Curator Win Scutt, who oversees the monument for English Heritage, suspects that Olympics-like contests might have been held there
Stonehenge was Britain’s first sports stadium, according to a new theory from a top expert. Curator Win Scutt, who oversees the monument for English Heritage, suspects that Olympics-like contests might have been held there.
He believes that Stone Age competitors would take on each other in battles of speed, strength and skill at the prehistoric site 4,500 years ago with crowds of punters cheering on. Mr Scutt said it would have been similar to the Panhellenic Games, the athletic and religious festivals of ancient Greece, where competitions ranged from foot races and javelin to unarmed combat.
And he argued that even the construction of Stonehenge might also have been a contest because the huge standing slabs were brought to Salisbury Plain from the west of Wales and northern Scotland.
He explained: “I think there were probably games, just like the Panhellenic Games. I think there might have been a sport in getting these stones here – teams of people, a bit of competition.”
It has previously been thought that gatherings that took place there featured feasting and ritual and the structure could have been a temple or burial ground.
The Stonehenge Cursus is a colossal earthwork stretching nearly two miles across the landscape to the monument’s north.
When 17th-century boffins encountered it, they assumed it must be Roman because its long, straight form reminded them of a racing track so they gave it the Latin name cursus, meaning course.
Mr Scutt said: “With the Stonehenge Cursus, I think we should at least consider that this was not simply a route or a boundary. It may have been a place of gathering, display, movement and performance, perhaps even competition.”
Evidence for large gatherings includes huge quantities of pig bones found at the site, with chemical analysis showing the animals came from as far afield as Scotland, northeast England and west Wales.
Scholars believe these were the first “pan-Britain events” because the stones themselves – the largest weighing a whopping 25 tonnes – travelled great distances.
Mr Scutt added: “If groups of people are doing different tasks – excavating a ditch, moving stones – you would expect some friendly competition, ‘We can do a better job than you.’ Especially if they were coming from different areas.”
The idea of it having been a sports venue emerged as English Heritage unveiled the UK’s most sophisticated replica of a prehistoric building: a seven-metre-tall neolithic hall, now part of the Stonehenge visitor centre.