Stonehenge had a hard Scottish heart, a new study suggests.
The ancient site’s central stone, a large slab known as the Altar Stone, consists of rock transported at least 750 kilometers from northeastern Scotland to southern England, say geoscientist Anthony Clarke of Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and colleagues.
An analysis of the age and chemical makeup of three types of mineral grains in two Altar Stone fragments identified a close match to corresponding measures for a Scottish rock formation known as the Orcadian Basin, the researchers report August 14 in Nature. Using the same measures, they ruled out other rock formations in the United Kingdom and Ireland as sources for the Altar Stone.