There are many people who see the Stonehenge site as a place of healing, even in the present day. Britain's Geoffrey Wainwright, president of the London Society of Antiquaries, and Timothy Darvill, were two such men to suggest it was once used as a type of pilgrimage site for those in need of healing. In 2008, they concluded this based on the amount of burials around Stonehenge which pointed towards evidence of trauma and deformity.
"It was the magical qualities of these stones which … transformed the monument and made it a place of pilgrimage for the sick and injured of the Neolithic world,” the men said.
In addition to the suggestion of Wainwright and Darvill that many of the bones and skeletons recovered were obviously ones that once belonged to people that were ill or injured, the men also pointed towards the discovery of fragments of the Stonehenge bluestone. These are known to be the first stones erected at the site and appeared as though they had been chipped away by the ancient people. The men reckoned that the way in which they had been shaped and fashioned suggested that they were used as talismans for healing and/or protective purposes.
There is another account which may lend support towards this theory. It is widely disputed however, it could have some semblance of helpful truth to it. During the first century BC, a Greek historian by the name of Diodorus Siculus, cited an account which had since been lost but said to have been taken down three hundred years before that time, which told of "a magnificent precinct sacred to Apollo and a notable spherical temple". The location of the site had apparently been described as the island in the north that sits opposite what was by then known as France. The potential significance of Apollo in this account is that Apollo is the Greek God of healing and medicine.
2 Observatory
One of the most popular of all the many theories of the who’s, how’s and why’s surrounding the existence of Stonehenge, is the one that says it acted as some sort of astronomical observatory. It was initially thought by some to mark mid-summer. However, according to The New Scientist, there has been far more recent evidence which points at Stonehenge being used more often than just for that purpose. It appears that it was also used to during the winter solstice when sun sets between the largest of the central arches. Then there are further suggestion again that Stonehenge was a tool used in the prediction of both solar and lunar eclipses.
There are many reasons why the monument may have been built in the first place but one of the main factors which points towards it being erected as an astronomical observatory, is that it was almost certainly built with the sun being some sort of consideration. As mentioned above, the sun sets between one of the major avenues during the winter solstice. There is evidence around Stonehenge which suggest a feast or celebration around this time as pigs were known to have been slaughtered at Stonehenge in December and January. This of course points towards celebrations or rituals at the time of the winter solstice.
It might be worth considering the Neolithic Britons who would have used Stonehenge, as difficult as that may seem considering we don’t know that much about them. However, we might guess that they could very well have worshipped celestial beings as gods. If this was the case, then their desire to observe the skies and track the movements would have run much deeper than a curiosity, in fact, they may have felt that their very existence depended upon it. So it makes me wonder if that lends more support to the theory of this place being used as an observatory, given that it would have been totally necessary to be as accurate as possible. Or perhaps it detracts from the theory based simply on the fact that we are beginning to talk about two very separate things as the same; religion and astronomy.
There might be another thing to consider whilst we are on the subject of Neolithic Britons, and that is their abilities. This is prehistory we are talking about after all which means that, of course, there are no written records to examine. But it also makes you wonder if they had not yet developed a written language, would they have been capable of the complex mathematical and astronomical capabilities required to construct Stonehenge?
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