Researchers working on the island chain of the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland have found evidence of a previously unknown stone monument located a stone's throw from the famous Scottish Stonehenge.
The monument, recently discovered by scientists, is decorated with upright stones arranged in a circle around the spot, on which traces of powerful lightning strikes have been preserved. This is most likely no coincidence: new research shows that the structure of the monument itself may have been specifically designed to attract lightning.
The discovery made by researchers from the Callanish Virtual Reconstruction Project suggests that the stone monuments were somehow associated with, and possibly inspired by, powerful natural forces. Probably, the lightning made a huge impression on the people of the Neolithic era, who erected amazing structures. Details of this discovery were recently published in the scientific journal Remote Sensing.
Archaeologist Richard Bates of the University of St. Andrews and his colleagues were looking for evidence that stone circles previously unknown to archaeologists were buried underground near the so-called Callanish - a megalithic structure built about 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic period on Lewis Island. Earlier, more than a dozen places were marked by scientists as possible points of the location of "small circles" on the way to the main monument.
Red marks - these are stone obelisks, and a dark spot in the center - traces of lightning strikes.
These areas are currently covered with peat bogs, which mask a large part of the territory. Researchers used numerous non-invasive remote sensing techniques to study what lay beneath the swamps. As a result, they discovered a single stone monument located on a hill overlooking the Great Circle of Callanish. Geophysical analysis shows that the lone rock was also once part of a circle of vertically set stones.
Moreover, the scans showed a rather large "magnetic anomaly" in the center of this circle, which is approximately 4000 years old. According to new research, this magnetic anomaly was formed either by one large bolt of lightning, or by a series of small strikes hitting the same place.
"Such marks are rare because lightning strikes travel along the topmost layer of the earth's surface," explained Tim Rob, co-author of the new study at the University of St Andrews. "The legibility of the footprint suggests that it originated before peat consumed this land over 3,000 years ago." Researchers have never been able to determine whether the lightning strike occurred before or after the stone circle was erected.
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In the same press release, Richard Bates mentioned that the evidence of a lightning strike in the center of this stone circle is "hardly accidental." He added that the find is excellent evidence that the forces of nature may have been closely associated with the daily life and beliefs of the early farming communities on the island. “Building a stone circle, deliberately dominating the Callanish complex of monuments, could increase the chances of lightning strikes,” the study authors write. According to them, symbiotic relationships between Neolithic culture and natural phenomena are increasingly recognized in archaeological literature.
Typically, the construction of megalithic monuments such as Callanish is due in part to the changing seasons and the position of the sun in the sky. The new study is interesting in that it proves that lightning - a natural phenomenon previously underestimated by researchers - could also play an important role in this process.
Vasily Makarov