Discovery Led by Phil Harding Reveals 5,000-year-old ‘Prototype’ for Stonehenge Solar Alignment

[00:00:00]It is amazing to be standing here at Stonehenge and have the monument all to myself.

[00:00:08]In a few days time, this whole area will be absolutely cramming with people all here to celebrate the midsummer solstice as the sun rises over the heelstone.

[00:00:22]And yet, what few of them will understand is that 5,000 years ago on a rather bleak hillside over overlooking the village of Bulford 5 km in that direction a group of people were doing exactly the same thing, revering and capturing the rising of the sun on midsummer day.

[00:00:43]The date of this structure at Bulford is so important because it is so early.

[00:00:48]These big stones here came about 4 and 1/2 thousand years ago. So, our alignment is 500 years before the big sarsens came here.

[00:00:59]When I first actually examined the the the evidence that we'd excavated, we had 50 pits, but two of them were definitely different.

[00:01:09]And being an archaeologist, you want to the line them up. Where do they point? I got my pencil and ruler and I realized that it was pretty much parallel with a solstitial alignment at Stonehenge. So, we called in one of the foremost um archaeoastronomers in the country, Dr. Fabio Silva, and gave him the data and he applied all the latest computer programs to it.

[00:01:35]And yes, they are a solstitial alignment, 1° of variance from the solstitial alignment here. That's pretty accurate. When I first discovered this or realized that what I actually had was that important, it was one of those giggle moments and I just really could not believe that what I'd lived with for at least 3 years unconfirmed had now been confirmed.

[00:02:04]I reckon it's probably one of the greatest finds of my career. It is that important to me. It really is.