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# Archeologists Use Digital Underground Mapping to Discover the Landscape of Stonehenge
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/archeologists-use-digital-underground-mapping-to-discover-the-landscape-of-stonehenge/
- Published: 2014-09-15T11:02:23.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:32:50.000Z
- Description: A massive experiment in virtual archeology has led to the mapping of 3,000 acres around Stonehenge, and with it the discovery of a host of new information about the area, including over a dozen previously unknown monuments, National Geographic reported.
- Author: Jillian Steinhauer
- Tags: In Brief, Archaeology, Stonehenge, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![Stonehenge (photo by Channone Arif/Flickr)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/stonehenge.jpg)

Stonehenge (photo by Channone Arif/Flickr)

A massive experiment in virtual archeology has led to the mapping of 3,000 acres around Stonehenge, and with it the discovery of a host of new information about the area, including over a dozen previously unknown monuments, [*National Geographic*](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140911-stonehenge-map-underground-monument-radar/?ref=hyperallergic.com) reported. The [Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project](http://lbi-archpro.org/cs/stonehenge/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), led by researchers at the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Austria, has spent four years using an array of technology — aerial photography, laser scanning, airborne imaging spectroscopy, magnetic prospection, ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetic induction, and more — to uncover the landscape around Stonehenge without actually unearthing it.

![Magnetograms of the monuments hidden in the Stonehenge landscape (via lbi-archpro.org) (click to enlarge)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/stonehenge_new_monuments_mag.jpg)

Magnetic data images of newly discovered monuments around Stonehenge (© LBI ArchPro, Mario Wallner) (click to enlarge)

What they found is, in the words of [*National Geographic*](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140911-stonehenge-map-underground-monument-radar/?ref=hyperallergic.com), “an astonishing complex of ancient monuments, buildings, and barrows.” The complex includes 17 newly discovered ritual monuments “[dating to the period when Stonehenge achieved its iconic shape](http://lbi-archpro.org/cs/stonehenge/results.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)“; dozens of burial mounds that have been mapped in great detail; and massive prehistoric pits that could be aligned astronomically. *National Geographic* elaborates on one aspect of the discovery’s significance:

> The small circular constructions, contemporaneous with Stonehenge’s busiest period, are placed around the main stone ring and form a sort of Neolithic analogue to the Via Dolorosa, held to be the path Jesus walked to crucifixion, \[lead scientist Vince\] Gaffney suggests.  
>  
> “What we could be witnessing here is the birth of the idea of ceremonial procession, or a liturgy,” he says.

![Distribution map of new monuments discovered around Stonehenge (© LBI ArchPro, Wolfgang Neubauer)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/stonehenge_new_monuments_distribution.jpg)

Distribution map of new monuments discovered around Stonehenge (© LBI ArchPro, Wolfgang Neubauer)

The Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project is apparently as the [largest project of its kind](http://lbi-archpro.org/cs/stonehenge/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), and obviously one with big implications, both for the study of Stonehenge itself and for the field of archeology. It’s worth noting, though, that sometimes a lack of technology can lead to discoveries too: just last week, [it was reported](http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/sep/01/stonehenge-dry-spell-grass-perfect-circle?CMP=fb%5Fgu&ref=hyperallergic.com) that Stonehenge’s custodians might have solved the mystery of the monument’s shape thanks a hosepipe that ran too short.