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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Esther Addley

Stonehenge tale gets ‘weirder’ as Orkney is ruled out as altar stone origin

Stonehenge.
There is evidence of long-distance communication between Orkney and Stonehenge around 3000BC. Photograph: Radharc Images/Alamy

The plot has thickened on the mystery of the altar stone of Stonehenge, weeks after geologists sensationally revealed that the huge neolithic rock had been transported hundreds of miles to Wiltshire from the very north of Scotland.

That discovery, described as “jaw-dropping” by one of the scientists involved, established definitively that the six-tonne megalith had not been brought from Wales, as had long been believed, but came from sandstone deposits in an area encompassing the isles of Orkney and Shetland and a coastal strip on the north-east Scottish mainland.

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