Archaeologists dig deep to find origins of Stonehenge

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — A major excavation at Britain's prehistoric Stonehenge standing stones started Monday as archaeologists try to work out exactly when and why the first boulders were placed at the site.

Experts are focusing on the Double Bluestone Circle, which is located inside the iconic giant pillars on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, southwest England.

The circle, thought to date from around 2,550 BC, consists of stones which came from the Preseli Hills in west Wales -- 250 kilometres (155 miles) away.

One of the academics leading the excavation, Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University, said the question of why they had been brought so far had niggled academics and travellers for more than a thousand years.

His colleague, Professor Geoffrey...