UK: Archaeologists unearth ancient giant circle of shafts near Stonehenge

Archaeologists have discovered wide circles of deep shafts surrounding an ancient settlement near the Stonehenge, Britain's most popular landmarks that attract whose purpose remains a mystery to scientists despite decades of research. According to the research published scientists have investigated the origins and meaning of the mysterious, prehistoric monument. 

According to reports, the archaeologists have described the finding as "astonishing" after the project, showed a circle of shafts, 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) in diameter, surrounding the settlement of Durrington Walls. Further, the excavation revealed that located about 2 miles northeast of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, the shafts dated back to some 4,500 years ago. One of the archaeologists, the lead researcher, was quoted as saying that Stonehenge and its landscape have been taken aback by the scale of the structure and the fact that it hadn't been discovered until now so close to Stonehenge.  

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Great efforts that went into digging

The ancient shafts, 10 meters (33 feet) wide, and 5 meters deep the site demonstrated that the Neolithic communities resided in the area that had a stringent belief system which the researchers discovered using the remote sensing technology and sampling. Gaffney further said that the researchers had invested great efforts that went into digging such large shafts with tools of stone, wood, and bone.  

Speaking about the heritage site, archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson of the UK's Sheffield University was quoted saying in a science journal that the researchers have excavated the outlines on the floors of box beds and wooden dressers or cupboards. Further, the houses have been radiocarbon dated to 2600-2500 B.C., the same period Stonehenge was built. One of the facts that lead the archaeologists to conclude that the people in the Durrington Walls houses were responsible for constructing Stonehenge was that few similar Neolithic houses have been found in the Orkney Islands off Scotland. 

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