A BOURNEMOUTH University academic has been awarded a prize for his new research into the history of Stonehenge.

Professor Timothy Darvill, OBE, has been presented with the Ben Cullen prize by the archaeology journal Antiquity for his research paper ‘Stonehenge Remodelled’, which was co-written with academics from London, Sheffield, and Pembrokeshire.

The paper brings modern technology and analysis techniques to bear on the mystery of the history of Stonehenge, just in time for a new generation to explore the multi-million pound visitor centre that will open in December.

The accuracy is unlike anything previously possible. “Whilst we used to talk about 500-year time periods, now we’re talking about individual decades,” said Prof Darvill, 53.

“Once you can get down to that sort of level then the questions you can ask about that site get much more detailed and, in a sense, very much more interesting.”

At the turn of the 20th century, conventional wisdom said that Stonehenge was built all at once. But this has since been disproved as dating-techniques improve.

“What we discover is that a site like Stonehenge goes through episodes. It’s not a continuous process, there are certain periods in its history when people started really messing around with it and changing it and rebuilding and remodelling it,” said Prof Darvill.

He said it was difficult to say why Stonehenge was built and warned against trying to apply modern terms to ancient peoples.

While most people today do not celebrate the solstices, Stonehenge remains an attraction with wide appeal – as it has throughout its history.

Prof Darvill can only speculate on why there is this enduring popularity.

“A connection with the ancient past perhaps? A connection with the land? A connection with the sun and an understanding of nature?

“All these things come to bear on people’s use of the site, and in many ways that’s probably not very different from some of the things going through the minds of neolithic people when they were there,” he said.

The new Stonehenge visitor centre is expected to officially open on December 18.