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This PDF is a simplified version of the original article published in Internet Archaeology. Enlarged images, and interactive features which support this publication can be found in the original version online. All links also go to the online version. Please cite this as: Leivers, M. 2021 The Army Basing Programme, Stonehenge and the Emergence of the Sacred Landscape of Wessex, Internet Archaeology 56. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.56.2 The Army Basing Programme, Stonehenge and the Emergence of the Sacred Landscape of Wessex Matt Leivers Recent excavations for the Army Basing Programme on the periphery of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site have revealed extensive evidence of Early, Middle and Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age activity, including a causewayed enclosure, burials, occupation, pit groups, henges, post alignments and circles. Several of these either incorporate or refer to features of the landscape such as solution hollows, dry valleys, hilltops and rivers, as well as to astronomical phenomena. An appraisal of this evidence alongside other recent programmes of research around Stonehenge suggest an accreting pattern of development of this landscape that begins in the 38th century BC, and which throws new light on the location and meaning of several of the ceremonial earthworks, including Stonehenge itself. The sunrise from the Lark Hill causewayed enclosure 1. Introduction A recent programme of survey and excavation carried out by Wessex Archaeology as part of the Ministry of Defence's Army Basing Programme revealed a wealth of archaeological remains including a causewayed enclosure, henges, pits and burials. These results have demonstrated that some of the key relationships and foundational principles of the Stonehenge landscape pre-date the earliest phases of Stonehenge itself by at least 600 years, and that the development of the ceremonial landscape was an intermittent but continuous process of working and reworking over millennia, away from, as well as at, Stonehenge.
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