Archaeologists in Denmark have uncovered the “Danish Stonehenge” in what has been called a “once in a lifetime find”.
The discovery of a circular formation of wooden piles date back to around 2,000 BC and Danish archeologists say they have a “strong connection” to the famous prehistoric Stonehenge structure in the UK.
The 4,000-year-old 45 neolithic-era wooden pieces, arranged in a 100-foot-diameter circle and around 2 metres apart, were found accidentally during work on a housing estate in the town of Aars.
Sidsel Wahlin, conservationist at the Vesthimmerland museum in Aars, said, “It is a once in a lifetime find” and added that the circle “points to a strong connection with the British henge world”.
The two circular structures at Stonehenge – which feature a small circle surrounded in a horseshoe shape by a larger one – were thought to have been erected sometime between 3100 BC and 1600 BC.
In Aars, work is now being undertaken to establish whether a smaller inner circle exists similarly.
“When I and my colleague opened a new section of the excavation the expected house and some fence quickly turned out to be the entrance area of a very well planned, slightly oval structure,” she explained.
Previously, some timber circles involved in the practice of worshipping the sun have been found on the Danish island of Bornholm.
But, Wahlin explained, the recent discovery is “the first one of this larger type that we can properly investigate”.
Before the discovery of the 45 wooden pieces, archaeologists uncovered an early Bronze Age settlement, dating between 1700 and 1500 BC. In the settlement was a chieftain’s grave and a bronze sword.
