Stonehenge is a famous ring of huge stones in England. It was built about 5,000 years ago. Scientists studied where the stones came from. The biggest stones came from about 25 kilometers away.

Some smaller stones came from Wales. The Altar Stone, which weighs six tonnes, came from Scotland, more than 700 kilometers away! People long ago moved it a very long way.

Stonehenge, built in stages from about 5,000 years ago, contains three kinds of stone, and each came from a different place. In 2020, scientists compared the chemistry of a core sample with stones across southern England and found that most of the giant sarsen stones came from West Woods, about 25 kilometers north.

The smaller bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in Wales, about 225 kilometers away, where quarries have been found. Most surprisingly, a 2024 study used the ages of tiny mineral grains to show that the six-tonne Altar Stone came from northeast Scotland, more than 700 kilometers away. Exactly how people moved such a heavy stone so far has not been worked out.

Stonehenge was assembled in stages from roughly 5,000 years ago, using stones from very different places. In 2020, researchers analyzed a core drilled out of one of the sarsens during restoration work in 1958. The core had been missing for about sixty years. Its chemical fingerprint matched 50 of the 52 surviving sarsens and pointed to West Woods, about 25 kilometers north.

The smaller bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in Wales, roughly 225 kilometers away. Excavations there have found quarries worked around the time Stonehenge was first built, which weakens the minority view that glaciers carried the stones. The biggest surprise was the six-ton Altar Stone. In 2024, a team measured the ages of individual zircon, apatite, and rutile grains inside it.

Their combination matched sandstone in northeast Scotland's Orcadian Basin, at least 750 kilometers away, although the exact quarry has not been identified. Nobody knows how the stone made the journey, and sea transport is one possibility. A 2026 simulation even allowed glaciers to carry it part of the way, but people would still have had to move it around 400 kilometers. Moving it that far would have required people across Neolithic Britain to work together.