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This is where our timeline begins. The stone age. Its first stage known as Palaeolithic is also called the Old Stone Age.

It is associated with a decline in the group hunting of large animals in favour of a broader hunter-gatherer way of life,

  There were also roving bands of hunters who lived on the wild animals they could trap and kill, the fish they could catch in the rivers, or the wild plants they could pick. They grew no crops and had no livestock  

 

and women, rarely more than 5ft 6ins in height, who

crossed the sea in little skin boats, dug-out canoes and

wicker-woven coracles, bringing with them a different way

of life. They made clearings in the forests for their animals,

grew crops, fashioned themselves axes and other tools from flint baked pottery. They established meeting places and

tribal centres. Followed by other immigrants, they developed

the custom of burying their dead in stone tombs. The construction of the earliest earthwork sites began during the Early Neolithic (c. 4000 - 3300 BC) in the form of long barrows used for communal burial and the first causewayed .enclosures 
 

These people, originally perhaps from Spain, came from the areas now known as Holland and the

Rhineland, bringing with them a knowledge of working in bronze. They arrived towards the end of the late Neolithic period and the beginning of the period known as the early Bronze Age in about 2000 BC,

been seen on the island before and which were to be collectively known as the Wessex Culture. These newcomers were traders as well as craftsmen, builders and warriors when necessary.  

They turned their attention towards Stonehenge; and, in the third stage of its building, dismantled the circle of stones erected by their predecessors, then dragged eighty immense blocks of sarsen stone from the Marlborough Downs to set them up  

conditions became impossible, but they returned during warmer periods. A final Ice Age covered Britain around 70,000 to 12,000 BC. The landscape during the Ice Ages was treeless tundra with glaciers covering northern and sometimes southern Britain. During warmer spells, there would be an expansion of birch trees, shrub and grasses and

eventually  oak woodland.

During this time the climate regularly switched between warm and cold. Neanderthals learned to adapt and survive by exploiting natural resources, although they were beaten back from Britain several times when the climate was particularly harsh and food scarce.

Undoubtedly intelligent, Neanderthals were innovative toolmakers. Injuries found on their prey tell us that they were brave and skilful hunters.

Second stage: 2640–2480 BC: Except for human burials, there is no evidence of activity between Stonehenge’s first and second stages of construction. About 2500 BCE the sarsen stones were brought from the Avebury area of the Marlborough Downs, about 32 km to the north. Outside the northeastern entrance of Stonehenge, they were dressed smooth by pounding with sarsen hammer. 

Third stage: 2470–2280 BC Radiocarbon dating indicates that the side ditches and banks of a ceremonial avenue almost 2 miles (3 km) long were dug from Stonehenge to the River Avon at some time in the period between 2470 and 2280 BCE. It is possible that the avenue traces the path of the bluestones that were moved from the Aubrey Holes and Bluestonehenge to the Q and R holes during Stonehenge’s second stage of construction.
Fourth stage: 2280 - 2030 BC
About 2200 BCE the bluestones were rearranged to form a circle and an inner oval. This inner oval was thought to be  subsequently modified in prehistory to form a horseshoe, but this transformation may have been the result of Roman removal of the stones or of later stone-robbing

Fifth stage: 2030 -1750 BC.
At some point during Stonehenge’s fifth stage a ring of pits known as the Z Holes was dug outside the sarsen circle.

Sixth stage:1640 -1520 BC  
A second ring of pits, called the Y Holes, was dug during the monument’s final stage of construction  As with all radiocarbon dating, the precise dates of such events can only be estimated within many decades, if not centuries.