Mystery of Stonehenge stone origin gets weirder’

The plot has thickened in the mystery of the altar stone of Stonehenge, weeks after geologists revealed that the huge Neolithic boulder had been transported hundreds of miles to Wiltshire from the north of Scotland.

- Esther Addley

That discovery, described as "jawdropping" by one of the scientists involved, established definitively that the 6-tonne megalith had not been brought from Wales, as had long been believed, but came from sandstone deposits in an area encompassing the isles of Orkney and Shetland and a thin coastal strip on the north-east Scottish mainland.

Many experts assumed that the most likely place of origin was Orkney, based on the islands' rich Neolithic culture and tradition of monument-building.

But a separate academic study has now found that Orkney is not, in fact, the source of the altar stone-meaning the tantalising hunt for its place of origin goes on.