New monuments of Stonehenge are revealed with probes … – The País.com (Spain)

The prehistoric monument of Stonehenge.
  / France Press

The mythical set monument of Stonehenge in England is much more than what is known, what is seen. A scientific team has done with advanced non-invasive survey techniques, a detailed map of the area and has discovered many new structures, providing more light about the place and its evolution over 11,000 years. 17 have emerged so far unknown ritual monuments of the period in which the famous set of stone blocks acquired form; dozens of graves have been mapped in detail, including a large mound with a wooden structure that probably would be used for ritual burials of the dead after a complicated process of exposing corpses and covered descarnándolos before forming a burial mound, researchers say University of Birmingham, who lead the Hidden Environments Project Stonehenge, together with experts from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Survey and Virtual Archaeology (Germany).

The project, scientists say, “will transform our knowledge This setting icon “. In addition to the previously unknown structures, the digital map has unearthed unexpected information on the known monuments. The Durrington circle, within easy reach of Stonehenge, is a huge ritual monument, “probably the largest of its kind in the world”, experts emphasize Birmingham, has a circumference of more than a mile. And new polls have revealed a primitive stage that was flanked by a row of up to 60 huge posts or stones, perhaps up to three meters high. And some may still be there, suggest archaeologists.

Located about15 miles north of Salisbury (England), the most famous part of the complex of Stonehenge consists of concentric circles of large stone blocks, about 4,500 years ago, at the end of the Neolithic, explains the Heritage Inglés. The main axis is aligned with the solstice axis, so that the sun rises and sets at particular points of the monument at the summer solstice and the winter. “In the seasonal cycle, that time of the year, were obviously important to the prehistoric people who built and used Stonehenge,” the Heritage Inglés.

In the digital map new types of prehistoric monuments appear as huge pits , some of which seem to have astronomical alignment. Data have also been collected in great detail hundreds of burials of the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and Roman settlements. “Although Stonehenge is the most iconic prehistoric monument and holding one of the richest archaeological sites in the world, much of their environment remains terra incognita ,” said the British leader of the project, Vincent Gaffney. “This project has revealed that the area around Stonehenge is full of unknown to archeology,” he adds. The work done so far will be presented in a BBC documentary series titled Two Operation Stonehenge .

“The development of noninvasive methods to document our cultural heritage is one of the great challenges of our time can only be achieved by adapting the latest technology such as georadar and magnetometer high resolution, “adds Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the German Institute.