Stonehenge’s Biggest Mystery Could Finally Have an Explanation

Stonehenge has never been short of mysteries, but one question has become especially difficult to ignore: how did one of its central stones travel hundreds of miles to Salisbury Plain thousands of years ago? The stone in question is not one of the monument’s giant sarsens, but the six-tonne Altar Stone lying partly buried near the centre of the site.

A major 2024 study showed that the Altar Stone came from the Orcadian Basin in north-east Scotland, not Wales as long believed. Now, a newer theory suggests a possible missing step in that journey: Ice Age glaciers may have carried the stone part of the way before people later moved it to Stonehenge.