Thinking about the feasibility of transporting the 6-tonne altar stone overland to Stonehenge from north-east Scotland (Stonehenge megalith came from Scotland, not Wales, ‘jaw-dropping’ study finds, 14 August) puts one in mind of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, during the filming of which a 320-tonne ship was actually dragged across a mountain in Peru. Perhaps the Neolithic workforce was led by the equivalent of a wild-eyed Klaus Kinski.
Bill Britnell
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
• The origin of the Stonehenge altar stone is indeed “jaw‑dropping”. Large-scale Neolithic sites have been known about in Orkney for many years. After 20 years’ excavating, only about 10% of the Ness of Brodgar complex has been uncovered. Mike Pitts’ Stonehenge‑centric outlook has got things the wrong way round, however. He says “it suggests that the site [Stonehenge] was known not just to people in the south, but over a much wider area”. On the contrary – it suggests that people in the south, when starting to create the Stonehenge site, were aware of the larger and older developments in Orkney.
Alan Thorpe
Farnham, Surrey
• So just how did the altar stone get the 450 miles to Stonehenge from north-east Scotland? Might I conjecture that Neolithic judges wanted to avoid filling prisons with convicted rioters so sentenced them to drag huge stones across the country as a punishment? Now there’s a thought.
Toby Wood
Peterborough
• It’s a shame Neolithic skills and ingenuity for completing complex infrastructure projects haven’t been handed down to teams responsible for completing today’s grand designs such as HS2, or the renovation of the Houses of Parliament.
Sam White
Lewes, East Sussex
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