Scientists make ‘remarkable’ Stonehenge discovery
The largest Altar Stone at the heart of Stonehenge is actually Scottish not Welsh, research suggests. The "truly remarkable" discovery has been described as a “spectacular result” and busts a century-long held belief about the origins of the bluestone at the centre of the prehistoric monument. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00That chemical fingerprint we can match up with rocks of similar age from around Britain
00:22and then that's where we got the spectacular result.
00:25Arcadian Basin in North East Scotland, over 700 kilometres away from Stonehenge, truly
00:32remarkable.
00:33When you're trying to move six tonnes of rock, a five metre long slab that's a metre wide
00:38and half a metre thick, and quite fragile, if it came from one of the islands you have
00:42to put it on a boat, if it's from the mainland the overland route has a lot of topographic
00:46problems, there are mountains, there are rivers to cross and so on, so whichever way you do
00:51it is a technologically difficult thing to do.
00:55The Neolithic peoples were the first farmers really, they were settled, they had what we
01:00would call a successful economy, they were growing their own food but they knew where
01:03their next meal was coming from and they, as well as all the needs of looking after
01:09themselves and their families and everything, they probably had a spiritual, well they must
01:13have had a spiritual side just as we do and Stonehenge is a good example of that.