The fact that its designers - and there can be no doubt whatsoever that this is an elaborately designed monument - carefully selected and the blue and green stones and then had them transported to the site from Wales is evidence that these particular stones must have had a particular significance for them. Stonehenge was evidently not intended as a mere meeting place for the local community, but today any discussion of its original purpose can be little more than speculation, although a few tantalising clues do offer a glimmer of light as to its possible function. Cremation burials found in the Aubrey Holes, clearly show, for example, that funerary rites were once performed at Stonehenge. It is possible that, during the mid-summer solstice, the first Stonehenge was intended as a place where the rays of the life-giving sun could shine upon the ancestral remains buried here as it rose between the so-called Heel Stone and another stone that no longer exists, and that the Aubrey holes were intended to represent entrances into the Underworld. Another theory is that the monument may have been used as a basic calendar to either map the heavenly bodies for religious purposes, or simply to chart the seasons, an important consideration for what would have been essentially an agricultural community.
