When we find ourselves faced with the imposing stones of the Stonehenge site, erected on the Salisbury plain, in the south of England, a question immediately comes to mind: but who could have built this megalithic circle, and how? A 5,000-year-old cow tooth could shed new light.
The story begins in 1924, when a bovine jawbone was discovered near the southern entrance to the monument. At the time, the discovery did not make much noise and was forgotten… until today. Scientists, in a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, decided to take out the old piece of skeleton to analyze a molar and reconstruct, in the process, the life of the bovine.
From Wales to carrying stones
Why does the story of this poor cow interest scientists so much? Quite simply because she died, according to the dating, between 2995 and 2900 BC. AD… that is to say at the very beginning of the construction of the monument! Enough, perhaps, to provide valuable clues about the lives of the builders of Stonehenge. And they weren’t wrong.
The isotopic analysis of the molar is particularly rich in information, and makes it possible to trace the movements and diet of the cow during the last six months of its life. By focusing on traces of lead, absorbed by the animals through their food, the researchers observed a very particular geological signature: the animal grazed on very old rocks… typical of Wales.
However, the nearest Welsh lands are more than 200 km from the Stonehenge site! So what is this Welsh cow doing on these lands? For scientists, it could well be that it participated, like other livestock, in the mysterious transport of the imposing stones of the monument, some of which weigh several tens of tons and were moved (until now we know how) over hundreds of kilometers during the Neolithic era.
If this hypothesis, supported by other studies, gains momentum, it in no way diminishes the logistical feat that this must have represented at the time. Moving the megaliths from the Preseli Hills in Wales would have required two to four months of travel, mobilizing crowds of livestock and groups of humans to handle logistics, says Smithsonian Magazine.
