Stonehenge archaeologists discover 'wooden henge'

By Paul Armstrong
cnnAuthor = "By Paul Armstrong, CNN";

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London, England (CNN) -- Archaeologists studying the iconic Stonehenge monument in southern England have uncovered a second prehistoric henge-like circle only 900 meters away, which they hope will shed more light on the mysterious stone landmark.

The remains, comprising a circular ditch surrounding a ring of 24 internal pits up to one meter in diameter and designed to allow posts to support a free-standing, timber structure up to three meters high -- are thought to date from the late Neolithic period, some 4,500 years ago.

"Although it would have been made out of timber rather than stone, it's comparable in scale to the existing Stonehenge monument," said Henry Chapman of the University of Birmingham in central England.
Chapman was one of the British-led team involved in a multi-million dollar project to "map" the World Heritage site, using state-of-the-art imaging technology to recreate "virtually" the iconic monument and its surroundings.

The images, which resemble a lunar landscape, provide an outline of the circle buried under the surface with its opposing north-east and south-west entrances, together with what archaeologists believe to be a burial mound in the center.

"Rather than giving us a map or plan of what is buried, this technology allows us to see it in three dimensions," Chapman told CNN. "We can almost excavate the site virtually by peeling off five centimeters at a time to see what is there."

Project leader, Professor Vince Gaffney of the University of Birmingham, hailed the find as one of the most significant yet for those researching Britain's most important prehistoric structure.

"This finding is remarkable," he said in a statement on the university's website. "It will completely change the way we think about the landscape around Stonehenge.

"People have tended to think that as Stonehenge reached its peak it was the paramount monument, existing in splendid isolation. This discovery is completely new and extremely important in how we understand Stonehenge and its landscape."

Chapman added that the find may be the start of an exciting new chapter at Stonehenge. "We're just in the first year of a four-year project, so we'd expect to find lots more between the known monuments we see at present and hopefully fill the gaps in our knowledge," he said.

Debate has raged about the origins and purpose of Stonehenge, located on Salisbury Plain approximately 90 miles west of London.

Known for its orientation in relation to the rising and setting sun, the circle of stones represented a prehistoric temple to some. Others argued it was an astronomical observatory. Or that it was a marker of time.

But last year, archaeologists unearthed a new stone circle a mile from Stonehenge that they said lent credence to the theory that the famous monument was part of a funeral complex.
Dubbed "Bluestonehenge" after the color of the 25 Welsh stones of which it was once composed, the new find sat along the banks of the nearby River Avon.

University of Bristol archaeologist Joshua Pollard suggested Neolithic peoples would have come down river by boat and literally stepped off into Bluestonehenge. They may have congregated at certain times of the year, including the winter solstice, and carried remains of the dead from Bluestonehenge down an almost two-mile funeral processional route to a cemetery at Stonehenge to bury them.


The latest project, which is supported by the site's landowner, the National Trust, and facilitated by English Heritage, brought together the most sophisticated geophysics team ever to be engaged in a single archaeological project in Britain, involving archaeologists and other specialists from the UK, Austria, Germany, Norway and Sweden.



http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/22/britain.stonehenge.discovery/

I find this fascinating. It seems as though the more they discover, the less they know, and the deeper the msytery of this site gets.

Oh believe me, you are absolutely correct. We will never know what Stonehenge was about, some of the country's top archaeologists are fighting over it day to day. This is the second such "woodhenge" to be found nearby but this one is much closer to Stonehenge.

It is a complex monument and the landscape around it is even more complex. I've read some papers on it, but I never studied the Neolithic formally, at least not to any great extent and if Europe's top experts can't get their head around it then what chance is there for me?

This superb video produced by Wessex Archaeology shows how complex the landscape around Stonehenge is. LIDAR can pick out details not visible to the naked eye.

http://vimeo.com/387367

It's a shame that so much nonsense and wild speculation has been written about it over the years. And the irony may be that the truth could be more fantastic than the conjecture. It pre-dates the druids, but unfortunately that doesn't stop wacky neo-pagans from claiming the site for rituals periodically.

I have a friend who used to live in Wimbledon years ago and he sent me a little bag containing about a spoonful of soil from Stonehenge. The authoritories are very strict about visitors taking away anything from the site, so I was very happy to have even that much from it.

alland wrote:It's a shame that so much nonsense and wild speculation has been written about it over the years. And the irony may be that the truth could be more fantastic than the conjecture. It pre-dates the druids, but unfortunately that doesn't stop wacky neo-pagans from claiming the site for rituals periodically.

Oh believe me I know, I'm an archaeologist myself. The Druids were nothing like they are perceived in the popular press and new age writers books on the subject and most of it based on Julius Caesar's writings which were largely conjecture. Modern Druidism (as any modern neo-paganism) is largely pure fantasy and any discussion of "ancient religion" ought to be dismissed off hand. Even the top minds know nothing for certain about what people believed between the Neolithic and the Iron Age so how these people are privvy to so much expert knowledge I'm sure they would love to know.

alland wrote:I have a friend who used to live in Wimbledon years ago and he sent me a little bag containing about a spoonful of soil from Stonehenge.

I don't think they would be bothered about a little bit of soil, but people used to chip off pieces of the stone as souvenirs. It doesn't take a bright spark to realise if everybody did that there wouldn't be any left.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote: Even the top minds know nothing for certain about what people believed between the Neolithic and the Iron Age so how these people are privvy to so much expert knowledge I'm sure they would love to know.

They channeled it from The Secret Chiefs.