FINALLY! STONEHENGE ANCIENT BLUESTONES MATCH OUTCROP IN WALES -- 160 MILES AWAY

Geologists announced this week: Some of the volcanic bluestones in the inner ring of Stonehenge officially
match an outcrop in Wales that's 160 miles (257 kilometers) from the world-famous site.

The discovery leaves two big ideas standing about how the massive pieces of the monument arrived at Salisbury Plain: entirely by human hand, or partly by glacier. As it looks today, 5,000-year-old Stonehenge has an outer ring of 20- to 30-ton sandstone blocks and an inner ring and horseshoe of 3- to 5-ton volcanic bluestone blocks.

The monument's larger outer blocks, called the Sarsen stones, were likely quarried some 20 to 30 miles (32 to 48 kilometers) away in what's now England, where sandstone is a common material.

The origin of the bluestones, however, has weighed heavy on the hearts of archaeologists. Rocks resembling the material under a microscope haven't been found anywhere relatively near Stonehenge-at least until now. Pinpointing the stones' origins is crucial to understanding how so many heavy hunks of rock made their way to the open plain where Stonehenge now stands.

For about two decades, Ixer and study co-author Richard Bevins, of the National Museum of Wales, have searched for the origins of the bluestones in outcrops around Wales. As late as two years ago, the pair thought the blocks couldn't have come from the country-no samples from Welsh outcrops matched the Stonehenge blocks. But not all of the samples collected over 20 years had yet been prepared for examination under a microscope. To be absolutely certain, the geologists began slicing up their remaining rocks.

The rocky outcrop fingered by the duo's analysis is called Craig Rhos-y-Felin, which is now located on private land near a sheep farm. The site is a long, bush-covered set of crags the size of four double-decker buses. The new find leaves two prominent theories for how the Welsh rocks got to Salisbury.

Humans could have quarried the site and dragged the blocks on wooden rafts. Or a giant glacier may have chiseled off the blocks and ferried them about a hundred miles (160 kilometers) toward Stonehenge, with humans dragging them
the rest of the way. If humans did the digging, archaeologists might detect marks left by tools or some other evidence. But if signs of human quarrying are lacking, the glacier idea might gain the upper hand.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111222-stonehenge-bluestones-wales-match-glacier-ixer-ancient-science/