Stonehenge Altar Stone came from Scotland, study finds

What happened

The Altar Stone at the center of Stonehenge, long believed to have been hauled to southwest England from Wales, was actually transported more than 450 miles from northeastern Scotland, a team of geologists reported in the journal Nature. 

Archaeologists believe the six-ton sandstone megalith was "installed at Stonehenge during the second construction phase, around 2620 B.C. to 2480 B.C.," The New York Times said.

Who said what

The researchers, led by Welsh doctoral student Anthony Clarke at Australia's Curtin University, examined two slivers of the Altar Stone and determined it came from Scotland's Orcadian Basin. So it was either "dragged 500 miles or more overland by our Neolithic forebears, before the invention of the wheel," The Washington Post said, or it was "ferried via sea by Stone Age mariners," the theory favored by the researchers. 

The discovery suggests that "Neolithic Britain was a far more connected and advanced society than earlier evidence indicated," the BBC said. With stones from England, Scotland and Wales, Clarke said, "Stonehenge seems to be this great British endeavor involving all the different people from all over the island."

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What next?

This "genuinely shocking" discovery will prompt archaeologists to dig into how the stone was moved "and, more intriguing, why," Robert Ixer, a University College London mineralogist who collaborated on the project, said to the BBC. At this point, "your guess is about as good as theirs," the Post said, "which is why Stonehenge remains 'a wonder of the world.'"