Aubrey Burl

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Aubrey Burl is a British archaeologist most well known for his studies into megalithic monuments and the nature of prehistoric rituals associated with them. Prior to retirement he was Principal Lecturer in Archaeology, Hull College of Higher Education, East Riding of Yorkshire.

His books include A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany (2000) and The Stonehenge People (1987) and he has also written a biography of the Roman poet Catullus.

Burl's work has often explored the astronomical roles of many megalithic monuments but he has been cautious of embracing the more tenuous claims of archaeoastronomy.

His straightforward approach led him to question what he sees as the over-romanticised view that Stonehenge was built from bluestones hauled by hand from the Preseli Hills in south west Wales to Salisbury Plain. Instead, he argues, the stones were left close to the site by earlier glaciers and then exploited by the monument's builders.

Others have argued that the bluestones have been traced to only the Preselli Hills through their chemical signature and that they could not have come from elsewhere. Additionally, it was claimed that there was no known glacier with a course linking the hills with Salisbury Plain or a glacier from anywhere that reached far enough south. On the other hand, recent research by earth scientists shows that glacier ice reached the Scilly Isles on at least one occasion and that ice which crossed Pembrokeshire did cross the coasts of Somerset and Devon. More information on this: http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~brianj/bluestones59.html