Written in the Stone

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Thousands of people gather at England’s Stonehenge each solstice, enchanted by its astronomical alignment of massive stones.

Researchers have already determined that the larger stones, mostly on the outer edges of the circular layout, originated from the area, while blue stones at the center came from Wales.

Now, a team of scientists has found that the central Altar Stone, long thought to be also from Wales, was actually Scottish.

To determine the megalith’s origins, the scientists analyzed what could be called a rock’s DNA. “Much like DNA, the Altar Stone contains a vast array of mineral grains that carry information on their birth and subsequent history,” they wrote in the Conversation.

By matching the Altar Stone’s mineral grains with other stones across the United Kingdom, they found a near-perfect match in northeast Scotland.

That means the six-ton stone was carried about 466 miles from northeastern Scotland to southwestern England, their study suggested.

“It completely rewrites the relationships between the Neolithic populations of the whole of the British Isles,” Rob Ixer from the University College London told the Guardian.

Sparsely populated today, northeastern Scotland and the neighboring Orkney Islands were a commercial and cultural hub in the Neolithic era, around 4,000 years ago.

The discovery provided further evidence that Neolithic humans did not live in isolated groups – rather, they traded with each other.

But questions about the site remain unanswered, the most burning one being how humans managed to carry such a heavy stone nearly 500 miles.

Experts disagree, with some claiming the rock was transported on land and others arguing it was transported by sea, the Guardian reported.

In any case, Neolithic humans “were used to moving big stones,” Richard Bevins from the University of Aberystwyth told the newspaper.

It also probably took a very long time – but seeing that as a problem is a very modern outlook, researchers said. “Their mindset was probably very different, historic property curator Heather Sebire said. “You can think of it as a pilgrimage.”