t stone circle (which is now the inner circle), comprised of small bluestones, was set up, but abandoned before completion. The stones used in that first circle are believed to be from the Prescelly Mountains, located roughly 240 miles away, at the southwestern tip of Wales. The bluestones weigh up to 4 tons each and about 80 stones were used, in all. Given the distance they had to travel, this presented quite a transportation problem. Modern theories speculate that, “the stones were dragged by roller and sledge from the inland mountains to the headwaters of Milford Haven. There they were loaded onto rafts, barges or boats and sailed along the south coast of Wales, then up the Rivers Avon and Frome to a point near present-day Frome in Somerset”. Calendar TheoryIn 1964 the American astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins used findings obtained by supplying a computer with measurements taken at Stonehenge together with astronomical information based on celestial positions in 1500 BC when Stonehenge was in use. According to Hawkins the Stonehenge complex could have been used to predict the summer and winter solstices, the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and eclipses of both the sun and moon. Hawkins determined that Stonehenge functioned as a means of predicting the positions of the sun and moon in relation to the earth, and also the seasons, and he went as far as to imply that it was also used as a daily calendar. People could learn the time of year by watching how the Sun and Moon rose and set relative to accurately placed stones and pits. The placement of the boulders at Stonehenge, however, is not accurate by today's standards, nor even by the standards of that time. The alignment also made it clear that whoever built Stonehenge had precise astronomical knowledge of the path of the sun and must have known before construction began precisely where the sun rose at dawn in the middle of summer in the morning. Today most scholars in...
