12. Some people believe it was a Druid Temple
Stonehenge was excavated around 1640 by the pioneering antiquarian John Aubrey. Struggling to work out what it was, he came up with the theory that it was a temple built by the Druids in the distant past. He knew about Druids from the writings of Tacitus and others, and at the time it was a sound theory. After all, it was clear both that it was very old and that it had an astronomical function (see below). A century later, William Stukely, another antiquarian, endorsed the Druid hypothesis, and is credited with popularising this enduring myth.
Neither Aubrey nor Stukely had access to the research and methods of dating we have today, and as early as the 19th century the Druid-hypothesis had been quashed. John Lubbock found Bronze Age items at the site, and dated it on this basis. From radiocarbon dating we know today that Stonehenge was built thousands of years before the Druids came into being in about 300 BC. This does not preclude Druids using the existing structure for their religious devotions, of course, but nonetheless no archaeological evidence for this has been found. Still, try telling that to the Neopagans.
