The most mysterious monument on Salisbury Plain in England continues to resist our attempt to understand it, and at the same time, provides the foundation for countless speculations and theories from the entire field of archeology. It has been thought to be an astronomical observatory, a computer, and a center of earth energies amongst many other interpretations. No one knows for certain what it is used for, how it was created, and who created it, making Stonehenge one of the most puzzling monuments mankind has ever seen. So much has been written and rewritten about the hundreds of different opinions that people have about Stonehenge, and all of them need to be taken into account when considering the origins of this Neolithic architectural miracle.
The first question that we must ask in order to try to gain even a simple understanding of Stonehenge is: how was it created? How were these ancient people able to get these monstrous stones that weighed more than twenty tons and located hundreds of miles away to the Salisbury plain? In his article, Stonehenge, Aubrey Burl tells the story of men that ferried the enchanted Welsh stones hundreds of miles. Returning across the Irish Sea from the Wicklow Mountains to their home in south Britain some time after 3000 BCE they may have stopped at the Preselis mountain range. Regarding the Preselis as magical and their bluestones as life enhancing, the crew felt compelled to plunder them one by one for an intended megalithic sanctuary on Salisbury Plain. (Burl 1). However, there is no substance to this story because these Irish traders were gold and copper prospectors and the early third century BCE when the great monument was begun, was a premetal age which had little or no contact with Wales and Ireland. Metals did not come to the area until around 2500 BCE with the discovery of copper ore mines. Even then there is no evidence for prospectors from mainland Britain visiting Ireland.