Prehistoric builders transported Devil's Arrows 11 miles
Isotopic analysis revealed the most likely source to be Brimham Rocks, not the nearby Plumpton Rocks.
Prehistoric builders transported Devil's Arrows, Britain's tallest standing stone alignment, over 11 miles. The stones originated from a site 18 kilometers away, not from glacial movement, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A. This discovery was made by a team led by Jim Leary of the University of York.
The researchers revealed that Neolithic communities moved several 25-ton stones across Yorkshire, transforming the familiar site into an epic quest for creating a sacred landscape. While Stonehenge has been the focus of recent chemical analyses, identifying the origins of its stones, the Devil's Arrows have remained comparatively understudied despite their significance.
Many Stonehenge stones came from quarries in western Wales, while the outer layer of sarsen stones originated from nearby Marlborough Downs, an area of round, grassy hills.
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- Prehistoric builders transported Devil's Arrows 11 miles arstechnica.com
