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Researchers have shed new light on a series of prehistoric stones in Yorkshire, revealing the 25-tonne structures were hauled 11 miles across land by Neolithic builders.
Geological analysis showed Neolithic communities bypassed more local stone sources to bring the giant megaliths, known as Devil’s Arrow stones, from Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire, settling a long-running debate over whether human effort or ice-age glaciers moved the giants.
Researchers at the University of York and Curtin University in Australia also confirmed that a missing stone is "hiding in plain sight" in the nearby village of Aldborough, in the form of a cross, proving 19th-century theories and local legends to be true.
At almost seven metres (23ft) tall, the three surviving pillars near Boroughbridge form the tallest standing stone row in Britain, and taller than the stones at Stonehenge. The southern stone is the second-tallest megalith in the country after the Rudston Monolith, while the central stone ranks as the third-tallest.
