Stonehenge

Question 1

Earliest earthworks

Answer 1

3100 BC

Question 2

Built over

Answer 2

1500 years

Question 3

Stone circle completed (2)

Answer 3

2000-2500 BC
Bronze age

Question 4

Stonehenge part of (5)

Answer 4

• A huge prehistoric complex
• Burial mounds
• Avenues
• Settlements
• Perhaps a Neolithic capital

Question 5

Outer Stones

Answer 5

Sarsen Stones

Question 6

What are the mounds around Stonehenge called?

Answer 6

Barrows

Question 7

Sarsen stones weight and provenance (3)

Answer 7

• 25 tons
• More than a bus load of people
• From about 20 miles away

Question 8

Most important Sarsen stone (2)

Answer 8

• Heel Stone
• Aligned with the summer solstice

Question 9

How Sarsens built? (3)

Answer 9

• Dig hole with deer antler pickaxe
• Pull up using ropes and wooden levers
• Built platform and lever stones up one at a time to put on the top Saracens

Question 10

Smaller Inner Stones

Answer 10

Bluestones

Question 11

Where Bluestones from (2)

Answer 11

• Preseli Hills in Wales
• 150 miles away

Question 12

How Bluestones transported? (3)

Answer 12

• Wooden Sledges
• Rollers & rope
• Probably needed over 200 people

Question 14

What does it all suggest about the society that built it? (3)

Answer 14

• highly organised
• ceremonial
• able to command labour and resources across large distances

Question 15

Theory 1 (2)

Answer 15

• Astronomical Alignment
• An ancient solar calendar or ritual site tied for farming cycles

Question 16

Theory 2 (4)

Answer 16

• Evidence of cremated human remains
• From earliest phases
• A burial site for elite ancestors
• A ceremonial gateway between life and death

Question 17

Who built it? (3)

Answer 17

• Neolithic Britons
• i.e. Stone Age and Bronze Age farmers
• Likely from Eastern steppes - eg Turkey

Question 18

Which tribes didn’t build it? (3)

Answer 18

• Celts
• Romans
• Saxons

Predates all of them.

Question 19

Which sect didn’t build it? (2)

Answer 19

Druids

They came thousands of years later

Question 20

Which individual didn’t build it? (2)

Answer 20

Merlin

Myth he magically brought the stones from Ireland.

Question 21

What did William Blake call it? (2)

Answer 21

“Place of the Giants”
- Thought it a site of ancient prophecy.

Question 22

Recent usage (3)

Answer 22

• New age spirituality
• Pagan revival
• Extraterrestrial theories

Question 23

How did the builders live? (3)

Answer 23

• Wood, mud and thatch buildings
• Grew wheat and barley
• Keps pigs, cattle and sheep for meat, milk and wool

Question 24

Astrological alignments (2)

Answer 24

• Heel stone aligns with summer solstice so light shines into the heart of the circle
• The tallest doorway lines up with the Winter solstice