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LONDON _ Researchers have discovered evidence of standing stones believed to be the remnants of a major prehistoric stone monument near the Stonehenge ruins.

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University of Bradford researchers said Monday the monument is thought to have been built around 4,500 years ago.

The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project used remote sensing technologies to discover evidence that up to 100 stones formed the monument about 3 kilometres from Stonehenge.

The evidence was found beneath one meter of earth near the Durrington Walls. No excavation was needed during the investigation and none of the stones have been uncovered and removed.

Some of the stones are thought to have stood 4.5 metres tall before they were toppled. Researcher Vince Gaffney said the immense scale of the monument is unique.

“Our high resolution ground penetrating radar data has revealed an amazing row of up to 90 standing stones a number of which have survived after being pushed over and a massive bank placed over the stones,” said project co-director Wolfgang Neubauer.

“In the east up to 30 stones, measuring up to size of 4.5 m x 1.5 x 1 m, have survived below the bank whereas elsewhere the stones are fragmentary or represented by massive foundation pits.”

In a release, researchers said intensive study of the area around Stonehenge had led archaeologists to believe that only Stonehenge and a smaller henge at the end of the Stonehenge Avenue possessed significant stone structures.

The latest surveys now provide evidence that Stonehenge’s largest neighbour, Durrington Walls, had an earlier phase which included a large row of standing stones probably of local origin and that the context of the preservation of these stones is exceptional and the configuration unique to British archaeology. This new discovery has significant implications for our understanding of Stonehenge and its landscape setting. The earthwork enclosure at Durrington Walls was built about a century after the Stonehenge sarsen circle (in the 27th century BC), but the new stone row could well be contemporary with or earlier than this. Not only does this new evidence demonstrate an early phase of monumental architecture at one of the greatest ceremonial sites in prehistoric Europe, it also raises significant questions about the landscape the builders of Stonehenge inhabited and how they changed this with new monument-building during the 3rd millennium BC.