Stonehenge was built on solstice axis, dig confirms

[happyslug]

5. Knowing the shortest and longest days of the year, can be a powerful tool

From that calculation you can estimate when birds will migrate, when the frost will stop (and re-start), what crop is coming into season when etc. You be surprise what occurs on about what date, with the real dating time is from winter and summer solstice.

Errors can creep into any calendar. The Ancient Roman Calendar was so bad, Politicians would add and subtract days for Political reasons (delay an election, speed up an election etc). Egypt seems to have had a calendar that worked, but it was a deep dark secret till Julius Caesar decided to adopt it as the New Calendar for the Roman Empire, but that calendar is a product of the invention of numbers and the modern concept of "Month" that is independent of the moon (Original definition of Month was 28 days, the number of days in a moon's monthly cycle, but even it is not exactly 28 days, but 29.53 days thus 30 days is more accurate but not that much more accurate).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase

Once your understand that the Moon Cycle, Sun Cycle and Earth days are NOT compatible and can not be used to determine the start of any year, the start of any year become very IMPORTANT . The Winter and Summer Solstice ARE the start of the year and with that knowledge and the ability to count to 180 gives the person who holds that power the sole ability to ACCURATELY determine when the birds will fly NORTH and SOUTH, when the frosts will end (and begin), when what crop will come into season (and with that knowledge what game will move to what area).

Knowledge is power and being able to predict ACCURATELY the start of summer and the start of winter, once it became known HOW to do it (Someone made that observation on seeing the ice melt) maintaining that KNOWLEDGE became all important. Thus as the ice melted, it remains was probably marked with small rocks. Then the huge wooden temple once the area became warm enough to support trees. Then Stone as the site itself became more and more important.

Thus the real question is NOT why Stonehenge developed but why was it abandoned? From the Ice Age till its abandonment it was the center of not only British Culture but apparently all of North Western Europe (including Modern Northern France and Germany).

Stonehenge was probably abandoned at the start of the Iron Age, as trade routes shifted from the Stone, Copper and Bronze of earlier times to Iron. This shift in trade routes seems to have undone the social structure that supported Stonehenge and lead to its abandonment. While they are indications of later use (Roman coins have been found at Stonehenge), these all seem to be the product of tourists coming to see the ancient ruin, not people actually using Stonehenge as an observatory or even a temple (The Romans were highly anti-Druid, but no destruction of Stonehenge was ordered or recorded during the time period when Rome was destroying every Druid Temple in Britain).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge#Before_the_monument_.288000_BC_forward.29