STONEHENGE AND THE STARS 253 



1400 B.C. as the appropriate date for Britain, but 

 thinks that his estimate probably errs by being 

 too near our own times. Professor Gowland agrees 

 with this latter view, and thinks that a country 

 where copper and tin were both so accessible and 

 so easily discoverable and " no country in the 

 world presented greater facilities for their dis- 

 covery " would also be a country in which they 

 would come comparatively early into use. He 

 thinks that it would be safe to date the commence- 

 ment of the Bronze Age in Britain as far back as 

 1800 B.C. and to assign to a similar date the con- 

 struction of Stonehenge. This is, perhaps, as near 

 an approximation to the date of this famous monu- 

 ment as we can ever hope to reach. 



It now remains to be seen whether any further 

 light has been thrown upon the origin or use of 

 this edifice. There seems little doubt that Stone- 

 henge and its kindred must have been religious 

 temples of some kind. It is difficult to suppose 

 that any other incentive than one of a religious or 

 a military character would have led to the con- 

 struction of buildings and earthworks which must 

 have cost such a vast amount of time and labour. 

 Military they clearly were not, for even at Ave- 

 bury, where there is a gigantic fosse and vallum 

 enclosing some twenty-eight acres, these structures 

 are turned in the reverse way to those of military 

 earthworks, and, indeed, are constructed in such 

 a manner as to be a source of danger rather than 

 of protection to those within their boundary, 

 should the place be attacked. By a process of 

 elimination we arrive, then, at a religious origin, 



