technology they used to farm as well as build the great monuments. The people of Wessex .
were less concerned with war and centered rather around art, poetry, and trade. Philosophically .
and scientifically the Wessex were far ahead of the rest of the world, some rival their ingenuity to .
that of the Ancient Greeks. In the graves of their chieftains, were goods such as daggers, bows, .
and various other ornaments. Their access to such luxuries can perhaps be attributed to their great .
international barters who probably traded with people from the Mediterranean Sea area. They .
built the final phase of Stonehenge, and brought about many cultural changes to the monument .
such as giving the monument visual magnificence, through artistic designs portraying the afterlife, .
and more astronomical precision.
It is important to understand the problems and great strife that was encountered during the.
assembling of Stonehenge. As well as to understand the process the surrounding environment was .
put through in order to start the great and unsurpassed undertaking. By the time Stonehenge was .
built, the landscape around the area on Salisbury Plain was rather open with more tilling soil and .
open prairie land, and less woodland. Underneath the first few feet of soil on Salisbury Plain there .
was a large layer of hard chalk, which made putting together rudimentary structures somewhat .
easier for the people of the era . .
The first phase of construction for Stonehenge was that of the earth monument, which .
consisted of a circular bank of dirt with a ditch running along the outside of the bank. There are .
two breaks in the ditch and bank, forming two entrances, and in addition there are 56 Aubrey .
Holes, named for John Aubrey, their discoverer, in a circle just inside the earth bank. This first .
phase, Stonehenge I, built by the Windmill Hill people, took from about 2,950 B.C. to 2,900 B.C. .
to construct. .
The second phase of Stonehenge brings on the building a large intricate wooden .
