Sunrise is a beautiful time on Salisbury Plain. A long time ago, people built Stonehenge. It is 4 and 1/2 thousand years old. The people who built it wanted to show the movement of the sun. They put big stones in special positions. If you stand in the middle of Stonehenge on a summer day, the sun comes up exactly in line with one of the stones. The people who built Stonehenge used simple tools and technology. They worked very hard to build it. Now, we know that they might have tried to build something like it before. Not far from Stonehenge, archaeologists found two old holes in the ground. These holes are 120 meters apart. They were made 500 years before Stonehenge.
The holes are very interesting. They show us that the people who built them wanted to line them up with the sun. This is similar to what was done at Stonehenge. The holes were found in a place called Bulford. Today, it is a housing estate for the army. A long time ago, there were big posts in these holes. The posts were between 2 and 4 meters high. But they have rotted away now. We can still see how the holes line up with the sun. The positions of the sun, moon, and stars change very slowly. So, we have to reconstruct the sky to see how it looked 5,000 years ago. Then, we can see that the holes are exactly in line with the summer solstice sunrise and the winter solstice sunset.
The artifacts found at the site are very important. They help us date the discovery. We found an antler that was used as a tool. We also found a beautiful piece of pottery. It has little cordon marks on it. And we found a discoidal knife. It is rounded and very well made. Maybe the shape of the knife is a reference to the sun. The people who built Stonehenge and the people who lived in Bulford were farmers. They needed to know about the seasons. The discovery of the holes is very exciting. It tells us more about the people who lived 5,000 years ago.
