Episode 378

A prototype Stonehenge has been discovered - an even older structure that may have been a first attempt at building the famous megalithic calendar. 

A team led by archaeologist Phil Harding, best-known for the TV series ‘Time Team’, discovered a range of artefacts at a site near Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. 

Excavations at Bulford uncovered pottery, animal bones, flints - and something even more telling. Signs of a structure of wooden poles were found, that line up directly with the summer solstice sun.

Phil Harding joins Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet to discuss what he found and why it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

To read more about these stories, visit https://www.newscientist.com/

Image Credits:

Wessex Archaeology - www.wessexarch.co.uk 

Marijane Porter

Dr Fabio Silva

garethwiscombe, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Andrew Dunn, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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