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According to new research, the Stone Age monument Stonehenge may have stood in Wales for centuries.

This emerges from an article published on Friday in the archaeological journal “Antiquity”.

The spectacular findings could partially confirm a medieval legend, according to which the magician Merlin once removed a magical stone circle called Giants' Dance (dance of the giants) from Irish territory and had it set up again in England.

It is undisputed that the huge boulders known as megaliths at Stonehenge come from a quarry in south-west Wales.

In any case, the so-called bluestones were transported around 225 kilometers as the crow flies.

"The most exciting thing we've ever found"

According to the scientists, traces have now been discovered in the vicinity of the quarry, which indicate a similar facility as it has been in the English county of Wiltshire for about 5000 years - only that the stones have apparently been removed.

The moat that once surrounded the stone circle of Waun Mawn is 110 meters and corresponds exactly to the radius of the moat in Stonehenge.

Both circles are aligned with the sunrise at the summer solstice.

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The archaeologists have now discovered a number of former holes in the facility in Wales that fit exactly on the Stonehenge megaliths, in one case even "like a key in a keyhole," the Guardian quoted the scientists as saying.

Dates from the quarry also show that the Stonehenge boulders were broken out centuries before the world-famous monument was erected - at the same time as the Waun Mawn stone circle was built.

Geologist Herbert Thomas had already suspected around 100 years ago that the megaliths of Stonehenge were part of an earlier sanctuary in Wales.

Now this theory seems to be confirmed.

"I've been researching Stonehenge for 20 years and it's really the most exciting thing we've ever found," quoted the Guardian as quoting senior archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson of University College London.