In the murky light of a prehistoric dawn, thousands of people gather to witness the birth of a new year. The winter solstice at Stonehenge is a time of feasting as the Sun rises between two of the giant standing stones. From now on, days will get longer and warmth will slowly return to the soil tilled by these neolithic farmers.
This is the accepted view of the ancient site’s role — but research is revealing that an earlier Stonehenge may have served a quite different purpose.
A scientist says that the stones were in fact a graveyard for members of