New Stonehenge dates
SALON - the Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter Salon 289 Reports:
'The latest issue of Antiquity, for December 2012, contains a paper by our Fellows Tim Darvill, Mike Parker Pearson and Geoff Wainwright plus Peter Marshall on the sequence of construction at Stonehenge, based on recent excavation and carbon dates modelled using Bayesian algorithms. Five prehistoric stages are now proposed, in place of Atkinson’s four and Ros Cleal’s three (some of which were further subdivided), and perhaps the most radical departure from earlier interpretations is the placing of the construction of the sarsen trilithon horseshoe at an early stage in the sequence.
During Stage 1 (3000―2620 cal BC), the authors argue, Stonehenge consists of an earthwork enclosure bounded by a bank and ditch, within which are simple timber structures, pits and the fifty-six Aubrey holes, whose function remains enigmatic: the authors say they might even have been dug before the ditch, and might have held standing stones, but the jury is still out.
The relatively short phase 2 (2620―2480 cal BC) was the momentous one, when Stonehenge was ‘transformed from something fairly commonplace to a structure quite unique in the ancient world’. Two possible scenarios are presented. In the first, the trilithon horseshoe is initially surrounded by the double bluestone circle and then years, decades or centuries later, the sarsen circle is added. Alternatively, the trilithon horseshoe, the double bluestone circle and the sarsen circle are all erected in relatively rapid succession. Culturally, Stage 2 is associated with the users of Grooved Ware and took place broadly contemporaneously with the construction and use of Woodhenge, the three timber monuments south of Woodhenge and the southern and northern timber circles and the houses and settlement at Durrington Walls.
In Stage 3 (2480―2280 cal BC) the Bluestones (perhaps derived from Bluestonehenge) are arranged as the central bluestone circle within the trilithon horseshoe and the Avenue is constructed to link Stonehenge to the site of the former Bluestonehenge beside the River Avon, 2.8km away.
Next, in Stage 4 (2280―2020 cal BC), the central bluestone and the double bluestone circles are dismantled and re-built as a bluestone oval of around twenty-five monoliths inside the trilithon horseshoe and an outer bluestone circle of between forty and sixty monoliths in the space between the trilithon horseshoe and the sarsen circle.
The final stage (2020―1520 cal BC) sees extensive use of Stonehenge, with some bluestones being worked into artefacts, rock art applied (around 1650―1500 cal BC) to stones forming the sarsen circle and trilithon horseshoe, the construction of the Y and Z holes (in the period 1630―1520 cal BC) and the construction of numerous round barrow cemeteries in the surrounding landscape.
The authors stress that their sequence is provisional, and still tentative in places, and is presented as a working hypothesis for future investigations to test. In particular, the five stages cover large date spans, some of them encompassing a considerable number of events. It is unlikely, though, that building work was continuous throughout the period: it is more likely that there was a burst of activity for one or two generations, resulting in the major elements of the site, followed by long periods when little changed.
Fellow Robert Ixer, who is developing techniques for the chemical fingerprinting of the individual bluestones in order to trace their precise places of origin, said that the paper ‘was very timely and very important … a lot of us have got to go back and rethink when the stones arrived’. Fellow Tim Darvill, co-author of the paper, said that previous sequences suggested that Stonehenge started small and grew: in fact, ‘it starts big and stays big’, and the giant sandstone horseshoe came first, drawing stone from nearby quarries; only then were the smaller bluestones imported from Wales: ‘they sort out the local stuff first, and then they bring in the stones from Wales to add to the complexity of the structure’, Tim said. The new timeline ‘connects everything together, gives us a good sequence of events and it gives us a set of cultural associations with the different stages of construction’, he added.'
'The latest issue of Antiquity, for December 2012, contains a paper by our Fellows Tim Darvill, Mike Parker Pearson and Geoff Wainwright plus Peter Marshall on the sequence of construction at Stonehenge, based on recent excavation and carbon dates modelled using Bayesian algorithms. Five prehistoric stages are now proposed, in place of Atkinson’s four and Ros Cleal’s three (some of which were further subdivided), and perhaps the most radical departure from earlier interpretations is the placing of the construction of the sarsen trilithon horseshoe at an early stage in the sequence.
During Stage 1 (3000―2620 cal BC), the authors argue, Stonehenge consists of an earthwork enclosure bounded by a bank and ditch, within which are simple timber structures, pits and the fifty-six Aubrey holes, whose function remains enigmatic: the authors say they might even have been dug before the ditch, and might have held standing stones, but the jury is still out.
The relatively short phase 2 (2620―2480 cal BC) was the momentous one, when Stonehenge was ‘transformed from something fairly commonplace to a structure quite unique in the ancient world’. Two possible scenarios are presented. In the first, the trilithon horseshoe is initially surrounded by the double bluestone circle and then years, decades or centuries later, the sarsen circle is added. Alternatively, the trilithon horseshoe, the double bluestone circle and the sarsen circle are all erected in relatively rapid succession. Culturally, Stage 2 is associated with the users of Grooved Ware and took place broadly contemporaneously with the construction and use of Woodhenge, the three timber monuments south of Woodhenge and the southern and northern timber circles and the houses and settlement at Durrington Walls.
In Stage 3 (2480―2280 cal BC) the Bluestones (perhaps derived from Bluestonehenge) are arranged as the central bluestone circle within the trilithon horseshoe and the Avenue is constructed to link Stonehenge to the site of the former Bluestonehenge beside the River Avon, 2.8km away.
Next, in Stage 4 (2280―2020 cal BC), the central bluestone and the double bluestone circles are dismantled and re-built as a bluestone oval of around twenty-five monoliths inside the trilithon horseshoe and an outer bluestone circle of between forty and sixty monoliths in the space between the trilithon horseshoe and the sarsen circle.
The final stage (2020―1520 cal BC) sees extensive use of Stonehenge, with some bluestones being worked into artefacts, rock art applied (around 1650―1500 cal BC) to stones forming the sarsen circle and trilithon horseshoe, the construction of the Y and Z holes (in the period 1630―1520 cal BC) and the construction of numerous round barrow cemeteries in the surrounding landscape.
The authors stress that their sequence is provisional, and still tentative in places, and is presented as a working hypothesis for future investigations to test. In particular, the five stages cover large date spans, some of them encompassing a considerable number of events. It is unlikely, though, that building work was continuous throughout the period: it is more likely that there was a burst of activity for one or two generations, resulting in the major elements of the site, followed by long periods when little changed.
Fellow Robert Ixer, who is developing techniques for the chemical fingerprinting of the individual bluestones in order to trace their precise places of origin, said that the paper ‘was very timely and very important … a lot of us have got to go back and rethink when the stones arrived’. Fellow Tim Darvill, co-author of the paper, said that previous sequences suggested that Stonehenge started small and grew: in fact, ‘it starts big and stays big’, and the giant sandstone horseshoe came first, drawing stone from nearby quarries; only then were the smaller bluestones imported from Wales: ‘they sort out the local stuff first, and then they bring in the stones from Wales to add to the complexity of the structure’, Tim said. The new timeline ‘connects everything together, gives us a good sequence of events and it gives us a set of cultural associations with the different stages of construction’, he added.'
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