The sunrise on Salisbury Plain is a beautiful sight. Stonehenge, which is 4 and 1/2 thousand years old, is a famous monument that shows the movement of the sun. The people who built it used big stones and placed them in special positions. If you stand in the middle of Stonehenge on a summer day, you can see that the sun rises exactly in line with one of the stones. The people who built Stonehenge used simple tools and technology to construct 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 that are 120 meters apart. These holes were made 500 years before Stonehenge.
The discovery of the holes is very interesting. They show us that the people who built them wanted to line them up with the sun, just like at Stonehenge. The holes were found in a place called Bulford, which is now 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 over time. 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, such as an antler and a piece of pottery, help us date the discovery and learn more about the people who lived there.
The discovery of the holes is very exciting. It tells us more about the people who lived 5,000 years ago and how they revered the sun and the seasons. The people who built Stonehenge and the people who lived in Bulford were farmers. They needed to know about the seasons to plant and harvest their crops. The discovery of the holes shows us that these people were very resourceful and able to use their knowledge of the sun and the stars to build something very special. The community that built the holes and Stonehenge was very advanced for its time, and we can learn a lot from their achievements.
