 Who built Stonehenge? Construction on Stonehenge probably began around 3000 BC, with elements added to the ancient marvel over the next 1500 years. One largely discredited theory argues that Stonehenge was built by the ancient Celtic priesthood of the Druids. The likelihood however is that Stonehenge was built thousands of years before the Druids ever existed, although Druids most likely used Stonehenge as a place of worship and ceremony at various points down through time. One study suggests that the builders of Stonehenge were descendants of groups from Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, who migrated across Europe and reached the British Isles around 4000 BC, bringing a revolutionary farming lifestyle with them. On their way to the British Isles, these ancient farmers travelled and stopped at many points throughout Europe, having a particular association with the Aegean civilization around the Aegean Sea. There seemed to be little mixing between the indigenous hunter-gatherers of the British Isles and the new farming migrants, with a notable population replacement taking place led by the latter. At the time Stonehenge started to be constructed around 3000 BC, what lineages were spoken by the inhabitants of the British Isles? Clearly there would have been many lineages in regional dialects just like today. However, there is a reasonable chance that the builders of Stonehenge spoke or were familiar with the protocheltic lineage that arguably arose in the British Isles as a trading lineage thousands of years ago. Sir Barry Cunliffe, Emirates Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, has been a key proponent of this idea of a protocheltic lineage arising in Britain and Ireland. Cunliffe argues that the protocheltic lineage could have arose as a lingua franca or trading lineage in the Atlantic zone, meaning the British Isles and Western Europe, between 5500 BC and 2800 BC, as trade connections grew. In other words, the people who inhabited the British Isles at the time in Stonehenge with Bill could have spoken the earliest or protocheltic lineage which all other lineages subsequently arose from. To be clear, this is at odds with the traditional view that the protocheltic lineage arose in the Urnfield and later Hallstatt cultures of Central Europe, with this process beginning around 1200 BC, much later than the lingua franca argument. According to the traditional theory, Celts then migrated east and west to places such as the British Isles. Obviously, when it comes to events that took place 3, 4, 5,000 years ago, there is no clear answer. It is at least an interesting thought, however, that the builders of Stonehenge could have spoken protocheltic.