The Henge Builders New Discoveries inspire archaeologists to re-envision the culture that created Stonehenge. BY MIKE PITTS N 1856 AMERICAN WRITER NATHANIEL ing Britain’s stone circles. On that project I found a IHawthorne hired a carriage for a 10-mile journey pit that once held a large megalith; its location from the rural town of Salisbury to Stonehenge. Of strengthened the idea that the stones were aligned the great megaliths he wrote,” There never was a with the rising and setting sun. But I ran into the ruder thing made by mortal hands as if Nature and same problem that then impeded all new man had worked upon it with one consent, and so... Stonehenge research—the results of nearly a centu- all the stranger and more impressive from its rude- ry of intermittent excavation at the site had been ness.” largely unpublished and jealously guarded by the archaeologists. Resolving this shameful situation Some 150 years later I’m following Haw- took a new generation of scholars, as well as a thorne’s route across Salisbury Plain, along a rough determined push from English Heritage, the public track that opens onto sweeping fields and skies. I agency that manages Stonehenge. can see Stonehenge less than a mile away, on a gen- tly sloping spur, dwarfed by surrounding hills. In 1995, the publication of all twentieth-centu- There, massive blocks of sarsen sandstone rise 17 ry excavation results was completed and a new era feet, encircling even larger sarsen stones and rings of understanding began. All information about the of bluestones up to eight feet high that had been stones is now accessible. Controversial road con- transported more than 200 miles from the Preseli struction plans led to extensive surveys of the sur- Hills in Wales. Scattered around the landscape are rounding landscape. Substantial monuments exca- earthen mounds 12 or more feet high, covering the vated in the last century once thought to be older Bronze Age graves of people once thought to have, than the stones, now seem to be contemporary, built the mysterious monument. according to a refined radiocarbon chronology. These include the sites of Woodhenge and The view has changed little since Hawthorne’s Durrington Walls, which sit only 200 feet apart. The time, but my vision of Stonehenge today is very dif- sites feature hundreds of tall oak posts that seem to ferent. Artists, mystics, and scientists have contem- mimic Stonehenge. New excavations at Durrington plated the stones for centuries, calling them every- Walls, named after a nearby village, have revealed a thing from a place to summon demons to the Neolithic settlement where heaps of artifacts and world’s first computer. Hawthorne didn’t find any animal bones suggest complex rituals. answers here. It is, he wrote, “a mystery as to who built it, and how, and for what purpose.” But now, We are in the midst of the most dramatic era of as modern archaeology reaches beyond the stones, Stonehenge discovery and debate since burials near we are finding a ceremonial landscape as unique s the monument were first excavated 200 years ago. the megaliths within it. While the new excavations have yet to be fully ana- lyzed, let me share with you some of the excitement My first excavation at Stonehenge took place and surprises that enliven what many have seen as a nearly 30 years ago, at the start of my career study- monument with nothing more to say. “The Henge Builders” by Mike Pitts. Reprinted with permission of ARCHAEOLOGY magazine, Vol. 61, #1, www.archaeology.org. Copyright © The Archaeological Institute of America, January/February 2008. 1 2 The Henge Builders Despite centuries of erosion and the number of stones that have fallen or were carried away, Stonehenge’s unique profile still evokes awe in one million visitors each year. INCE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, everything from the carpentry-like jointing of the SStonehenge was believed to have been built in sarsen stones to the very concept of a monumental the Bronze Age because of the exceptional number arrangement of freestanding uprights. This new of nearby graves that contained bronze daggers and context may offer insight into how the stones fit other fine artifacts. Richard Atkinson, director of within the belief system of the people who erected Stonehenge excavations in the 1950s and ‘60s, them. favored 1500–1400 B.C. as a time frame for the erection of the megaliths. The apparent similarities in the layout of the stones at Stonehenge and the posts at Woodhenge It came as a shock when the 1995 radiocarbon and Durrington Walls particularly struck Mike dates indicated the stones were erected up to a thou- Parker Pearson, an archaeologist at the University sand years earlier, pushing Stonehenge back to the of Sheffield, while he was conducting fieldwork in Neolithic period. Use of the site as a monument Madagascar. Ritual megaliths and posts are still began with construction of a circular ditch and bank erected on the large island off the east coast of at about 2975 B.C. (That date, the most precise we Africa. Some Madagascans associate stone with have for Stonehenge, was derived from analysis of their deceased ancestors, and wood with living peo- nine digging tools made of red deer antler.) ple. Perhaps, thought Parker Pearson and his Madagascan colleague, Ramilisonina, the same The new date puts Stonehenge in an entirely principle applied more than 4,000 years ago in different context. Now we understand the megaliths southern England. are roughly the same age as the ceremonial timber rings at Durrington Walls and Woodhenge. Late The landscape, they argued, could be divided Neolithic people (3000–2200 B.C.) knew how to into two “domains,” that of the ancestors around work stone to make cutting tools and weapons. And Stonehenge in the west, and that of the living beside it is now possible to understand that the construc- the River Avon in the east. Debris, including bones tion of Stonehenge was inspired by nearby circular of butchered pigs, had been recovered from the tim- oak structures (see box “The Wooden Henges,”) in ber monuments at Woodhenge and Durrington The Henge Builders 3 Walls but no evidence of feasting and few artifacts It is well known that Stonehenge faces the have been found at Stonehenge despite structural summer solstice sunrise, but the site is also aligned similarities between the sites. That, said Parker to the winter solstice sunset. Parker Pearson argues Pearson and Ramilisonina, was because the stone that the winter alignment also links Stonehenge and monument was inhabited only by the spirits of the Durrington Walls. Analysis of huge numbers of pig ancestors. teeth recovered from Durrington revealed that most of the pigs had been killed when they were nine Stonehenge and Woodhenge-Durrington Walls months old. It is likely they were born in the spring, are close enough to be visible to each other were it so they probably died in the winter as part of a not for a ridge separating them. There is, however, a “midwinter cull,” he says. link between them marked by parallel banks and ditches 70 to 110 feet apart, known as the Stone- Archaeoastronomer Clive Ruggles, professor henge Avenue. Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina emeritus at the University of Leicester, provides believe it shows the two locations were connected further support for the winter solstice link. Citing physically and spiritually. The avenue begins at the results of a new archaeological survey, he says Stonehenge with a straight section aligned with the the entrance to the Southern Circle faces the rising site’s solar axis, It then takes a sharp right turn, winter solstice sun. Unlike Stonehenge, this site is crosses the ridge, turns right again, and ends near in a small valley, and the reverse summer alignment the river south of Woodhenge. The circuit formed is obscured. Here, at least, the alignment seems to by the avenue and the river—about five miles be a winter one. between Stonehenge and Woodhenge—linked the living and the dead. Parker Pearson’s vision is of a great win- ter solstice festival. People from a wide area In 2003, Parker Pearson and colleagues at the gathered at Durrington Walls to feast and con- universities of Manchester and Bournemouth duct ceremonies among the oak rings before launched the Stonehenge Riverside Project, named walking down the short avenue to cast the cre- for the concentration of earthworks and monuments mated remains of the dead in the river. Among on the west bank of the Avon, To date, eight more the dead, he argues, a select group of individuals universities and 30 researchers (myself included) would have had their ashes carried by hand down- have joined the project, making it one of the largest stream, and up the Stonehenge Avenue, to be buried in the history of British archaeology. in a ring around the stones. At least 50 cremations had been interred at Stonehenge, and perhaps many We have conducted fieldwork at numerous more, making the site the largest cemetery of its locations, but the Neolithic town at Durrington type in Britain. Walls has held an iconic fascination for us since landmark excavations at the site 40 years ago. To Discoveries of houses in the new excavations get down on our hands and knees and pick up the at Durrington Walls made headlines, The New York debris left by people who might have seen Stone- Times called it “the largest Neolithic village ever henge being built—at the same time as the Great found in Britain,” which is less impressive when it Pyramid in Egypt—is an unexpected privilege.