01 Storia biennio V1.qxp_Layout 1 12/01/24 11:18 Pagina 33 L ET PREISTORICA PREISTORIA CLIL The Stonehenge complex 4. L età titolo deicapitolo metalli 1 The construction of the famous stone circles began around 3000 B.C. The first section built was an outer circular ditch and two embankments on the sides. The central structure similar to a horseshoe is made of trilithons (two vertical stones with a horizontal lintel on the top). This structure and the surrounding outer ring of stones were completed around 2500 B.C. These giant building blocks, called sarsens, are sandstone; each of them weigh around 25 tons. They came from a quarry which is only about 30 kilometres from where they are today. There are 80 smaller slabs of dolerite bluestone standing next to them, and scholars believe these were the first stones erected at Stonehenge. Each of them weighed around four tons and came from far away: the Preseli Hills in southwestern Wales, at a distance of about 225 kilometres. Scholars are still debating how the bluestones actually arrived from Wales to the Salisbury Plain. According to one old theory, glaciers had carried the stones and deposited them in England; most scholars now agree that people transported them, but they still do not know how, and if this happened by land or by water. Some researchers believe that the stones could have been floated along the coast and then up through rivers or canals until the Avon River; from there, people could have transported them to the Stonehenge site. Another theory is that the Welsh stones were loaded on to sleds and then dragged on land. Archaeologists today consider Stonehenge and its environs as a ritual landscape, that is a group of monuments positioned in a place that had a ceremonial importance. The central Avenue, built after 2500 B.C., is one of these elements that links sacred spaces together by connecting the stones to the Avon River. This road is aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the sunrise of the summer solstice, and this has generated questions: how much knowledge of the sky and stars did the Neolithic builders actually have? 33 VIDEO L Età neolitica: dolmen e menhir GLOSSARY ditch: canale embankments: argini horseshoe: ferro di cavallo lintel: architrave sandstone: pietra arenaria quarry: cava slabs: pietre scholars: studiosi floated: fatte galleggiare sleds: slitte dragged: trascinate