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Authors: Mike Parker Pearson
Tags: Social Science, Archaeology
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Durrington Walls henge, Colin went two miles away to the northwest of Stonehenge next to Fargo plantation, and Josh dug two trenches into Woodhenge. One of these Woodhenge trenches was on the external bank enclosing the timber circle; the Neolithic ground surface would be preserved here and we hoped to find evidence of activities from before Woodhenge was built. The other trench was within an area already dug by Mrs. Cunnington. At the southern end of the timber circle her workmen had found two holes much shallower than the many postholes. She interpreted them as holes for standing stones, partly because some sarsen chippings were found close by. Josh wanted to know whether she was right and, if so, how the stones had related to the timber posts.
Josh was joined by David Robinson, lecturer in archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire—or, as we know him, California Dave. Although his main interest is in the rock art of California, and the hallucinogens taken by Native Americans to attain trance states for making the art, California Dave is also an expert in the British Neolithic. As a student years earlier, he came on an exchange program to Sheffield University and has spent many summers digging for Josh and Julian.
As they dug to the bottom of the holes that Cunnington thought had once held stones, Josh and Cali Dave could see that she had been right. Two enormous sarsens once sat in these holes and had left distinctive layers of crushed chalk at their bases. Furthermore, Cunnington had missed another two stoneholes. These stones had actually formed a three-sided setting, open to the west; a similar stone setting still stands within the Avebury henge, where it is called a “cove.” Four standing stones, probably less than two meters high, had formed this cove at Woodhenge; they were later removed and replaced around 2000 BC by two large sarsens, standing probably more than two meters high. Just where all these stones have gone is a mystery. The last two could have been dragged out and broken up in historical times, but the first four were definitely moved during the Neolithic; perhaps they were taken to Stonehenge or to an unknown spot in Woodhenge’s immediate vicinity.
Excavating one of the postholes at Woodhenge. After the posts had decayed, a “cove” of sarsen standing stones was erected in the southern part of the monument.
It is most likely that the cove at Woodhenge was erected after the wooden posts had decayed. This process of replacing wooden monuments with stone, known as “lithification,” has been noticed by archaeologists on many megalithic sites. 1 Perhaps it represented the process of hardening in which the transient and decaying was replaced by the eternal. At the center of the cove, Josh and Dave discovered a hole left by the roots of a blown-over tree. Potshards and flint blades from its fill were of styles found in the fourth millennium BC, at least five hundred years earlier than Woodhenge’s timber posts, so this tree might have been growing here long before Woodhenge was erected.
Beneath the henge bank, Josh and Dave found that the builders of Woodhenge had stripped away the turf. In doing so, the henge-builders had exposed another such tree-throw hole, which they had capped with a surface of rammed chalk. Within and around this tree hole there was a small heap of shards from a pot. The shape of this pot indicated that it came from the beginning of the Neolithic, around 3800 BC. This pot was dumped here more than a thousand years before Woodhenge was built, at around the same time as the Coneybury pit was filled with feasting debris. 2 Although we could not be sure whether the broken potsfound in the two tree holes at Woodhenge were of the same type, they could well have been deposited around the same time, when the earliest farmers began clearing the few trees standing on the high chalklands.
In the valley below the east entrance to Durrington Walls, we extended our trenches
Josh was joined by David Robinson, lecturer in archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire—or, as we know him, California Dave. Although his main interest is in the rock art of California, and the hallucinogens taken by Native Americans to attain trance states for making the art, California Dave is also an expert in the British Neolithic. As a student years earlier, he came on an exchange program to Sheffield University and has spent many summers digging for Josh and Julian.
As they dug to the bottom of the holes that Cunnington thought had once held stones, Josh and Cali Dave could see that she had been right. Two enormous sarsens once sat in these holes and had left distinctive layers of crushed chalk at their bases. Furthermore, Cunnington had missed another two stoneholes. These stones had actually formed a three-sided setting, open to the west; a similar stone setting still stands within the Avebury henge, where it is called a “cove.” Four standing stones, probably less than two meters high, had formed this cove at Woodhenge; they were later removed and replaced around 2000 BC by two large sarsens, standing probably more than two meters high. Just where all these stones have gone is a mystery. The last two could have been dragged out and broken up in historical times, but the first four were definitely moved during the Neolithic; perhaps they were taken to Stonehenge or to an unknown spot in Woodhenge’s immediate vicinity.
Excavating one of the postholes at Woodhenge. After the posts had decayed, a “cove” of sarsen standing stones was erected in the southern part of the monument.
It is most likely that the cove at Woodhenge was erected after the wooden posts had decayed. This process of replacing wooden monuments with stone, known as “lithification,” has been noticed by archaeologists on many megalithic sites. 1 Perhaps it represented the process of hardening in which the transient and decaying was replaced by the eternal. At the center of the cove, Josh and Dave discovered a hole left by the roots of a blown-over tree. Potshards and flint blades from its fill were of styles found in the fourth millennium BC, at least five hundred years earlier than Woodhenge’s timber posts, so this tree might have been growing here long before Woodhenge was erected.
Beneath the henge bank, Josh and Dave found that the builders of Woodhenge had stripped away the turf. In doing so, the henge-builders had exposed another such tree-throw hole, which they had capped with a surface of rammed chalk. Within and around this tree hole there was a small heap of shards from a pot. The shape of this pot indicated that it came from the beginning of the Neolithic, around 3800 BC. This pot was dumped here more than a thousand years before Woodhenge was built, at around the same time as the Coneybury pit was filled with feasting debris. 2 Although we could not be sure whether the broken potsfound in the two tree holes at Woodhenge were of the same type, they could well have been deposited around the same time, when the earliest farmers began clearing the few trees standing on the high chalklands.
In the valley below the east entrance to Durrington Walls, we extended our trenches
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