A new "Superhenge" monument located near the famous Stonehenge site in Southwest England was found buried underneath Durrington Walls recently.
Researchers from the University of Bradford announced Monday a discovery of roughly 100 column-like stones laid out in a C-shaped row. The stones were likely placed in formation about 4,500 years ago.
"What we are starting to see is the largest surviving stone monument, preserved underneath a bank, that has ever been discovered in Britain and possibly in Europe," Vince Gaffney, an archaeologist at Bradford University who leads the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape project,
told The Guardian U.K. "This is archaeology on steroids."
Professor Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology,
told CNN that the researchers did not have to excavate to discover the new stone formation.
"Our high-resolution ground-penetrating radar data has revealed an amazing row of up to 90 standing stones, a number of which have survived after being pushed over, and a massive bank placed over the stones," he explained.
"In the east, up to 30 stones . . . have survived below the bank whereas elsewhere the stones are fragmentary or represented by massive foundation pits."
The stones are buried under roughly three feet of dirt, and some likely stood 15 feet tall before being toppled.
The superhenge site is located just two miles away from the world-famous Stonehenge monument.
"Everything written previously about the Stonehenge landscape and the ancient monuments within it will need to be rewritten," Paul Garwood, an archaeologist and lead historian on the project at the University of Birmingham, told CNN.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.