British scientists may have deciphered the mystery of the origin of the stones at Stonehenge

London - British scientists are convinced that they have finally managed to determine with certainty where the overwhelming majority of the stones used in the construction of the ancient megalithic complex at Stonehenge in southern England come from.
Employees from the National Museum of Wales and the University of Leicester have localized the origin of the building material for Stonehenge just a few dozen meters from Craig Rhos-y-felin near Pont Season. Museum director Richard Bevin emphasized that thanks to this surprising finding, scientists can now begin to address the mystery of how the stones were transported to Wiltshire.
For a long time, the scientific community believed that the builders of the Bronze Age complex obtained the stones from the Preseli hills.
Scientists collected samples from the outcrops in Pembrokeshire in order to uncover the origin of the stones in the complex near the southern English Amesbury. They analyzed their mineral composition and rock texture. Using this petrographic method, they found that 99 percent of the samples are identical to those in Pembrokeshire.
This is a volcanic rock known as rhyolite, which differs from other rocks in South Wales and is found exclusively over an area of just a few hundred square meters.
Once archaeologists know the origin of the stones, they can now proceed to verify how the stones from Pembroke were transported to Stonehenge between 3000 and 1600 BC. It was assumed that the heaviest pieces were transported on rafts along the River Avon and the Bristol Channel.
However, this hypothesis is complicated by the fact that Pont Season is located north of Preseli, relatively far from both waterways. The Bronze Age builders could theoretically have been aided by nature itself - due to the path of the glacier from the Ice Age, the stones could have been brought closer to Stonehenge. However, there are no other stones of the same origin in the aforementioned Welsh area, so this possibility is also not very likely.
In April 2000, an experiment was also conducted to transport a giant piece from Wales to Salisbury both overland and by sea. The route was 386 kilometers long, and only human power and technology from 5000 years ago were used during the transport. The boulder still lies on the seabed near the port of Milford Haven.