Excavations at Stonehenge

In 1839, a Captain Beamish dug around the Altar Stone, and not long after that Charles Darwin was granted permission by the Antrobus family who owned Stonehenge to conduct a small excavation to test his theories about earthworm activity burying ancient structures.

The largest series of excavations at Stonehenge were undertaken by Colonel William Hawley and his assistant Robert Newall after the site came into state hands.

As part of service trenching in 1979 and 1980, Mike Pitts led two smaller investigations close by the Heelstone, finding the evidence for its neighbour.

National Geographic Channel screened a two-hour documentary exploring Parker Pearson's theories and the work of the Riverside Project in depth in May 2008.

[2] From 2005 excavation of the area around a spring pool known as Blick Mead about a mile from Stonehenge, have taken place under the direction of Professor David Jacques of the University of Buckingham.

[3][4] Britain's Bournemouth University archaeologists, led by Geoffrey Wainwright, president of the London Society of Antiquaries, and Timothy Darvill, on 22 September 2008, found it may have been an ancient healing and pilgrimage site, since burials around Stonehenge showed trauma and deformity evidence: "It was the magical qualities of these stones which ... transformed the monument and made it a place of pilgrimage for the sick and injured of the Neolithic world."