Mysterious Monument Found in England Is Older Than Stonehenge

Bright Side

Stonehenge is world-famous for its ancient mystery—but what if it’s not the oldest monument in the UK? Recent research reveals that Flagstones, a lesser-known site, predates it by over 200 years. This video uncovers the mystery of Flagstones, its cremated burial secrets, and how radiocarbon dating changed our understanding of British prehistory.  Animation is created by Bright Side.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00Stonehenge is famous, but it isn't the oldest UK monument of its kind in England.

00:05That title belongs to Flagstones, a site that predates Stonehenge by about 200 years.

00:12In fact, it's possible that whoever built Stonehenge might have been copycats,

00:17or perhaps, as some prefer, inspired by flagstones.

00:24Let's start unraveling the mystery of flagstones by looking at its exact age.

00:29To crack this ancient puzzle, scientists turned to a powerful technique, radiocarbon-dating prehistoric monuments.

00:37This method works on organic materials like wood, bone, or charcoal that are up to about 60,000 years old.

00:44Each of these materials contains something called carbon-14.

00:49When an organism passes away, its carbon-14 starts to break down at a predictable rate.

00:55By measuring how much is left, scientists can estimate the age of these ancient objects.

01:01The method is really impressive, so it doesn't come as a surprise that the inventor of this method was awarded the Nobel Prize.

01:08Radiocarbon-dating has revealed that people built flagstones around 3,200 BCE,

01:15making it older than even the earliest parts of Stonehenge.

01:18But the mystery of flagstones is just beginning to unfold.

01:22Flagstones is located in Dorset, in southwest England, about 37 miles away from Stonehenge.

01:30It was discovered in the 1980s, when workers were building a new road.

01:35Archaeologists dug up a huge circular ditch about 330 feet wide, made with overlapping pits.

01:41Inside the pits, they found the remains of at least seven people,

01:46a cremated adult, three young individuals, and three other adults whose bodies were partly cremated.

01:53This shows that people could have used the site as an ancient cremation burial site.

01:59Flagstones is basically a big, ancient circle that popped up right where early farming communities were spending their time.

02:06If you went there today, you wouldn't see any obvious walls or banks.

02:11But if you look inside the pits that make up the circle, you'll find chalk rubble from both sides.

02:17That's a clue that when people dug these pits, they used the dirt and chalk they took out to build up banks both inside and outside the circle.

02:26This special spot sits right in the middle of a whole bunch of other really old monuments and sites,

02:34which were built over thousands of years during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.

02:39Experts have figured out the ages of some of these nearby places really well.

02:43For example, the ditch at Maiden Castle dates back to around 3,600 BCE.

02:51And the Big Henge at Mount Pleasant was built around 2,600 BCE.

02:57Today, half of flagstones is under that road,

03:01and the other half is under an old historic house looked after by the National Trust.

03:06You can find objects from the site at the Dorset Museum.

03:10Because flagstones and early Stonehenge look so similar with round enclosures, pits, and cremated burials,

03:18scientists used to think they appeared at the same time.

03:21But thanks to radiocarbon dating, we now know flagstones.

03:26This ancient cremation burial site is the earliest big circular monument ever found in Britain.

03:32To figure out how old the site really is,

03:35researchers tested things like human bones, red deer antlers, and charcoal found there.

03:42One of the most puzzling discoveries was a young man who was buried under a huge sarsen stone in the middle of the circle.

03:49Someone left him there about 1,000 years after people used the site for the first time.

03:54This find just added to the mystery of flagstones.

03:57You're probably wondering about the flagstones versus Stonehenge comparison.

04:03Well, the latter is a mystery on its own, a big old circle of giant stones in the south of England.

04:09Those who made it didn't write anything down, so we don't know exactly what they were thinking.

04:14One old tale says that King Arthur's wizard, Merlin, used magic to move the stones from Ireland,

04:21where giants had put them together.

04:23Another story says that people from Denmark built it.

04:27Today, some people think extraterrestrial visitors made it.

04:32A man named John Aubrey started studying Stonehenge in the 1660s.

04:37He thought the Celts had built it for their priests, called Druids.

04:41But that turned out to be wrong.

04:43Radiocarbon dating of this prehistoric monument shows that its constructors built it in phases over several centuries.

04:50The construction started around 3,100 BCE and continued till around 1,600 BCE.

04:58First, about 5,000 years ago, it was just a round ditch in the ground.

05:03Then people added wooden posts.

05:05Around 2,600 BCE, they brought big blue stones from Wales.

05:11Later, they added sarsens, even bigger stones, each weighing as much as five elephants.

05:17They moved those stones from 19 miles away and placed them in a big circle with five tall stone arches shaped like a horseshoe.

05:27Experts think building Stonehenge took more than 20 million hours of hard work.

05:33And that's a lot of teamwork, strength, and planning for people who didn't even have machines.

05:39These days, there are a few different ideas about what Stonehenge was really used for.

05:46Some experts think it was a sacred place where people gathered for religious ceremonies.

05:51Others believe it was an early kind of science center used to study the sky and track time.

05:57Both groups noticed that the stones at Stonehenge are lined up with the sun and moon.

06:02So people may have used the site to mark the changing seasons, especially during the summer and winter solstices.

06:09Some think it worked like a giant calendar, helping people figure out dates or predict things like solar eclipses.

06:17Stonehenge was an ancient cremation burial site too, at least for some time.

06:22Anyway, if we continue with the Flagstones vs. Stonehenge comparison, we can't but dwell more on the age of these monuments.

06:33Flagstones is older than Stonehenge.

06:35In fact, it's one of the oldest UK monuments.

06:38It's really special because it's the most ancient big round enclosure ever found in Britain.

06:44According to the newest studies, its age is about 5,200 years old.

06:50After it was built, more and more round monuments started popping up in other places too.

06:57Before its construction, most ancient monuments were long and straight,

07:01like rectangular barrows or burial mounds or long ditches called cursus monuments.

07:07Some had even more random shapes.

07:10But the Flagstones monument shows a big change.

07:14People were starting to build in circles instead.

07:16Some experts think this idea of circular monuments might have come from Ireland,

07:21where people were already burying cremated bodies in round tombs.

07:27On the other hand, even though Flagstones has turned out to be older than Stonehenge,

07:32the new findings suggest that Stonehenge might need to be redated.

07:36Some of the objects found at Stonehenge, like animal bones, are actually older than the main structure itself.

07:42For example, near the entrances to Stonehenge,

07:46archaeologists found deer bones and cattle skulls that date to around 3,200 BCE.

07:53Experts used to think that people kept those bones for a long time before burying them.

07:58But it's possible there was an early version of Stonehenge made from overlapping pits

08:03that existed before the big circular ditch was built around 2,900 BCE.

08:09Now, could Flagstones and Stonehenge have been part of a bigger shared tradition?

08:15Could there have been other ancient cremation burial sites in the UK?

08:19After all, these constructions aren't the only round prehistoric monuments in Britain.

08:25In Wales, there's a similar site, called Hlandegaihenge, which also looks like a circular burial place.

08:31Such a way of burying the deceased might have been a common custom across the UK

08:36because you can see similar structures in Eastern Ireland.

08:40In the Boyne Valley, for example,

08:43there are ancient places like the Mound of the Hostages that people used in the same way.

08:49Now, researchers want to do more digging in Ireland to see if some of those monuments were built before 3,200 BCE.

08:56If they're even older than Flagstones, they might help explain where the idea of building round burial sites started

09:04and why people across Britain and Ireland were building them.

09:08The more we learn, the better we'll understand what these sites were really for

09:12and how the people back then might have shared beliefs and traditions across the sea.

09:18Hopefully, one day, we'll figure out the mystery of Flagstones, one of the oldest monuments in the UK.

09:24That's it for today.

09:26So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:31Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.

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