Stonehenge

Neolithic · United Kingdom

Field notes

civilizations

NeolithicMegalithicEuropean Bronze Age

types

Stone circle

built

3,000 BCE — 1,600 BCE

occupied

3,000 BCE — 1,400 BCE

visitors

1,327,423 / year

country

United Kingdom

The site

Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, raised in stages between about 3100 and 1600 BCE. Its outer ring of towering sarsens, each near 25 tons, is capped by horizontal lintels locked with mortise-and-tenon joints, a feature unique among monuments of its time, enclosing smaller bluestones and freestanding trilithons. The whole ruin aligns to the solstice sunrises and sits amid England's densest field of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows.

Nearby sites

~28 km

Avebury

~43 km

Roman Baths

~70 km

Maiden Castle

~224 km

Grime's Graves