6,000-year-old timber could well shed light on a key aspect of the origins of Stonehenge.

A large piece of wood, discovered by a retired urologist from Britain, has been identified as being more than 6,000 years old and may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of Stonehenge.

Experts from Historic England, which is the public body established to promote, protect, and research Britain’s historic past, worked with scientists from Nottingham Tree-ring Data Laboratory and The Center for Isotope Research, University of Groningen, to analyze the wood. The pole, dubbed the Boxford Timber, was found lying in peat in excellent condition during the building of a workshop in Boxford, Berkshire, by the urologist. 

The researchers used radiocarbon dating of a timber slice from the wood that was dissected into individual tree rings. The data, according to Historic England, shows that there is a 95 percent probability that the wood dates to around 4640 to 4605 BC.

Mesolithic people are believed to have carved the wood some 2,000 years before Stonehenge – and 4,500 years before the Romans came to Britain. 

Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England, said, “It’s remarkable that by doing routine building work, a piece of modest-looking decorative wood turns out to be the oldest ever found in Britain. This exciting find has helped to shine new light on our distant past.”

This light may shine on another of Britain’s archaeological treasures: Stonehenge. The Independent, a British online newspaper, said that this find “is likely to shed new light on a key aspect of the origins of Stonehenge.”

According to the Independent, archaeological investigations carried out just a football field away in the 1960s suggest that a series of “giant totem-pole-like timber obelisks had been erected there some 5,500 years before the famous stone monument had been built.”

However, only the holes where the wooden poles had once stood have ever been found – and archaeologists had no idea what they might have looked like.

The new find, some 28 miles from Stonehenge, might provide clues as to what these obelisk-shared poles may have looked like. 

The piece of waterlogged carved oak is approximately three feet long, 1.3 feet wide, and 0.6 feet thick. It was found approximately 5 feet below the surface in a layer of peat. Peat can preserve organic materials like wood over thousands of years because the normal processes of decay are slowed due to a lack of oxygen within the peat.

After cleaning, the timber was found to have markings that did not appear to be natural. The purpose of the markings on this piece of timber is not known, but according to the Historic England report, they are reminiscent of the decoration seen in early Neolithic pottery and are also believed to be similar to the body decoration on the Shigir Idol – a wooden sculpture found in the Ural Mountains of Russia which, at over 12,000 years old, is believed to be the oldest example of carved wood in the world.