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Avebury Village & Related Megalithic Sites: Remarkable Monument, Ceremonial Landscape August 12, 2008

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The two great henge mountains of Stonehenge and Avebury are only about 20 miles (32km) apart in Wiltshire, yet each has its own surrounding ceremonial landscape containing many other monuments. All are entered as site number 96 on the World Heritage List, but here we will describe each of these major monuments and landscapes in turn.

Avebury is often thought of as being just the great 28-acre (11.5ha) henge and stone circle. This is probably because the village of Avebury, with pub, restaurants and bookshops, has sprawled within the henge enclosure. But this remarkable monument of the third millenium BC, the era of the Neolithic or New Stone Age in Britain, is surrounded by other sites contemporary with it or even older, and `Avebury‘ must be considered as a complex of sites. Indeed, the local area is effectively a surviving Neolithic landscape, with sites and natural topography blending together.

The actual henge is the huge ditch and bank enclosure, excavated with antler picks out of the solid Wiltshire chalk. The ditch was originally up to 33 feet (10m) deep but is now silted to more than half that depth. The bank is on the outer rim of the ditch, meaning that it was not for defensive purposes. Around the inner lip of the ditch stand the survivors of a great stone ring, which in turn contains the remnants of two inner circles. The northern one of these had a central stone grouping now partly surviving as The Cove; the southern circle had a curious setting of low stones (the ‘Z Feature’) and a giant standing stone at its centre. This stone, referred to as the Obelisk, had already fallen when antiquarian William Stukeley drew it in the eighteenth century. He described it as having been the tallest stone at the site, in excess of 20 feet (6m) in length. It no longer exists, but its original hole is now marked by a large concrete plinth erected by Alexander Keiller during his excavation and restoration of part of the complex in the 1930s. Keiller’s work revealed much about the site, but large parts remain uninvestigated. The chronology of the henge and its stones is thus poorly understood, although the monument is thought to date in general to about 2600 BC.

Travel GuidebookThe site experienced its greatest destruction in historical times. In the early fourteenth century at least 40 stones were buried, probably as a result of Christian anti-pagan encouragement. Many of these stones still remain underground.’ Then from the seventeenth century up until the early nineteenth century the interior of the henge was built upon and many stones were broken up.

Long before the henge existed, the natural eminence of Windmill Hill, about a mile north-north-west from the henge, was being used as some kind of gathering place. The nature of these meetings is unclear, possibly being a mix of religious and secular activity. The beginning of regular human activity on the hill is thought to date to around 3700 BC. At about the same time, the earlier phases of construction of the West Kennet long barrow occurred. This barrow, at over 300 feet (100m) in length, is the longest in Wiltshire, and is oriented east—west. It started life as a smaller, linear mound of rocks. This was later covered with chalk quarried from side ditches, creating what would have been a striking white feature. Later still came the stone passage and chambers that occupy the eastern end of the mound. Human bones were uncovered, with each chamber apparently having been given over to a specific group — adult males, old people, women, children. The barrow was not simply a grave, for the skeletons of the dead were regularly rearranged and, it would seem, only particular bones kept, skulls and long bones being removed. Room was made for fresh internments. Activity took place at West Kennet barrow up until about 2200 BC. The original entrance had been crescent-shaped, but at the end of the barrow’s use, great standing stones were placed across this as if to seal it off. The bulk of the final mound is earthen, and as the inner chambers comprise such a small part of the barrow, other explanations have to be found to explain its length. That explanation is now forthcoming as a result of research by the present author, as will be shown.

Other surviving long barrows in the Avebury landscape include, notably, East Kennet and Beckhampton barrows.

Around 3000 BC work began on the Sanctuary, which evolved into a double stone circle on the site of six concentric timber rings atop Overton Hill, which forms the eastern ridge containing the sacred geography surrounding Avebury henge. Both stone and post holes are now marked by concrete blocks — Stukeley saw the final destruction of this site in the eighteenth century. Excavational evidence suggests that great feasts took place here, and some form of mortuary ritual was carried out. The site stands at one end of the Kennet Avenue, which ran between here and the henge. Most of this is no longer visible, but sets of stones were re- erected by Keiller at the henge end of the Avenue. Although this restored section looks sinuous at first glance, archaeologists have discovered that it is comprised of straight alignments of stones articulated together.

There were other Neolithic structures of stone, earth and timber in the landscape around Avebury henge, all now vanished, as well as later Bronze Age monuments, but all the Neolithic sites described above are the surviving ones that have line-of-sight communication with Silbury Hill, around which they form a ragged circuit. Silbury, an artificial mound some 130 feet (40m) high, containing over 12 million cubic feet (339,600 cubic m) of chalk and covering over 5 acres (2ha), was the tallest Neolithic structure in all Europe. It is the geomantic hub of the Avebury complex. It was built in three stages over a period of time, the first phase taking place sometime around 2700 BC. The culminating phase resulted in a cone-shaped mound of six concentric steps built from chalk. Chalk blocks created a honeycomb lattice, and the cells so formed by this method were infilled with chalk rubble and silt.

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Avebury Village & Related Megalithic Sites: Remarkable Monument, Ceremonial Landscape

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