The hotly debated plan for the capital's Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, a circle of huge tablets engraved with his speeches ( and promptly dubbed by one of its critics, `` Instant Stonehenge '' ), is another of Udall's headaches, since as supervisor of the National Parks Commission he will share in the responsibility for building it.

If this etymology is combined with the tradition reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth stating that Ambrosius Aurelianus ordered the building of Stonehenge – which is located within the parish of Amesbury ( and where Ambrosius was supposedly buried ) – and with the presence of an Iron Age hill fort also in that parish, then it may be tempting to connect Ambrosius with Amesbury.

The complex including Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness, Skara Brae, as well as other tombs and standing stones represents a concentration of Neolithic sites that is rivalled in Britain only by the complexes associated with Stonehenge and Avebury.

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury.

One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks.

Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage, while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.

As often happens in archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian usage, and Stonehenge is not truly a henge site as its bank is inside its ditch.

Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge is in many ways atypical – for example, at over tall, its extant trilithons supporting lintels held in place with mortise and tenon joints, make it unique.

There is little or no direct evidence for the construction techniques used by the Stonehenge builders.

This is the oldest known depiction of Stonehenge.

After the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985 this use of the site was stopped for several years, and currently ritual use of Stonehenge is carefully controlled.

The new discovery is part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project which began in the summer of 2010.

is: Stonehenge

* c. 2750 BC — 1500 BC — Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England, is built.

The stone is referred to in the comedy play by Derek Webb called Bringing Back the Bluestones in which a Welsh group decide to emulate the return of the Stone of Scone to Scotland by demanding the return of the Bluestones from Stonehenge to Pembrokeshire.

* 2000 BC: Stonehenge is believed to have been completed.

Stonehenge, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site is about 8 miles ( 13 km ) northwest of Salisbury and greatly aids the local economy.

The permanent Stonehenge exhibition gallery has interactive displays about Stonehenge and the archaeology of south Wiltshire, and its collections include the skeleton of the Amesbury Archer, which is on display.

From this stratigraphic evidence it is therefore likely that the holes were dug during the first phase of the monument, Stonehenge 1 ( around 3100 BC ) and were then reused for burials during Stonehenge 2 in successive centuries.

The Heel Stone is now attributed to Stonehenge 3 and was therefore not contemporary with the holes.

In fact, early Stonehenge may have been barely different from the other Neolithic timber circles of the British Isles which had varying numbers of postholes and orientations and could therefore not have been used for in island-wide eclipse predicting.

The site has not been excavated and is absent from authoritative surveys by such archaeologists as Aubrey Burl, its authenticity and relationship to Stonehenge are therefore unconfirmed.

Some of their works are considered precursors of archaeoastronomy ; antiquarians interpreted the astronomical orientation of the ruins that dotted the English countryside as William Stukeley did of Stonehenge in 1740, while John Aubrey in 1678 and Henry Chauncy in 1700 sought similar astronomical principles underlying the orientation of churches.

When the site was first excavated by Maud and Ben Cunnington in 1930, they were interpreted as a timber equivalent to Stonehenge.

Their presence makes Stonehenge Britain's oldest cremation cemetery.

The most famous example is Stonehenge which functioned as such a cemetery during its early use when it was a simple earthwork enclosure.

A community of interest gathers at Stonehenge, England, for the summer solstice.

It has been suggested that megaliths found at Nabta Playa are examples of the world's first known archaeoastronomical devices, predating Stonehenge by some 1, 000 years.

Three female druids on the morning of the summer solstice at Stonehenge after sunrise.

The Ancient Order of Druids founded in 1781 had many aspects of freemasonry, and have practised rituals at Stonehenge since 1905.

Increasing academic interest in Paganism has been attributed to the new religious movement's increasing public visibility, as it began interacting with the interfaith movement and holding large public celebrations at sites like Stonehenge.

Such deposits continued at Stonehenge for at least another 500 years.

Mike Parker Pearson, leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project based at Durrington Walls, noted that Stonehenge appears to have been associated with burial from the earliest period of its existence:

Stonehenge evolved in several construction phases spanning at least 1, 500 years.

Stonehenge at sunset in 2004

The timber circle was orientated towards the rising sun on the midwinter solstice, opposing the solar alignments at Stonehenge, whilst the avenue was aligned with the setting sun on the summer solstice and led from the river to the timber circle.

The last known construction at Stonehenge was about 1600 BC ( see ' Y and Z Holes '), and the last usage of it was probably during the Iron Age.

When one stands within Stonehenge, facing north-east through the entrance towards the heel stone, one sees the sun rise above the stone at summer solstice.

The fifth-century king Aurelius Ambrosius wished to erect a memorial to 3, 000 nobles slain in battle against the Saxons and buried at Salisbury, and at Merlin's advice chose Stonehenge.

During World War I an aerodrome had been built on the downs just to the west of the circle and, in the dry valley at Stonehenge Bottom, a main road junction had been built, along with several cottages and a cafe.

The 1905 mass initiation ritual held by the Ancient Order of Druids at Stonehenge.

Throughout the twentieth century, Stonehenge began to be revived as a place of religious significance, this time by adherents of Neopagan and New Age beliefs, particularly the Neo-druids: the historian Ronald Hutton would later remark that " it was a great, and potentially uncomfortable, irony that modern Druids had arrived at Stonehenge just as archaeologists were evicting the ancient Druids from it.

In the survey of conditions at 94 leading World Heritage Sites, 400 conservation and tourism experts ranked Stonehenge 75th in the list of destinations, declaring it to be " in moderate trouble ".

They were able to date the erection of some bluestones to 2300 BC, although this may not reflect the earliest erection of stones at Stonehenge.

They also discovered organic material from 7000 BC, which, along with the Mesolithic postholes, adds support for the site having been in use at least 4, 000 years before Stonehenge was started.