Clarke, A.J.I.Kirkland, C.L.Bevins, R.E.Pearce, N.J.G.Glorie, S.Ixer, R.A.2024-08-202024-08-202024Nature, 2024; 632(8025):570-5750028-08361476-4687https://hdl.handle.net/2440/141957Published online: 14 August 2024Understanding the provenance of megaliths used in the Neolithic stone circle at Stonehenge, southern England, gives insight into the culture and connectivity of prehistoric Britain. The source of the Altar Stone, the central recumbent sandstone megalith, has remained unknown, with recent work discounting an Anglo-Welsh Basin origin1,2. Here we present the age and chemistry of detrital zircon, apatite and rutile grains from within fragments of the Altar Stone. The detrital zircon load largely comprises Mesoproterozoic and Archaean sources, whereas rutile and apatite are dominated by a mid-Ordovician source. The ages of these grains indicate derivation from an ultimate Laurentian crystalline source region that was overprinted by Grampian (around 460 million years ago) magmatism. Detrital age comparisons to sedimentary packages throughout Britain and Ireland reveal a remarkable similarity to the Old Red Sandstone of the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland. Such a provenance implies that the Altar Stone, a 6 tonne shaped block, was sourced at least 750 km from its current location. The difficulty of long-distance overland transport of such massive cargo from Scotland, navigating topographic barriers, suggests that it was transported by sea. Such routing demonstrates a high level of societal organization with intra-Britain transport during the Neolithic period.en© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Journal article10.1038/s41586-024-07652-12024-08-19704048Glorie, S. [0000-0002-3107-9028]