Hello and welcome to Mysteries of Science. My name's Kieran and I'm the Features Editor of Science and Nature, the monthly magazine from the people who make The Week Junior.

And I'm Stevie. I'm the assistant editor. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, welcome. In each episode, we look at a different mysterious topic and try to solve it. So, Kieran, what are we

investigating today? I am really looking forward to this one. It is one of the most famous

historic landmarks in Britain, possibly even the world, and it has been around for more than

4,000 years. And yet, secrets remain. We still don't know everything there is to know about it.

So we're going to be looking at Stonehenge, which is that famous stone circle in Wiltshire in

England. This is the perfect time to start an investigation into Stonehenge as well,

because on the 21st of December, it will be the winter solstice. Or the day of the year

with the fewest hours of daylight, Stonehenge, as we'll discover later on, has a very clear

connection to this date. Yeah, and while you might think you know all that is to know about Stonehenge,

that it's prehistoric, that it's a ring of standing stones, there are so many mysteries that remain.

So to start with, I'd like to find out when Stonehenge was made,

who made it, how they made it, and ultimately, why.

I like it, I like the questions.

When, who, how and why.

Let's get to it.

This is the story of Stonehenge, and this is Mysteries of Science.

Stonehenge itself is a stone circle, but it's a very special stone circle.

This is Nick, an archaeologist at Stonehenge, who works for the National Trust.

It's surrounded by hundreds of other burial mounds

and ancient monuments, temples, shrines

that were built thousands of years ago.

...