Stonehenge was built by Druids.

Stonehenge had no inscription naming its builders, so early antiquaries tried to connect it with historical groups known from surviving texts.

The Druids seemed an attractive candidate. Classical writers described them as religious specialists in Iron Age Britain and Gaul, and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars such as John Aubrey and William Stukeley linked them to the monument.

Archaeology eventually broke the chronological connection. Excavation, artifact typology, stratigraphy, and later radiocarbon dating placed Stonehenge’s construction in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, with the main stone settings erected around 2500 BCE.

The historically documented Druids appear much later. By the time written sources describe them, Stonehenge had already existed for many centuries and had been abandoned for a very long time.

Modern Druid and neo-pagan groups can have a genuine contemporary cultural relationship with Stonehenge without being its ancient builders.

The monument’s exact purposes remain debated, and its construction involved multiple phases and communities. What archaeology has settled much more firmly is the chronology: Stonehenge predates the recorded Druids by thousands of years.