4,000-year-old, 28-ton mystery stones in England were not carried by ice

A new study has shown that 23-foot-high Devil’s Arrows standing stones in England were deliberately moved kilometres from their original site over 4,000 years ago. A team of researchers from Curtin University and the University of York noted that the Arrows in Boroughbridge in northern England were transported from the Millstone Grit outcrops at Brimham Rocks, more than 17 kilometres from their current location.

The researchers reconstructed a glacial movement scenario to explain how the nearly 28-ton stones reached this place. But the theory failed. Further analysis showed the Devil’s Arrows were the result of "purposeful extraction and transport of megaliths from a specific,

geomorphologically distinctive upland source rather than the opportunistic use of local stone."

The Devil's Rocks sit in an area of 570 feet and are believed to have been erected around 2000 BCE during the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. But they weren't picked up without any thought. “Our research shows these stones weren’t simply taken from the nearest available source—they were deliberately chosen from a challenging landscape,” lead author Anthony Clarke said.

Previous research had indicated that the three stones came from the much closer Plumpton Rocks. Now the latest findings hint that instead they came from a much farther location. They studied the "fingerprints" of the mineral grains found on the rocks by removing them from the stones using adhesive tape. This matched them to Brimham Rocks.

The prehistoric people put great thought into the landscape and carefully chose the megaliths, even if it meant towing them over great distances. "It wasn’t just about convenience. The location the stones came from likely held meaning for them," Clarke said.

It highlights that they valued shared belief systems and put immense effort into transporting the stones, each of which weighed nearly 28 tons.