Bluestonehenge
The Official Press release given to us to by
Prof Mike Parker Pearson

October 5, 2009 - 1:34 pm

Earlier this morning, Professor Mike Parker Pearson sent me the full official press release for Bluestonehenge, which includes photographs, illustrations and technical details, with his blessing to reproduce it here for everyone to see on Eternal Idol. I’m certain that Mike would have far preferred to have issued these details at a time of his own choosing, but he was prevented from announcing the news of his astonishing discovery by the Daily Mail choosing to run a feature of their own on Saturday.

Be that as it may, I hope you all enjoy devouring what appears below and once again, my thanks to Mike for his good humour and generosity of spirit.

BLUESTONEHENGE: A NEW STONE CIRCLE NEAR STONEHENGE

FIRST CHANCE TO HEAR FROM THE EXPERTS WHO MADE THE DISCOVERY

Archaeologists from Sheffield and other universities have discovered a lost stone circle a mile from Stonehenge, on the west bank of the River Avon.

The stones were removed thousands of years ago but the sizes of the holes in which they stood indicate that this was a circle of bluestones, brought from the Preseli mountains of Wales, 150 miles away. Excavations in August-September 2009 by the Stonehenge Riverside Project uncovered nine stone holes, part of a circle of probably 25 standing stones. (Most of the circle remains unexcavated, preserved for future research, whilst the 2009 excavation has been filled back in.)

The new stone circle is 10m (33 ft) in diameter and was surrounded by a henge – a ditch with an external bank. These standing stones marked the end of the Avenue that leads from the River Avon to Stonehenge, a 1 3/4-mile long (2.8km) processional route constructed at the end of the Stone Age (the Neolithic period). The outer henge around the stones was built around 2400 BC but arrowheads found in the stone circle indicate that the stones were put up as much as 500 years earlier – they were dragged from Wales to Wiltshire 5,000 years ago.

The builders of the stone circle used deer antlers as pickaxes. Within the next few months, radiocarbon dating of these antler picks will provide more precise dates. These dates will reveal whether the circle was built at the same time that another 56 Welsh bluestones were erected at Stonehenge itself (in the decades after 3000 BC). When the newly discovered circle’s stones were removed by Neolithic people, it is possible that they were dragged along the route of the Avenue to Stonehenge, to be incorporated within its major rebuilding around 2500 BC. Archaeologists know that, after this date, Stonehenge consisted of about 80 Welsh stones and 83 local, sarsen stones. Some of the bluestones that once stood at the riverside probably now stand within the centre of Stonehenge.

Only the radiocarbon dating programme can clarify the sequence of events. In the meantime, the discovery of this unknown stone circle may well be exciting confirmation of the Stonehenge Riverside Project’s theory that the River Avon linked a “domain of the living” – marked by timber circles and houses upstream at the Neolithic village of Durrington Walls (discovered by the Project in 2005) – with a “domain of the dead” marked by Stonehenge and this new stone circle.

There is no evidence that the circle had a particular orientation or even an entrance. Soil that fell into the holes when the stones were removed was full of charcoal, showing that plenty of wood was burned here. Yet this was not a place where anyone lived: the pottery, animal bones, food residues and flint tools used in domestic life during the Stone Age were absent.

Prof. Mike Parker Pearson, director of the project, said: “It could be that Bluestonehenge was where the dead began their final journey to Stonehenge. Not many people know that Stonehenge was Britain’s largest burial ground at that time. Maybe the bluestone circle is where people were cremated before their ashes were buried at Stonehenge itself.”

Dr Josh Pollard, co-director, explained: “This is an incredible discovery. The newly discovered circle and henge should be considered an integral part of Stonehenge rather than a separate monument, and it offers tremendous insight into the history of its famous neighbour. Its landscape location demonstrates once again the importance of the River Avon in Neolithic funerary rites and ceremonies.”

Prof. Julian Thomas, co-director, added: “The implications of this discovery are immense. It is compelling evidence that this stretch of the River Avon was central to the religious lives of the people who built Stonehenge. Old theories about Stonehenge that do not explain the evident significance of the river will have to be re-thought.”

The Stonehenge Riverside Project is run by a consortium of university teams. It is directed by Prof. Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University, with co-directors Dr Josh Pollard (Bristol University), Prof. Julian Thomas (Manchester University), Dr Kate Welham (Bournemouth University) and Dr Colin Richards (Manchester University). The 2009 excavation was funded by the National Geographic Society, Google, the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Society of Northern Antiquaries. The overall project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Royal Archaeological Institute.

Contact the University of Sheffield Media Centre. Tel: 0114 222 1046, Fax: 0114 222 8890, Email: shemina.davis@sheffield.ac.uk, www.sheffield.ac.uk/mediacentre. (Or mediateam@sheffield.ac.uk). They can arrange telephone interviews with Prof. Parker Pearson.

Or email the project directors at m.parker-pearson@sheffield.ac.uk julian.thomas@manchester.ac.uk and joshua.pollard@bristol.ac.uk

Reproduction of the attached photographs should be credited to Aerial-Cam. Contact Adam Stanford at info@aerial-cam.co.uk for access to further high-quality images of this and other excavations by the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

Reproduction of the attached reconstruction drawing should be credited to Peter Dunn. He can be contacted at pdpeterdunn@gmail.com

Sheffield University’s Media Centre can provide high-resolution copies of the attached images.

In addition to the Press Release, Mike sent along another document entitled “Bluestonehenge Technical Details” which I’m reproducing below:

BLUESTONEHENGE: TECHNICAL DETAILS

The circle is just under 10m in diameter and was surrounded by a henge – a ditch with an external bank – with an entrance to the east. The henge ditch is 25m in diameter and sits at the end of the 1 3/4-mile avenue that leads from Stonehenge to the river. Excavations in 2008 established that this outer henge was built around 2400 BC but arrowheads from the stone circle indicate that it is likely to be much earlier, dating to around 3000 BC.

Nine stone holes were identified, part of a circle of probably twenty-five standing stones. Only the northeast quadrant of the circle, and a small past of its west side, were excavated. Six stoneholes (A-F) were found in the northeast quadrant and three (I-K) were found in the western trench. (Stoneholes G and H are putative stone sockets lying between the excavated ones; their positions are extrapolated from the known stones). The centres of Stoneholes A-F are spaced at an average distance of 1.12m from each other. However, Stoneholes J and K are more widely spaced. Given the arrangement and curvature of the known stones, the maximum number of stones in the circle was 25. It may, of course, have contained fewer.

The dimensions of the holes are too wide and too shallow for them to have held wooden posts. The imprints of the stones’ bases and the shapes of the sockets from which they were withdrawn indicate that these were too small to have been sarsens. They compare exactly with the dimensions of the bluestones in the inner oval at Stonehenge. The stones were extracted whole and were not broken up (as was the practice in the Medieval period). As a result, only two bluestone fragments were found, both of spotted dolerite.

The bluestone circle was succeeded by a henge, comprising a circular ditch 23.4m wide with an external bank. Little trace of the henge bank remains except where it was pushed back into the ditch on its north side. A date from the tip of a broken antler pick in its basal fill places its construction within the period 2470-2280 BC. The henge had at least one entrance – this was on its east side where the northern ditch terminal contained a special deposit of antlers, an antler pick, cattle bones and stone and flint tools as well as a burnt organic container.

We found the riverside end of the Stonehenge Avenue (previously only traced to a spot 150m to the north). It consisted of two parallel ditches, 18.1m apart. These formerly held upright posts, forming a small palisade on either side. The Avenue was traced to within a few metres of the henge ditch and presumably terminated at or close to the outer bank of the henge. It and the henge may have been built at the same time given their proximity and symmetrical positioning.

The western arm of the henge’s ditch silted up gradually during the Bronze Age, with silts interspersed with flint cobble surfaces in the ditch bottom. After the ditch had fully silted up, its northeastern quadrant was re-cut. The henge’s interior was also re-used in the Late Bronze Age with the digging of a small penannular ditch which terminated at its northeast in a large timber post. This and two other posts formed a facade or structure within the centre of the henge. A fourth posthole on the west side of the ditch contained tiny fragments of clay metalworking moulds.

The next phase of activity was during the Medieval period, specifically within the 13th century, when a complex series of east-west and north-south ditches were dug and filled. Ditches and pits continued to be dug into the post-Medieval period.

Although there was no evidence for domestic occupation during the Neolithic, the riverside was inhabited during the Mesolithic (8000-4000 BC) and during the Bronze Age (2200-700 BC).

Until radiocarbon dates on antler picks give us firm dates for construction and dismantling of the stone circle, our best dating evidence is from the two arrowheads found in the stonehole packing deposits. These are “chisel arrowheads” which were current between 3400 BC and 2500 BC. They are earlier than the “oblique arrowheads” (2500-2300 BC) and “barbed-and-tanged arrowheads” (2300-1700 BC), styles found at Stonehenge and Durrington Walls.

In 2008, the Stonehenge Riverside Project’s excavation at Stonehenge itself found evidence that the first phase of Stonehenge (3000-2935 BC) consisted of a bluestone circle set inside the ditch and bank. These stone sockets are the 56 Aubrey Holes that form the outermost ring. Around 2500 BC the bluestones were re-arranged in the centre of Stonehenge and numbered about 80 stones. Where did the extra 24 or so stones come from? We think we know the answer!

Mike Parker Pearson, Josh Pollard, Julian Thomas and Kate Welham

Stonehenge Riverside Project
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