New research from Curtin University is shedding new light on one of Stonehenge's biggest mysteries: how a massive stone weighing around six tons made its way across Britain thousands of years ago.

The focus of the study is Stonehenge's central Altar Stone, a sandstone megalith that researchers now believe originated in northeast Scotland, roughly 700 kilometers (435 miles) from Salisbury Plain. That enormous distance highlights the remarkable scale of the journey and raises new questions about the capabilities of ancient communities.

The findings build on previous research that challenged the idea that glaciers alone transported the stone. The latest evidence further supports the conclusion that people, rather than natural Ice Age processes, were responsible for moving it through difficult terrain.

To better understand how the Altar Stone reached Stonehenge, researchers combined mineral grain dating with computer models that reconstructed the movement of ancient ice sheets. Their goal was to identify the stone's source and determine whether glaciers could have carried it south.

According to the results, glaciers may have transported rocks from northeast Scotland during the last Ice Age, potentially reaching Dogger Bank in what is now the North Sea. However, the modeling showed no realistic glacial route that could have delivered the Altar Stone all the way to southern England.

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