Stonehenge ‘altar’ carried on glacier

A massive slab at the center of Stonehenge somehow travelled 700 kilometres from its origin in northeast Scotland to its current home in the south of England. A model of Neolithic ice flows suggests a glacier might have carried the six-tonne monolith as far as Doggerland — an area that is now beneath the North Sea. Then, roughly 3,000 years before it came to Stonehenge, people may have saved the rock from rising sea levels. “What is exciting about these findings is that they could imply that the people of Doggerland attached cultural significance to the Altar Stone long before it was incorporated into Stonehenge,” says glaciologist and study co-author Remy Veness.