Ken Follett

And this is what the archaeologists have deduced from their digs around there.

You know, they dig and they find where other stones, stones other than the ones that are there now, they found where they were in the ground.

So Stonehenge is different from any other stone monument in the world in its sophistication and complexity.

Yes, we think so.

And it would make a certain amount of sense if, first of all, you had a wooden monument.

And after a while, people said, every few years this rots away because of the weather or it catches fire in a hot summer.

And what about if we replaced these timber pieces with stone?

And then intriguing thought it must have been to the Stone Age people.

And then it will be there forever.

we could build something that's going to be there at the end of time.

I don't know if they had the concept of the end of time, but they probably had some feeling of that kind.

So yes, I think, and it's obviously not my theory, it's an archaeological theory, that there was a wooden monument at Stonehenge before there was a stone monument.

And in fact, in my story, when they first broached the idea of replacing the wooden monument with a stone one, somebody says, we're going to get the biggest stones in the world.

And they were probably the biggest stones in England.

Quite understandable that they should think that they were the biggest stones in the world.

They probably didn't know how big the world was, but it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

And they are absolutely huge.

I mean, that's why we get that very weird spiritual feeling at Stonehenge when you stand next to those stones and they are just so massive.

It's a bit like when you look at an elephant.

Do you know what I mean?