The Archaeology of Stonehenge

The Prehistoric Monuments of Salisbury Plain in England

Dec 3, 2009 Paris Franz

The subject of much study and debate, the mysterious, five-thousand year old Stonehenge continues to fascinate.

Stonehenge stands on Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, its 46.9 acre site bounded by the traffic of the A303 and the A344 and the Larkhill Track. It is owned by the state and administered by the government-funded English Heritage. And that, as Rosemary Hill notes in her book Stonehenge, is very nearly the limit of the uncontested facts about Stonehenge.

The Mystery of Stonehenge

There have been many theories, some fiercely contested, about the nature of Stonehenge. Over the years antiquaries and archaeologists have called the imposing stones a cemetery, an observatory, a memorial, and a parliament. A product of prehistory, Stonehenge continues to generate lively debate into the twenty-first century.

The site on Salisbury Plain was significant long before Stonehenge was built. There is evidence that wooden posts were raised here as long ago as the Mesolithic period, between 8500 and 6700 BC. By the time the building of Stonehenge began around 3000 BC, the site was surrounded by long barrows, or large communal graves, the earliest of which was more than a thousand years old.

While Stonehenge appears to stand in splendid isolation, it actually stands at the centre of a huge complex of monuments. Salisbury Plain is full of mysterious structures, such as the earthwork Robin Hood's Ball, the Cursus, Durrington Walls and The Avenue, the ancient formal approach to Stonehenge from the River Avon. These sites form the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site.

The Archaeology of Stonehenge

Stonehenge was constructed over fifteen hundred years. Archaeologists have divided the process into three phases.

Phase One: this was a simple earthwork, a circular ditch with an internal bank. It was dug with picks made from antlers, discarded when the work was done. These have provided radio-carbon dates of 3000-2900 BC. This phase included the digging of the fifty-six pits inside the bank which came to be known as Aubrey Holes, after the antiquary John Aubrey.

Phase Two: this began in the late Neolithic before about 2400 BC, with evidence of a great deal of timber construction. Its purpose appears primarily to have been a cremation cemetery.

Phase Three: this was the phase of the stones, when Stonehenge became something the modern age would recognise. The large sarsen, or greywether, stones came from the nearby Marlborough Downs, where it occurs in large surface deposits. The smaller bluestones are a mix of dolerite, rhyolites and volcanic ash not local to Salisbury Plain. It is generally agreed that they come from sources in the Mynydd Preseli area of South Wales. It is thought the sarsens were in place by 2400 BC at the latest.

Sources:

Rosemary Hill, Stonehenge (Profile Books, 2008)

David Souden, Stonehenge – Mysteries of the Stones and Lanscape (Collins and Brown, 1997)

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Stonehenge Archaeology