- Nearby site demarcated 8000 BCE
- First Stonehenge circles, 3100 BCE
- Used for religious ceremonies through Druid times
Medieval writers had no idea what Stonehenge was
- First reference to Stonehenge, 1100s AD
- Geoffrey of Monmouth: built in AD 470 (wrong) by a Roman, Aurelius Ambrosis (wrong), rocks transported by Merlin (wrong)
- Geoffrey's Merlin is a conflation of the Welsh prince Myrddin ab Morfryn and Vortigern's prophet Ambrosius (Nennius, H.B.)
- This claim repeated for ~300 years without any alternative stories, then forgotten
- Geoffrey of Monmouth: built in AD 470 (wrong) by a Roman, Aurelius Ambrosis (wrong), rocks transported by Merlin (wrong)
- In 1620, it is generally believed to be Roman
- Druidic theory first proposed in 1690s by John Aubrey in unpublished, lost dissertation
Source: T.D. Kendrick, The Druids, 1966 (reprint of 1928)