Stonehenge

According to Merriam Webster, ruins means the remaining pieces of something that was destroyed. Whenever I hear the word 'ruin', I always think of ancient land that is no longer in tact but artifacts were left behind. With those artifacts, archeologists are able to assess what the site used to be, what it was used for and who lived there. Visiting a public artifact, like Bathes and Stonehenge, was truly a privilege. Focusing on Stonehenge, I was baffled in its presence and how it defied how I defined "ruins".

The earliest structures known in the immediate area are four or five pits, three of which appear to have held large pine ‘totem-pole like’ posts erected in the Mesolithic period, between 8500 and 7000 BC. Nobody knows if these are relevant to Stonehenge. n about 2500 BC the stones were set up in the centre of the monument. Two types of stone are used at Stonehenge – the larger sarsens and the smaller ‘bluestones. These made up in the inner horseshoe and outer circle.

Being a tourist, I was in awe as to how the stones were preserved, untouched and maintained for thousands of years, especially when in 1897, the area became a training area for the British military. Stonehenge impacts the way society thinks about the past. Much of society, when they think of those who lived before us, were not intelligent. Honestly, it is quite the opposite. Although we do not completely understand the purpose of these stones, researchers are able to interpret that stone signifies death and this may had been a sacred burial ground. Another theory proposes that the monument’s entrance faces the rising sun on the day of the summer solstice. For many, this orientation suggests that ancient astronomers may have used Stonehenge as a kind of solar calendar to track the movement of the sun and moon and mark the changing seasons. These two theories display their intelligence.

As for the present, Stonehenge has impacted England and the rest of the world with the mystery of what these stones were truly for. Reading through many sites, so many state that they have the interpretation that has been accepted by many. Well, how many is many? Stonehenge impact on the world today is that we do not have an answer. Not having an answer for something in today's time is crazy considering the amount of technology that has developed and will only further drive people to find answers.

In the future, in the search for the answer of what Stonehenge was truly designed for, will have a huge impact on history and technology. The Smithsonian wrote about a man, Vince Gaffney. Gaffney's greatest research effort, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, is a four-year collaboration between a British team and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria that has produced the first detailed underground survey of the area surrounding Stonehenge, totaling more than four square miles. This astonishing research affects the future in the development of technology and will only lead to greater achievements.

Sources:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ruin
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history/#footnote-1
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-lies-beneath-Stonehenge-180952437/?no-ist
http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/why-was-stonehenge-built