sarsen

It is known that Stonehenge's smaller bluestones were brought from the Preseli Hills in south-west Wales but the precise origin of the much larger sarsens is unknown.

Prof Parker Pearson and his team believe that the bluestones were erected at Stonehenge around 2900 BC, long before the giant sarsens were put up around 2500 BC.

Instead, Sarsens offered the customer its CC 8800-1 crawler in combination with a Boom Booster kit to make the lift possible.

Its skilled construction out of stones as big as Stonehenge sarsens supports her guess that not all giants are stupid, (17) and its dilapidated condition testifies to centuries of wind and weather.

Recent advances in silcrete research and their implications for the origin and palaeoenvironmental significance of sarsens. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 109: 255-270.

The real Stonehenge, near Salisbury, dates back more than 2,500 years and includes towering stones called sarsens, standing more than 4m tall and weighing 25 tonnes.

He said: "At Stonehenge the dark navy-colored bluestones may themselves represent ancestors or spirits from the underworld, while the big orangey-pink (before weathering) sarsens could reflect summer and light."

Unlike the sarsens, the source of the bluestones remained unknown for centuries until in 1923 the geologist H.H.

There were bluestones at Stonehenge before the arrival of the sarsens, but the present bluestone circle is not a true circle, suggesting that it was laid out after the inner sarsen uprights were erected, thus preventing an accurate circle being drawn by a measuring cord fixed at the centre.

What kind of material they are made of is unknown, but they could be similar to the giant sandstone "sarsens" of Stonehenge.

If the early Bronze Age date is correct, when the hedges were planted the Stonehenge monument already had the formation now familiar to millions of tourists, after centuries when the small bluestones from west Wales and the gigantic sarsens from the Stonehenge plain were continually rearranged.