A quiet hillside near Stonehenge turns out to have its own solstice story, and it starts earlier.
Researchers say ancient people were celebrating the solstice at Bulford, about 5 kilometers east of Stonehenge, 500 years before the stones were arranged there. At the site, people watched the sun rise and set between two wooden posts placed nearly 122 meters apart.
The Bulford alignment is the oldest known among Neolithic sites in the Wiltshire area and may have served as a prototype for nearby places including Stonehenge, Durrington Walls and Avebury.
The site first came to light in the mid-2010s, when Britain’s Ministry of Defense asked Wessex Archaeology to excavate the area before new accommodation was built for soldiers. Between 2015 and 2017, archaeologists dug nearly 50 pits filled with pottery, animal bones, stone tools and charcoal, evidence that large numbers of people gathered there.
Radiocarbon dating placed the site at 2950 B.C.E. Its link to the sun became clear later, when lead archaeologist Phil Harding reviewed the site plan and noticed that the line between the two largest postholes appeared to match the midsummer sunrise.
Fabio Silva, a skyscape archaeologist, then reconstructed the sky, landscape and horizon from the period and confirmed Harding’s finding. Harding called it “one of the greatest finds of my career.”
Based on the depth of the post pits, archaeologists estimate the wooden posts stood 2.7 to 4 meters high. A smaller pit, aligned with the posts, contained a rare disc-shaped flint that researchers say may have symbolised the sun.
“The alignment shows that communities were already engaging with both the summer and winter solstices in the Stonehenge landscape, centuries before the sarsen stones were raised,” Silva said in a statement.
“Rather than marking the beginning of a story, Stonehenge now more clearly appears to have emerged from traditions and practices with much deeper roots in this landscape.”
The article says Bulford is not the earliest alignment site in the British Isles. Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales, Maeshowe off the north coast of Scotland and Newgrange in Ireland all predate it.
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