Daily PRESS — 20 июня 2026 г. в 12:23:49.822
Daily PRESS NEWS In Ancient Pits Near Stonehenge, Scientists See Hints of Solstice Ritual British archaeologists may have found the remains of a site where people celebrated the solstice thousands of years ago, a few miles from the famed stone circle. Amelia Nierenberg By Amelia Nierenberg Reporting from London June 18, 2026 See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The New York Times on Google British archaeologists said on Thursday that they had discovered the remnants of an ancient site that they believe was used for solstice gatherings thousands of years ago, just three miles from Stonehenge, the world-famous rock structure in southern England. The archaeologists announced that they had uncovered two ancient pits in the village of Bulford that they believed were used to create a structure aligned with the solstices — some 500 years before the iconic rocks at Stonehenge were erected. The archaeologists said they believed that the pits in Bulford, some 400 feet apart, held wooden poles that formed a line that pointed toward the sun during the solstices. The pits were excavated between 2015 and 2017, but the archaeology team said it had reached its conclusions after years of analysis, including by mapping out how the sky, landscape and horizon would have interacted at the time. “The sun was incredibly important to these prehistoric communities,” Phil Harding, who led the excavations with Wessex Archaeology, an independent British archaeology organization, said in a statement. “They could plot and record its midsummer rising to a high degree of accuracy,” he added.