2500BCE: Stonehenge builders’ settlement and neolithic party venue

From the National Geographic -

The village, located 1.75 miles (2.8 kilometers) from the famous stone circle, includes eight wooden houses dated back to around 2500 B.C. The remains of a cluster of homes include the outlines of floors, beds, and cupboards. Tools, jewelry, pottery, and human and animal bones were also found. The excavated houses formed part of a much bigger settlement dating back to the Late Stone Age, according to project leader Mike Parker Pearson of England’s Sheffield University. “We could have many hundreds of houses here,” Parker Pearson added. “Our dates for the building of Stonehenge are identical to the dates for this very large settlement.” The village stood next to a newly revealed stone avenue, partly visible in the excavation ditch at top right, which once led from a large timber circle to the nearby River Avon.

A major prehistoric village has been unearthed near Stonehenge in southern England.The settlement likely housed the builders of the famous monument, archaeologists say, and was an important ceremonial site in its own right, hosting great “feasts and parties” (see a photo gallery of the Stonehenge village).

Excavations also offer new evidence that a timber circle and a vast earthwork where the village once stood were linked to Stonehenge—via road, river, and ritual. Together, the sites were part of a much larger religious complex, the archaeologists suggest.

This map shows the location of Durrington Walls and its position in relation to Stonehenge. The latest excavations in the area suggest Stonehenge formed part of a much larger ritual complex that was spread across the surrounding landscape. The newly found avenue at Durrington Walls connects the monument to the River Avon, which in turn links to another avenue downstream, which leads to Stonehenge. Mike Parker Pearson of the Stonehenge Riverside Project argues that the course of the river between the two ancient monuments symbolized the passage to the afterlife. Durrington Walls was used for feasts and rituals that celebrated life, while Stonehenge was both a memorial and final resting place for the dead, the archaeologist speculates.

(See also: “Stonehenge Didn’t Stand Alone, Excavations Show” [January 12, 2007].)

“Stonehenge isn’t a monument in isolation. It is actually one of a pair—one in stone, one in timber [animated map showing the sites],” said Mike Parker Pearson, leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, a joint initiative run by six English universities and partially funded by the National Geographic Society. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

The Late Stone Age village—the largest ever found in Britain—was excavated in September 2006 at Durrington Walls, the world’s largest known “henge,” a type of circular earthwork. A giant timber circle (photo) once stood at Durrington, which is 1.75 miles (2.8 kilometers) from the celebrated circle of standing stones on Salisbury Plain.

At Durrington the archaeologists discovered foundations of houses dating back to 4,600 years ago (photo)—around the time construction began on Stonehenge.

Excavations revealed the remains of eight wooden buildings. Surveys of the landscape have identified up to 30 more dwellings, Parker Pearson said.

“We could have many hundreds of houses here,” he added.

The initial stone circle at Stonehenge—the so-called sarsen stones—has been radiocarbon-dated to between 2600 and 2500 B.C.

Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain in southern England, is perhaps the world’s best known prehistoric monument, attracting nearly a million visitors a year. The Stonehenge Riverside Project is a joint initiative run by six English universities with the aim of understanding how the iconic structure relates to the broader landscape and surrounding Stone Age sites. Recent excavations suggest Durrington Walls closely mirrored Stonehenge, having its own impressive standing circle made of timber and an avenue that linked it to the River Avon. Stonehenge is aligned with the sunset on the winter solstice, whereas Durrington Walls’ large timber circle was aligned with the sunrise on the same day, scientists say. “Stonehenge isn’t a monument in isolation. It is actually one of a pair—one in stone, one in timber, with this shared relationship with the river, each with their solstice-aligned avenues and circles,” said archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson, leader of the project.

The dates for the village are “exactly the same time, in radiocarbon terms, as for the building of the sarsens,” Parker Pearson said.

Six of the houses so far unearthed measured about 250 square feet (23 square meters) each and had wooden walls and clay floors. Fireplaces and furniture—such as cupboards and beds—could be discerned from their outlines in the earth, Parker Pearson said.

Two more dwellings were uncovered away from the main settlement, to the western end of the henge.

Found by Julian Thomas of Manchester University, these additional buildings were surrounded by a timber fence and a substantial ditch.

Two of the eight Stone Age buildings uncovered near Stonehenge were set apart from the main settlement, surrounded by a timber fence and a substantial ditch. The sites of the two houses—one of which is pictured above—were discovered by Julian Thomas of Manchester University, who says there is evidence for three or four other, similar structures nearby. The excavation team speculates that these imposing buildings may have been the dwellings of chiefs or priests who lived separately from the rest of the community. Another theory is that the buildings were uninhabited and used only for rituals, because the dig team found no traces of household items inside them. “They may have been more like shrines or cult houses” where people went to invoke the spirits of ancestors, Thomas said, “or to conduct negotiations of some kind or to have out-of-body or trance experiences.”

There is evidence for at least three other such structures in the same area, Thomas said.

“Cult Houses”

The project team says these imposing buildings to the west may have been the homes of chiefs or priests (photo) who lived separately from the rest of the community.

Another theory is that the buildings were used only for rituals, as hardly any trace of household waste has been found inside them.

“They may have been more like shrines or cult houses,” Thomas said. People may have gone to them “to invoke the spirits of ancestors” or “to have out-of-body or trance experiences.”

The main group of houses were clustered along an impressive stone avenue discovered by the team in 2005.

Measuring some 90 feet (27 meters) wide and 560 feet (170 meters) long, the avenue linked the site of the former massive timber circle at Durrington to the River Avon. The road mirrors a similar avenue at Stonehenge that connects to the Avon downriver of Durrington.

The team says this and other parallels between the two monuments indicate that they formed a much larger religious complex. People moved between the two sites via the river during important ceremonies, the archaeologists suggest.

Stonehenge’s avenue, the team notes, is aligned with the summer solstice sunrise. Durrington’s avenue lines up with the summer solstice sunset.

Likewise, Stonehenge is aligned with the winter solstice sunset, whereas Durrington’s large timber circle was lined up with the winter solstice sunrise.

“Durrington is almost a mirror image of its stone counterpart at Stonehenge,” Parker Pearson said. “You can pretty much overlie the plan of Stonehenge on the timber circle and see they’re the same dimensions.”

A reconstruction made in 2005 depicts one of two timber circles first discovered 40 years ago near Stonehenge. The timber circles were uncovered at Durrington Walls, the prehistoric earthwork that is the site of the newly discovered Stone Age village. The dig revealed that two timber circles once stood within Durrington Walls around 2500 B.C., the same period in which Stonehenge was built. At the south of the Durrington site, archaeologists found evidence of five concentric rings measuring 130 feet (40 meters) across and a smaller circle with two timber rings to the north. Mike Parker Pearson of the Stonehenge Riverside Project believes Durrington Walls and nearby Stonehenge were intimately connected. Parker Pearson believes that the wooden and stone circles represented the domains of the living and the dead, respectively.

After the initial construction of Stonehenge, the Late Stone Age, or Neolithic, village became a place where people stayed during ritual feasts, Parker Pearson believes.

Describing the settlement as a “consumer site,” he says its residents weren’t involved in usual day-to-day activities.

“There are a few tools for scraping hides and that sort of thing. But it’s completely different from any other Neolithic settlement assemblage we’ve ever looked at before,” he said.

Large quantities of pottery fragments and animal bones found at Durrington appear to support this idea. Prehistoric pigs’ teeth from the site suggest the animals were slaughtered when they were nine months old, which would put their butchering during the winter solstice period—perhaps just in time for feasting.

Stone Age Party

People came from all over southern Britain “to feast and party,” Parker Pearson said.

Ongoing isotope analysis of human teeth recovered from the settlement may show that visitors traveled from even farther afield, he added.

Tests carried out in 2002 on nearby buried human remains from around 2300 B.C. suggested that people from the foothills of European Alps also came to the Stonehenge area.

Parker Pearson says that the latest finds indicate that Durrington and Stonehenge represent the domains of the living and the dead, respectively—Durrington’s temporary wooden circle symbolizing life, and Stonehenge’s permanent megaliths symbolizing death.

After big feasts at Durrington, he theorizes, worshippers proceeded down the avenue there, depositing human remains in the River Avon. The river then carried the remains downstream to Stonehenge.

“My guess as to what’s being thrown in is cremation ashes or human bones or perhaps even whole bodies in cases,” Parker Pearson said.

“We think the river is acting like a conduit to the underworld.”

Evidence of prehistoric pyres has been found along the course of the river. This suggests that worshippers traveled on foot or by boat to Stonehenge, perhaps to bury their dead, Parker Pearson adds.

“The theory is that Stonehenge is a kind of spirit home to the ancestors,” he said.

Stonehenge archaeologist Joshua Pollard, of Bristol University, agrees that there does appear to be a strong link between Neolithic standing stones and the human dead.

“Stonehenge is remarkable for the sheer quantity of human remains buried there,” Pollard said.

Manchester University’s Thomas is less sure about the exact nature of the ritualistic connection between Durrington and Stonehenge. But he said that their complementary relationship and connection to the River Avon is “immensely important.”

“Rather than just focusing on Stonehenge as something in isolation,” he said, “we’re seeing the way in which it relates to a whole landscape.”

James Owen in London
for National Geographic News

January 30, 2007