Thinking about the feasibility of transporting the 6-tonne altar stone overland to Stonehenge from north-east Scotland (Stonehenge megalith came from Scotland, not Wales, ‘jaw-dropping’ study finds, 14 August) puts one in mind of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, during the filming of which a 320-tonne ship was actually dragged across a mountain in Peru. Perhaps the Neolithic workforce was led by the equivalent of a wild-eyed Klaus Kinski.
Bill Britnell
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
• The origin of the Stonehenge altar stone is indeed “jaw‑dropping”. Large-scale Neolithic sites have been known about in Orkney for many years. After 20 years’ excavating, only about 10% of the Ness of Brodgar complex has been uncovered. Mike Pitts’ Stonehenge‑centric outlook has got things the wrong way round, however. He says “it suggests that the site [Stonehenge] was known not just to people in the south, but over a much wider area”. On the contrary – it suggests that people in the south, when starting to create the Stonehenge site, were aware of the larger and older developments in Orkney.
Alan Thorpe
Farnham, Surrey
