Lucky strike? How lightning inspired builders of Callanish

New technology reveals a star-shaped burn mark hidden under peat that gives clues to the meaning of the standing stones on Lewis

For thousands of years the Callanish standing stones erected on the remote Hebridean island of Lewis have remained a mystery. Why were they placed there? And for what purpose?

Now archaeologists have uncovered dramatic new evidence that suggests our Neolithic ancestors were inspired to construct the megaliths as devotional monuments by the natural phenomenon of lightning strikes. A geophysical survey around one of the stones has astonished archaeologists by revealing a star-shaped pattern formed by one, or possibly multiple, earth-shaking lightning strikes. New technology has exposed a clear pattern covering an area of up to 20 metres in diameter, buried until now beneath peat bogs.

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