Mystery of Stonehenge cylinders solved! Stone 'drums' found in a child's grave were used as an ancient tape measure to plan out the building of the great monument

Ancient cylinders which have baffled experts for more than a hundred years since they were discovered were used for measuring, archaeologists have claimed.

The unique 4,000-year-old Folkton drums date from the Neolithic period and were found in a child's grave in 1889.

Since their discovery, the pots covered in intricate carvings have been studied by generations of archaeologists who struggled to find what they were used for.

But experts now claim that they may have been used as a 'standard measurement' used to plan out the stone circles built by our ancestors from the Stone Age, the Daily Mail reports.  

Professor Mike Parker Pearson, from University College London, and Professor Andrew Chamberlain, from Manchester University, have calculated the pots' circumference.  

After considering the perimeters, they found that by wrapping string around each pot, the results all came roughly to a multiple of 0.322 metres.

Professor Chamberlain claims that this distance is a Stone Age measurement standard, calling it a “long foot”.

They say that our ancient ancestors could have used the method to create the concentric circles at Stonehenge, built around 5,000 years ago.

Found by an archaeologist in 130 years ago, the patterned pots were found buried in an infant's grave, dating back to between 2600 and 2000 BC.

Generations of archaeologists have studied the drums and its carvings and motifs to try and understand what they were used for, most presuming they were decorative.

They were unlike any other artefacts found in Britain until the recent discovery of an undecorated chalk 'drum' in a pit in Lavant, Sussex, England.  

However, Professors Chamberlain and Pearson claimed they were astonished to find that if you wrap a string around all of the cylinders a number of times they got the measurement of 3.22 metres long. 

For the largest cylinder, they found that if you wrap cord around it seven times, the measurement was ten long foot (3.22m). 

If you wrap it eight times around the medium-sized one it or ten times around the smallest and it is still ten long foot (3.22m). 

The pot found later in Lavant, which was presumably made by a different craftsman, also fitted the relation.  

Professor Chamberlain believes that the drums were used as a portable means of defining length, by wrapping string around the cylinders or perhaps by rolling them.