Stonehenge Builders and the Party Town That Was Near It | Early European History And Religion

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DURRINGTON WALLS: HOME OF STONEHENGE’S BUILDERS AND RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY?

henge house

Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield uncovered evidence of a village in Durrington Walls, a few kilometers away from the Stonehenge. He “believes that Stonehenge's true significance is in its relationship to a sister temple found at Durrington Walls. Together, he believes, the temples served as meccas for religious observance - Durrington Walls a site of feasts for the living, Stonehenge a series of statues of the dead.” [Source: Thea Chard, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, May 11, 2008]

In 2003, Parker Pearson conducted a survey concentrating on Durrington Walls and the area between there and the River Avon. Ed Caesar wrote in Smithsonian Magazine: “Based on huts, tools and animal bones he uncovered, he concluded that Durrington Walls likely housed the workers who built Stonehenge. Based on an analysis of human remains he later excavated from Stonehenge, he also surmised that, far from being a site of quotidian religious activity, Stonehenge served as a cemetery–a “place for the dead.” [Source: Ed Caesar, Smithsonian Magazine, September 2014 /+]

Maev Kennedy wrote in The Guardian: “Parker Pearson believes his” excavation at Durrington Walls, “which uncovered hut sites, tools, pots and mountains of animal bones – the largest Stone Age site in north-west Europe – is evidence of a seasonal work camp for the Stonehenge builders, who quarried, dragged and shaped more than 2,000 tons of stone to build the monument. Analysis of the animal bones shows some of them travelled huge distances – from as far as Scotland – and were slaughtered at Durrington in mid-summer and mid-winter: "Not so much bring a bottle as bring a cow or a pig," Parker Pearson said. [Source: Maev Kennedy, The Guardian, March 9, 2013]

According to Business Insider: Archeologists think that the Durrington Walls site, found about 1.7 miles from Stonehenge, was the center for ritual celebrations that took place during the construction of the stone circle in 2,500 B.C. Evidence suggests that for a period of 10 to 50 years neolithic humans came from all corners of England during the winter months to help build the stone monument. "They didn't seem to live there continuously. They lived in southern Britain, they farmed their crops in the summer. And then they came to Durrington walls in the winter to not only put Stonehenge together but also to hold religious festivals there," Piers Mitchell from Cambridge's Department of Archaeology told Insider. [Source: Marianne Guenot, Business Insider, May 20, 2022]

Stonehenge Builders Are Thought To Have Been Herders, Not Farmers

The ancient builders of Stonehenge appear to have been animal herders rather than farmers based on archaeological finds that indicate they had unexpectedly meaty diet and mobile way of life. According to a new theory proposed by archaeobotanists Chris Stevens of Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury, England, and Dorian Fuller of University College London. small groups of roaming pastoralists collaborated to build massive, circular stone and wood structures, including Stonehenge, as a way of brining people together.

Bruce Bower wrote in sciencenews.org: “Although farming first reached the British Isles around 6,000 years ago, cultivation had given way to animal raising and herding by the time Stonehenge and other massive stone monuments began to dot the landscape, a new study finds. Shifts from farming to pastoralism, sometimes accompanied by construction of stone monuments, occurred around the same time in parts of Africa and Asia, the researchers say. [Source: Bruce Bower, sciencenews.org, September 6, 2012 ~|~]

““Part of the reason why pastoralists built monuments such as Stonehenge lies in the importance of periodic large gatherings for dispersed, mobile groups,” Fuller says. Collective meeting spots allowed different groups to arrange alliance-building marriages, crossbreed herds to boost the animals’ health and genetic diversity and hold ritual feasts. At these locations, large numbers of people could be mobilized for big construction projects, Fuller suggests. “A predominantly pastoralist economy in the third millennium B.C. accords well with available evidence and provides a suitable backdrop to the early development of Stonehenge,” says archaeologist Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University in England. But he believes many large stones were brought to Stonehenge during a later upswing in cereal cultivation, as pastoralism receded in importance. ~|~

Tim Stanley wrote in The Telegraph: “We know there was a shift from mass burials towards the individual with their belongings, hinting at the emergence of new ideas about the afterlife, even the birth of individualism. By the end of the period, says Neil Wilkin of the British Museum, we find evidence of an “Ikea starter set” of vases and pots: domesticity. A possible Aesop-style myth appears on an Irish flesh-hook, with two corvids sitting at one end facing off against a row of swans on the other. Birds of the air vs birds of the water, the images no doubt inspiring plenty of fire-side tales. [Source: Tim Stanley, The Telegraph, February 14, 2022]

“People who were working the land clearly wanted to build an emotional relationship with it, to mark it, revere it and maybe even try to connect it to the sky which, on pre-electric nights, must have been dazzling. The Seahenge, from 2,000 B.C. — which was discovered in Norfolk in 1999 — is a circle of timber posts with an upside down tree in the middle. The image of a tree rooted in the sky kind of turns creation upside down.

Did Druids Build Stonehenge?

"Druids" at a Stonehenge solstice party

Did Druids build Stonehenge? The short answer is no, they probably didn't primarily because Druids appeared on scene long after Stonehenge was built. Owen Jarus wrote in Live Science: Archaeological work indicates that Stonehenge was constructed between roughly 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, while the earliest surviving written record of the druids dates back about 2,400 years. It's possible that the druids may go back somewhat further, but experts doubt they were around when Stonehenge was being built. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, September 28, 2022]

"Druids only emerge in the last half of the 1st millennium B.C.," long after Stonehenge was built, Caroline Malone, an emeritus professor of prehistory at Queen's University Belfast's School of Natural and Built Environment, told Live Science in an email. "No druidic evidence has ever been identified at Stonehenge, where instead, we have complex calendrical rituals associated with solstice, death, rebirth and community events," Malone noted, adding that "The Druids did not apparently worship the sun or solstice, and none of the Iron Age ritual sites suggest such activity or ritual."

There is no evidence linking druids to stone circles. "Classical authors referred to ancient druids worshipping only in wooded groves — there is no mention of any link between druids and stone [monuments] let alone Stonehenge," Mike Parker Pearson, a professor of British later prehistory at University College London, wrote in an article published in 2013 in the journal Archaeology International.

This may seem surprising, as modern-day druids identify with Stonehenge, and many visit the site on the solstices. However, the druids who exist today don't necessarily follow the same practices as the ancient druids did. The ancient druids disappeared about 1,200 years ago, during the Middle Ages, while a revival movement didn't occur until about 300 years ago.

So why are druids associated with Stonehenge, if there is no evidence linking them with the site? "The reason why Druids are associated with Stonehenge is that they are the pagan priesthood of Britain when [written records appear] and so, when it was realised that the monument was built by the prehistoric British, in the 18th century, it was assumed that the Druids were responsible for it," Ronald Hutton, a history professor at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science in an email. "Only in the 1960s did the public become generally aware, after further advances in archaeology, that it had been built two and a half thousand years before the time at which the Druids are recorded in ancient sources," Hutton said.

Some of the people involved with the revival of druidism, more than 300 years ago, were also involved with the study of Stonehenge and wanted to make it an important place of worship for the revived druids. "Stonehenge has long been linked with the reinvented druids — antiquaries such as John Aubrey and especially William Stukeley were central to that movement in the seventeenth century and they saw Stonehenge as the main shrine / temple for the new movement," Timothy Darvill, an archaeology professor at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom, told Live Science.

At Least Some Stonehenge Builders Were Welsh

According to a study published in 2018, at least some of the builders of Stonehenge were Welsh. Rob Waugh wrote in Yahoo News UK: “Stonehenge’s ‘bluestones’ came from west Wales – and analysis of skulls found at the site, suggests that the workers may have travelled from Wales. An analysis of 25 skull bones left over from being cremated at the site found at least 10 did not live near Stonehenge prior to their death. [Source: Rob Waugh, Yahoo News UK, August 3, 2018 +++]

“Instead the highest strontium isotope ratios in the remains were consistent with living in western Britain, a region that includes west Wales. Although strontium isotope ratios alone cannot distinguish between places with similar values, this connection suggests west Wales as the most likely origin of at least some of these people. +++

“The 25 skulls were originally excavated from a network of 56 pits in the 1920s, placed around the inner circumference and ditch of Stonehenge, known as ‘Aubrey Holes’. The cremated human bone came from an early phase of the site’s history around 3000 BC, when it was mainly used as a cemetery. Lead author John Pouncett, spatial technology officer at Oxford’s School of Archaeology, said: ‘The powerful combination of stable isotopes and spatial technology gives us a new insight into the communities who built Stonehenge. ‘The cremated remains from the enigmatic Aubrey Holes and updated mapping of the biosphere suggest that people from the Preseli Mountains not only supplied the bluestones used to build the stone circle, but moved with the stones and were buried there too.’ +++

“Lead author Associate Professor in Scientific and Prehistoric Archaeology Dr Rick Schulting at Oxford, explained: ‘Some of the people’s remains showed strontium isotope signals consistent with west Wales, the source of the bluestones that are now being seen as marking the earliest monumental phase of the site.’” +++

Graves of Young Woman and Baby Found Near Stonehenge

sun passing through a trilith

During a survey for the two-mile-long tunnel being built just south of Stonehenge, British archaeologists found the grave of a young woman and another with bones from a baby. Both graves date back roughly 4,500 years, which is roughly the age of the bluestones that make up Stonehenge's inner circle and a time when Stonehenge was constructed. Matt Leivers, an archaeologist with Wessex Archaeology who is helping to survey the area, told Business Insider the woman and baby were likely related to the people who erected the monument. “The later arrangements of bluestones would have been built around the time these people lived and died — if they weren't the builders then they might have been their relatives, or perhaps their children or grandchildren," he said. [Source: Aylin Woodward, Business Insider, February 13, 2021]

According to Business Insider: The baby's grave contained tiny ear bones, while the young woman's skeleton suggests she died in her 20s or 30s. According to Leivers, both individuals were part of the Beaker culture, a group of people who lived in Europe between about 4,000 and 5,000 years ago. The Beaker people are named after the pottery vessels they were typically buried with, which serve as markers of their identity, Leivers said. The infant was buried near a plain beaker, the woman was curled around an ornate one.

“The woman's grave also contained an object made from shale. “It may have been a ceremonial cup purposefully damaged before it was laid in the grave, or it may be the cap off the end of a staff or club," Leivers said in a press release. In addition to the two graves, the archaeologists unearthed two pots filled with cremated remains in the land surrounding Stonehenge. They also found pottery fragments, animal bones, and used flints. To the southeast of the monument, they found ditches that might have been part of a 2,500-year-old Iron Age fort, as well as other older ditches from the late Bronze Age, 3,500 years ago.

Artifacts Found near Stonehenge

The land around Stonehenge has yielded graves, pottery, and animal bones. The people that lived there are called Beaker people — so-named after the pottery vessels they were typically buried with them. Artifacts uncovered by a team from the Open University include are two carved ducks, the first of their kind to be found in Britain. The ducks were likely, say the team, to be a result of the Bronze Age tradition of carving animal figurines which were then thrown into water as offerings. [Source: stonepages.com]

“But while the ducks date back to 700 B.C., a ceremonial dagger was also found which was twice as old, originating around 1400 B.C.. However, another item which the team of diggers initially believed was a cow’s tooth was revealed by radiocarbon dating to date back to around 6250 B.C., some 3,000 years before work began on Stonehenge. It was part of a tranche of more than 200 animal bones that were buried alongside evidence of a large fire, suggesting a Mesolithic feast for up to 100 people. The bones transpired not to be from cows but instead from aurochs, a now extinct animal about the size of a buffalo.

“It’s probably one the earliest recorded hot meals in Britain, with these people likely cooking this huge creature,” Open University tutor David Jacques, who led the field work, said. Further excavations revealed a hoarde of more than 5,500 worked flints and tools. Given that only a few Mesolithic items had ever previously been found around Stonehenge, the discovery is strong evidence of the continuity of human life at the site. That means Stonehenge could have been a site of great significance to humans for several thousand years before the monument was built. “It’s not a surprise because we new there was a Mesolithic monument there somewhere, because of the (totem) posts that were found during the excavation of the car park some years ago,” said Mr Jacques. “The massive missing link between those two things has been that there is no evidence of people using them until now,” he added.

Stonehenge objects

Stonehenge Surrounded by Temples and Shrines

Advanced metal detectors, sensors and lasers, have helped archaeologists find Neolithic-age wood and stone temples and shrines near Stonehenge. Associated Press reported: “An extraordinary hidden complex of archaeological monuments has been uncovered around Stonehenge using new methods of subterranean scanning. The finds, dating back 6,000 years, include evidence of 17 previously unknown wooden or stone shrines and temples as well as dozens of burial mounds which have been mapped in minute detail. Most of the monuments are merged into the landscape and invisible to the casual eye. [Source: Associated Press, September 9, 2014]

“The four-year study, the largest geophysical survey ever undertaken, covered an area of 12 square kilometres and penetrated to a depth of three metres. British project leader Professor Vincent Gaffney, from the University of Birmingham, said: ''New monuments have been revealed, as well as new types of monument that have previously never been seen by archaeologists. All of this information has been placed within a single digital map, which will guide how Stonehenge and its landscape are studied in the future.“The investigators used a battery of state-of-the-art instruments including magnetometers - essentially advanced metal detectors - ground-penetrating radar arrays, electromagnetic sensors and lasers. Among the new discoveries are massive prehistoric pits, some of which appear to form astronomical alignments. New information has also come to light about known monuments, including the Durrington Walls ''super-henge'' situated a short distance from Stonehenge. The survey showed that Durrington Walls, which has a circumference of nearly a mile, was once flanked by as many as 60 massive posts or stones up to three metres high. Among the many burial mounds is a striking long barrow 33 metres long within which signs of a massive timber building were found. Evidence suggests this was the site of complex rituals involving the dead, including the removal of flesh and limbs.

“Prof Gaffney said the new work showed that Stonehenge was not an isolated structure on the edge of Salisbury Plain, but the centre of a complex widespread arrangement of ritualistic monuments that had grown and expanded over time. ''The presence of monuments generates activity which generates more monuments,'' he told a press conference at the British Science Festival at the University of Birmingham. ''What we're seeing is this unconscious elaboration of the Stonehenge landscape.''You've got Stonehenge which is clearly a very large ritual structure which is attracting people from large parts of the country. But around it people are creating their own shrines and temples. We can see the whole landscape is being used in very complex ways.''

“The way Stonehenge and its surroundings were laid out was a ''highly theatrical arrangement,'' he said. As one approached the monument via an ancient procession route, it gradually emerged from the landscape. ''It's truly impressive, and you get some feeling for how processional activities affected people,'' said Prof Gaffney. Colleague Professor Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Austria, described Stonehenge as being ''more or less in the bottom of a really big national arena''. He added: ''You have all these burial mounds along the horizon looking down at the stones.''

Homes of the Stonehenge Builders

The settlement at Durrington Walls was made up of hundreds of wood and chalk houses surrounded by three huge ceremonial structures out of wood pillars. "To anybody at that time, Durrington Walls would've looked more impressive than Stonehenge," Michael Parker Pearson, a lead archaeologist on the Durrington Walls excavation site and an author of the study, told Insider. "It would've looked spectacular". [Source: Marianne Guenot, Business Insider, May 20, 2022]

Stonehenge in 1611

The Stonehenge builders are thought to have lived in low-rectangular, wattle-and-daub, reed-thatched houses, based on excavations by Parker Pearson of the dwellings believed to have been occupied by the Neolithic tribes who built the later stages of Stonehenge 4,500 years ago a few. These dwellings were found a few kilometers from Stonehenge, at the Neolithic village of Durrington Walls, which Parker Pearson believes was occupied by the monument builders and also the scene of wild mid-winter and mid-summer feasts that lasted for days. [Source:Maev Kennedy, The Guardian, April 16, 2013 ||=||]

Maev Kennedy wrote in The Guardian: “Post holes give good evidence for the timber hammered into the chalky clay which formed the frames of the houses, and also indicate the door openings. Scorched marks of hearths remain, but the building materials, probably willow woven between the posts and then made wind and watertight by plastering with clay, rotted away millennia ago – except for the base of one wall, believed to be the earliest example of chalk cob as a building material. The upper levels, and the shape of the roofs thatched with straw or sedge, are conjecture, so several different styles are being tried out, included thatching over steeper ridges and shallow curved hazel hoops.” ||=||

Food of the Stonehenge Builders

A team of archaeologists from the Universites of York and Sheffield obtained information on the food choices and eating habits of the people who lived at Durrington Walls. Through detailed analysis of pottery and animal bones the researchers uncovered evidence of organised feasts featuring barbeque-style roasting, and insights into how foods were distributed and shared across the site. According to the University of York: “Chemically analysing food residues remaining on several hundred fragments of pottery, the York team found differences in the way pots were used. Pots deposited in residential areas were found to be used for cooking animal products including pork, beef and dairy, whereas pottery from the ceremonial spaces was used predominantly for dairy. [Source: University of York, October 12, 2015 ^=^]

“Such spatial patterning could mean that milk, yoghurts and cheeses were perceived as fairly exclusive foods only consumed by a select few, or that milk products – today often regarded as a symbol of purity – were used in public ceremonies. Unusually, there was very little evidence of plant food preparation at any part of the site. The main evidence points to mass animal consumption, particularly of pigs. Further analysis of animal bones, conducted at the University of Sheffield, found that many pigs were killed before reaching their maximum weight. This is strong evidence of planned autumn and winter slaughtering and feasting-like consumption. ^=^

Things you might find at a Stonehenge feast

“The main methods of cooking meat are thought to be boiling and roasting in pots probably around indoor hearths, and larger barbeque-style roasting outdoors – the latter evidenced by distinctive burn patterns on animal bones. Bones from all parts of the animal skeleton were found, indicating that livestock was walked to the site rather than introduced as joints of meat. Isotopic analysis indicates that cattle originated from many different locations, some far away from the site. This is significant as it would require orchestration of a large number of volunteers likely drawn from far and wide. The observed patterns of feasting do not fit with a slave-based society where labour was forced and coerced, as some have suggested. ^=^

“Dr Oliver Craig, Reader in Archaeological Science at the University of York and lead author on the paper, said: “Evidence of food-sharing and activity-zoning at Durrington Walls shows a greater degree of culinary organisation than was expected for this period of British prehistory. The inhabitants and many visitors to this site possessed a shared understanding of how foods should be prepared, consumed and disposed. This, together with evidence of feasting, suggests Durrington Walls was a well-organised working community.” Professor Mike Parker Pearson, Professor at University College London and Director of the Feeding Stonehenge project who also led the excavations at Durrington Walls, said: “This new research has given us a fantastic insight into the organisation of large-scale feasting among the people who built Stonehenge. Animals were brought from all over Britain to be barbecued and cooked in open-air mass gatherings and also to be eaten in more privately organized meals within the many houses at Durrington Walls. The special placing of milk pots at the larger ceremonial buildings reveals that certain products had a ritual significance beyond that of nutrition alone. The sharing of food had religious as well as social connotations for promoting unity among Britain’s scattered farming communities in prehistory. ” ^=^

Pigs Brought In From Far Away for Stonehenge Area Feasts

A team scientists from the universities of Cardiff, Sheffield, Leicester, and Nottingham examined the bones of pigs unearthed at four late Neolithic (2800-2400 B.C.) sites: Durrington Walls, Marden, Mount Pleasant and the West Kennet Palisade — archaeological sites is located close to either Stonehenge or Avebury and determined the animals were brought from considerable distances to what were probably large feasts. .[Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 23, 2019]

The study was led by Dr Richard Madgwick of Cardiff University. The food that an animal or person eats when young leaves a chemical signature in their teeth and bones that scientists can analyze to determine where they were — or were not — raised. The bones of 131 pigs, the prime feasting animals, from four Late Neolithic (c. 2800-2400BC) complexes were examined. The results show pig bones excavated from these sites were from animals raised as far away as Scotland, North East England and West Wales, as well as numerous other locations across the British Isles. The researchers believe it may have been important for those attending to contribute animals raised locally at their homes. [Source: Cardiff University, News Release, March 13, 2019]

Dr Richard Madgwick, of the School of History, Archaeology and Religion, said: "This study demonstrates a scale of movement and level of social complexity not previously appreciated. These gatherings could be seen as the first united cultural events of our island, with people from all corners of Britain descending on the areas around Stonehenge to feast on food that had been specially reared and transported from their homes. This shows that there was a much more mobile, connected society than we once thought. Knowledge of these events and monuments reached far and wide. People were clearly very organized and went to great lengths to adhere to the symbolic regulations these monuments required.”

Representing great feats of engineering and labour mobilisation, the Neolithic henge complexes of southern Britain were the focal point for great gatherings in the third millennium B.C.. Pigs were the prime animal used in feasting and they provide the best indication of where the people who feasted at these sites came from as almost no human remains have been recovered. Using isotope analysis, which identifies chemical signals from the food and water that animals have consumed, the researchers were able to determine geographical areas where the pigs were raised. The study offers the most detailed picture yet of the degree of mobility across Britain at the time of Stonehenge.

Does Ancient Poop Reveals That Durrington Walls Was a Party Town?

Scientists analyzed the 4,500-year-old feces of humans who are thought to have built Stonehenge and concluded that these people ate a lot meat and partied a lot. Marianne Guenot wrote in Business Inside: Researchers analyzed coprolites — partially fossilized feces — left by humans at he Durrington Walls settlement, where humans are thought to have stayed during the construction of the massive stone monument in southern England. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Parasitology on in May 2022, was the first to show that the workers ate raw animal — internal organs — during lavish ceremonial feasts that took place to mark the construction of Stonehenge. [Source: Marianne Guenot, Business Insider, May 20, 2022]

These massive gatherings were marked by lavish feasts. Pigs and cows were roasted on spits over roaring fires. Evidence suggests pigs were shot with arrows instead of being butchered. This could mean there were sporting games, demonstrations of strength or coming-of-age ceremonies there, said Susan Greaney an English heritage archaeologist who works on Stonehenge and wasn't involved in the study.

The food was so plentiful that bones were discarded onto rubbish heaps with meat still attached and leftovers were given to dogs to eat, Parker Pearson said "This is a sort of meat fest extravaganza," he said. "It's a sort of party-based consumer site, which is obviously a massive magnet for people to come from many, many miles away." "Until we did this study, no one had any idea if they were eating offal or not," Mitchell said.

aerial view of Durrington Walls

Evidence of culinary practices from prehistoric times is rare. Food tends to disintegrate over time, but parasite eggs can provide vital clues into the lifestyle of humans who left no written records. Five of the coprolites, one of which was found to be human and the rest from dogs, contained the eggs of parasitic worms. The parasites that were in the human feces would have come from the raw organs of infected animals, Mitchell said. "We knew that they were eating pigs and cattle, so it's not surprising that they were eating every part of the animal," Greaney said. "But it's the first time we've got evidence for that," she said.

The dog poop also had traces of freshwater fish parasites. This could be evidence that the dog traveled from an area of England where there were lakes. This was also unexpected because archaeologists believe eating fish was taboo around this time, maybe because people put their cremated dead into rivers, Greaney said. "It's a bit of a leap to go from like one dog eating one fish to saying that people were fishing," she said. "But it does raise interesting questions about that."

Stuff Found Around Stonehenge

Vince Gaffney is an archaeologist from Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England. Ed Caesar wrote in Smithsonian Magazine: “Gaffney’s latest research effort, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, is a four-year collaboration between a British team and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria that has produced the first detailed underground survey of the area surrounding Stonehenge, totaling more than four square miles. The results are astonishing. [Source: Ed Caesar, Smithsonian Magazine, September 2014 /+]

“Researchers have found buried evidence of more than 15 previously unknown or poorly understood late Neolithic monuments: henges, barrows, segmented ditches, pits. To Gaffney, these findings suggest a scale of activity around Stonehenge far beyond what was previously suspected. “There was sort of this idea that Stonehenge sat in the middle and around it was effectively an area where people were probably excluded,” Gaffney told me, “a ring of the dead around a special area—to which few people might ever have been admitted....Perhaps there were priests, big men, whatever they were, inside Stonehenge having processions up the Avenue, doing...something extremely mysterious. Of course that sort of analysis depends on not knowing what’s actually in the area around Stonehenge itself. It was terra incognita, really.”

“Nobody has yet put a spade in the ground to verify the new findings, which were painstakingly gathered by geophysicists and others wielding magnetometers and ground-penetrating radars that scan the ground to detect structures and objects several yards below the surface. But Gaffney has no doubt of the work’s value. “This is among the most important landscapes, and probably the most studied landscape, in the world,” he says. “And the area has been absolutely transformed by this survey. Won’t be the same again.” /+\

“In a multimedia room at the University of Birmingham there was a vast touch screen, six feet by nine, on which a new map of the Stonehenge landscape appeared. Gaffney pointed out the key features. There was Stonehenge itself, marked by the familiar circles. To the north was the long, thin strip called the Stonehenge Cursus or the Greater Cursus, which was demarcated by ditches, and ran east to west for nearly two miles. (The Cursus was given its name by the antiquarian William Stukeley in the 18th century because it looked like an ancient Roman race course. Its construction predates the first building work at Stonehenge by several hundred years.) Gaffney also pointed out the Cursus Barrows—hillocks containing mass human graves—just south of the Cursus itself, and King Barrow Ridge to the east. /+\

“Scattered all over the map were blotches of black: features without names. These were new finds, including the more than 15 possible new or poorly understood Neolithic monuments. Gaffney emphasized possible, acknowledging that it will require digging—“the testimony of the spade”—to discover precisely what was there. /+\

“Standing in front of this constellation of evidence, he seemed unable to decide where to start, like a child at the Christmas tree. “These are little henge monuments,” he said, touching the screen to highlight a group of black smudges. “Nice little entrance there, and a ditch. These things we know nothing about.” /+\

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except feast and objects from English Heritage

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024