A team of archeologists have unlocked answers to Stonehenge that have been questioned for 4,500 years all thanks to a new breakthrough.
The huge stone formation has been the source of much intrigue and mystery for centuries.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, where many tourists flock each year to catch a glimpse.
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Each rock weighs around 20 tonnes and they tower at an average of seven meters tall.
But just how the strange configuration came to be has been an enigma that researchers have been trying to solve for hundreds of years.
The turning point in the search for answers came from a long-forgotten piece of Stonehenge that had been drilled out during restoration work in the 1950s.
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The small core of one of the rocks had been stored in Florida for decades after the work was completed but has now made its way back to England.
This gave a group, who are funded by the British Academy, the chance to study the stone and its chemical makeup.
They discovered that the ancient stones had similar makeups, which meant they are likely to have a common origin.
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In order to confirm this, the group of researchers analyzed other stones from places as far as Norfolk and Devon.
However, the breakthrough didn’t occur until they decided to do a test on the core that would destroy it.
As a result, the team were able to determine that the stone matched the chemistry of other stones found in the West Woods, just south of Marlborough, which is a 40-minute drive from where Stonehenge is situated.
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Susan Greaney, who is an English Heritage Senior Properties Historian, said: “To be able to pinpoint the area that Stonehenge's builders used to source their materials around 2500 BC is a real thrill. Now we can start to understand the route they might have traveled and add another piece to the puzzle.”
Meanwhile, Professor David Nash of the University of Brighton, who led the team on this discovery, added: “It has been really exciting to harness 21st-century science to understand the Neolithic past and finally answer a question that archaeologists have been debating for centuries.”
This revelation has shed new light on the mystery that has surrounded Stonehenge for a long time and scientists hope that it will enable them to start to piece together just how the monument came to be.