Culture

Stonehenge likely made from pieces of another ancient monument, study says

Bluestones may've been moved by builders of Stonehenge as communities migrated, according to researchers.

Abrar Al-Heeti Technology Reporter

Abrar Al-Heeti is a technology reporter for CNET, with an interest in phones, streaming, internet trends, entertainment, pop culture and digital accessibility. She's also worked for CNET's video, culture and news teams. She graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Though Illinois is home, she now loves San Francisco -- steep inclines and all.

Expertise Abrar has spent her career at CNET analyzing tech trends while also writing news, reviews and commentaries across mobile, streaming and online culture. Credentials

Named a Tech Media Trailblazer by the Consumer Technology Association in 2019, a winner of SPJ NorCal's Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2022 and has three times been a finalist in the LA Press Club's National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.

See full bio

Abrar Al-Heeti

Feb. 12, 2021 1:34 p.m. PT

A new study suggests the stones used to create Stonehenge in 3000 BC may've once belonged to another ancient monument 175 miles away in southwest Wales called Waun Mawn. The findings are set to be published in the journal Antiquity, according to a Friday report by Phys.org.

Researchers from University College London suggested bluestones, which originated in Wales, could've been moved by those who constructed Stonehenge, as communities migrated. The area around Waun Mawn was densely populated until 3000 BC, when things suddenly got quiet, according to the researchers.

"It's as if they just vanished," UCL archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson told the publication. "Maybe most of the people migrated, taking their stones -- their ancestral identities -- with them."

Scientific dating suggests Waun Mawn was built around 400 years before Stonehenge, according to the report.