Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge

[editor]

This is a fantastic discovery

A circle of deep shafts has been discovered near the world heritage site of Stonehenge, to the astonishment of archaeologists, who have described it as the largest prehistoric structure ever found in Britain.

Four thousand five hundred years ago, the Neolithic peoples who constructed Stonehenge, a masterpiece of engineering, also dug a series of shafts aligned to form a circle spanning 1.2 miles (2km) in diameter. The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area because Durrington Walls, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north-east of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury, Wiltshire.

Prof Vincent Gaffney, a leading archaeologist on the project, said: “This is an unprecedented find of major significance within the UK. Key researchers on Stonehenge and its landscape have been taken aback by the scale of the structure and the fact that it hadn’t been discovered until now so close to Stonehenge.”

Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge

Exclusive: prehistoric structure spanning 1.2 miles in diameter is masterpiece of engineering, say archaeologists

www.theguardian.com

 

[weltweit]

Wonder how they were lost in the first place?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

People really did have fuck all else to do back then

 

[Steel Icarus]

Astonishing they've only just been found

 

[StoneRoad]

Very interesting. Holes that big should be difficult to miss !

{I take issue with calling them shafts, however. To me, a shaft is narrower across than the depth. I would call them pits as they are wider than they are deep.}

 

[Duncan2]

Who would have thought that these ancient chaps/chapesses could pull off a masterpiece of engineering having only just learned to count

 

[belboid]

Astonishing they've only just been found

like many things from around then, it isnt that they've only just been discovered, it's that they have worked out they are related and linked. That Stonehenge was part of a vast set of buildings (its not really right to call them all monuments) is well known now, so a greater area is getting looked at properly. Helped by the growth in popularity of archaeology and the number of archaeology students.

 

[Part-timah]

Probably just holes to chuck rubbish in or neolithic latrines. Fuck archeologists that lazily call everything mildly uncertain as religious or for rituals.

 

[ringo]

Very excited about these

 

[farmerbarleymow]

The arguments to stop the tunnel being built have merit, given discoveries like this. Just close the road and be done with it so we protect this landscape and its history.

 

[editor]

Interesting stuff:

Bronze age graves, neolithic pottery and the vestiges of a mysterious C-shaped enclosure that might have been a prehistoric industrial area are among the finds unearthed by archaeologists who have carried out preliminary work on the site of the proposed new road tunnel at Stonehenge.

One of the most intriguing discoveries is a unique shale object that could have been part of a staff or club found in a 4,000-year-old grave. Nearby is the resting spot of a baby buried with a small, plain beaker.

Ditches that flank the C-shaped enclosure contain burnt flint, suggesting a process such as metal or leatherworking was carried out there t

Archaeologists unearth bronze age graves at Stonehenge tunnel site

Exclusive: experts also find neolithic pottery and mysterious C-shaped enclosure at A303 excavation site

www.theguardian.com

 

[platinumsage]

I wonder how they relate to the large building that stonehenge used to be, as discovered by local landscape architect Sarah Ewbank (who has a book out soon, details in your favourite tabloid):



The monument’s curator, Heather Sebire said "The idea of a roof on Stonehenge wouldn’t make any sense...The bottom line is that there isn’t any evidence for it."

This doesn’t sit well with Sarah. "Just because something hasn’t survived, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist" she says.