Stonehenge Was A Hospital. Not a fortress, or a temple, or a calendar.

[Dover]

The new archaeological theory as to why huge monoliths were dragged from Wales to Salisbury Plain is utterly convincing

Simon Jenkins
Friday December 1, 2006
The Guardian

The Stonehenge mystery is solved. I always knew there was something odd about the "Amesbury archer". He died circa 2300BC and was rediscovered near the henge in Wiltshire in 2002, one of the most sensational prehistoric corpses ever found. His hair was laced with gold, the earliest found in England. His grave contained traces of fine clothes and implements of archery and copper-working. Analysis of his bones and teeth revealed that he came from central Europe, probably Switzerland, with possessions from Spain and France. Was this evidence of invasion? Was the Amesbury archer a Beaker lord of Stonehenge and were foreigners perhaps responsible for moving its giant bluestones from Wales?

One thing about the archer was strange. He was missing a kneecap, requiring him to walk with one leg rigid. Bone deterioration suggested that the deformity took place years before his death. He was an improbable warrior, more likely a rich trader. Besides, near him lay a younger male revealed (such being the wonders of science) as a close relative brought up in south-east England. So what was this wealthy but disabled man doing in the shadow of Stonehenge, far from his and his putative son's birthplace?
Cut to the hallowed meeting room of the Society of Antiquaries in London last October. It was packed with excited Stonehenge pundits (the serious ones), gathered to hear news from the front. The origin of Stonehenge is British archaeology's oldest unsolved mystery, its Fermat's last theorem. How the four-ton bluestones were brought to Salisbury Plain from the Preseli hills of south Wales has been answered by engineers, but nobody has found out why.

Why go to the colossal expense of such transportation, when Stonehenge's sandstone monoliths were dragged from down the road at Marlborough? What was so special about the bluestones? To this the Gog and Magog of Stonehenge studies, Professors Geoff Wainwright and Timothy Darvill, were to give their answer. Theirs was archaeology's noblest endeavour, to pull the sword of meaning from the stone of time...cont'd

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1961516,00.html

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Early Sketch of Stonehenge Found

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1957748,00.html