~ 8000 BC, Pine Post Holes at Stonehenge.

The car park pine post holes are - to date - the first known structures at the Stonehenge site.

As the purpose of the Stones is to observe the sun rise at certain times of the year, it is possible that the pine post holes had the same function by acting as fixed observation points. Natural landmarks as fixed sunrise points to locate the sunrises at different parts of the year would suffice as an initial development to enable the British nomads to judge when it was time to carry out various functions such as visiting various gathering ground to obtain the ripe food and to prepare for winter.

I visited Stonehenge at dawn, midsummer, 2014, and personally observed from the pine post holes that the sun rose over the intersection of the horizons of two low hills. Magnetic compass readings {that may have a high error margin) indicated the spring and autumn sunrises were marked by the brow of a distant hill. The midwinter sunrise was on the horizon of a low hill with no obvious natural marker but at the site of Stonehenge itself - a coincidence, or was a fixed marker first erected here leading eventually to Stonehenge ?

Some 16th century North West American native Indians - a stone age culture as per the Neolithic cultures - had posts as ‘totem’ poles that served non-practical ceremonial functions. It may be that originally they had a practical ‘clock’ function too, that enabled a simple prediction of future seasons and weather - useful to a hunter gatherer nomadic culture that followed a regular route as well as vital to a settled farming culture.

For fuller details please see section 8 of sites.google.com/site/originsofstonehenge/