Excavations conducted in 2008, led by Parker Pearson, uncovered evidence that a long-vanished stone circle, about 30 feet in diameter, consisting of about twenty-five monoliths, had been erected on the spot; further work the following year by Timothy Darvill of the University of Bournemouth and Geoff Wainwright of the Society of Antiquaries provided evidence to date the monument to around 2200 BCE.7 It is now referred to as West Amesbury Henge.
Like many of the other megalithic complexes, Stonehenge also seems to have had an artificial hill erected nearby about 2000 BCE. Stonehenge is surrounded by many artificial mounds, but these are later burial tumuli (see chapter 9). However, some half a mile northwest of Stonehenge, in an area referred to by archaeologists as Amesbury 50, there are the remains of what seems to have been an earlier man-made hillock. It is now just a circular rise, about 65 feet in diameter and just a couple of feet high, but a land survey of 1913 records it as being very much larger. The exact size is not revealed, but it was referred to as a “hill,” which it could in no way be called today. Archaeologists reckon that it was originally over 20 feet high, but it seems to have been leveled by farmers in the mid-twentieth century to create an open field. Excavations and geophysics surveys conducted in 2010, initiated by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology of Vienna, revealed it to have likely been an artificial hill without internal structures, similar to Silbury Hill at Avebury and built about the same time.8
By around 2000 BCE there may have been as many as fifty megalithic complexes throughout Britain. Based on their distribution in regions where evidence of them still survives, it seems that the complexes were the principal monuments of the tribal district they served. Due to the astonishing diversity of topography in such a small country, the tribes of Britain appear to have been tiny by international standards—nothing like the huge Native American nations, the tribes of Africa, or the Germanic peoples of the Roman era. Even when the Romans invaded Britain in 43 CE, what is now England, Scotland, and Wales was divided into at least forty major tribes. From excavations of Neolithic settlements, archaeologists believe that there were around fifty primary tribal regions in Britain during the Megalithic era, which tallies with the estimated number of complexes. By 2000 BCE, the population of Britain is thought to have risen to around three hundred thousand, an average of six thousand per tribe. However, these tribal regions varied considerably in size. Some fertile areas around sites such as Avebury might have had populations as large as thirty thousand, while others, in harsher districts such as Dartmoor in Devon, had tribal groups consisting of less than a thousand people. This is typified by the size of monuments. For example, the Scorhill Circle, the principle stone circle of Dartmoor’s Gidleigh Moor megalithic complex, is only about 80 feet in diameter, compared to Avebury’s enormous 1,088 feet, while its stones average just 4 feet tall, as opposed to Avebury’s average of 15 feet. In addition to these complexes there were thousands of smaller, individual stone circles spread throughout the countryside.9 We could perhaps compare the megalithic complexes to the city cathedrals of medieval England, each catering to a diocese (a clerical district) approximating a modern British county. Every diocese had many individual parishes—towns and villages—all having their own local church, which might be compared to the ordinary stone circles. During the Middle Ages parishioners would regularly attend their home chapel, but on special occasions, such as Christmas and Easter, they would make a pilgrimage to the cathedral. We can only assume that, broadly speaking, this is how the stone circle culture functioned, although whether the religious context of this analogy is appropriate remains to be seen.
Something that the two most impressive megalithic complexes certainly seem to have shared with medieval cathedrals is their rivalry. During the Middle Ages, there was intense competition between the two senior figures of the Church in England: the archbishop of Canterbury, who held jurisdiction over the South, and the archbishop of York in the North. Their cathedrals were the most splendid in the country, and over a period of some four centuries, between 1100 and 1500 CE, a succession of these archbishops made ever more elaborate embellishments to their respective buildings in the hope of gaining the greater prestige. It seems that something similar occurred during the late Neolithic era between Avebury and Stonehenge. Although it all began on the Orkney Isles around 3100 BCE, by 2600 BCE the Wiltshire area had become the thriving heart of megalithic activity. Stonehenge and Avebury were both situated in this region, only 17 miles apart, and the communities they served seem determined to outdo each other. When the Sarsen Circle was erected at Stonehenge, it was a far more sophisticated structure than any other stone circle in the British Isles. Being so close, the Avebury community may well have feared they would lose their “congregation” to the lure of the more impressive monument of their immediate neighbors to the south. Perhaps, lacking the know-how to construct a lintel circle, they decided instead to impress by sheer size. In diameter, Avebury is almost ten times larger than the Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge, and its surrounding henge was enormous compared to its rival’s diminutive ditch and embankment. It could of course have occurred the other way around. It might have been the people of Avebury deciding to create the largest henge circle ever built that began this megalithic pride race, with those at Stonehenge reacting to this gigantic undertaking by opting for magnificence over size and constructing something never before accomplished. Even with the most modern dating techniques, it is still impossible to know exactly which of the stone circles was built first. The dating of the various phases of Stonehenge has been made relatively easy due to the monument’s isolation. Avebury, on the other hand, is in the middle of a village.
By the Middle Ages a sizable farming community had grown up around the Avebury stones, complete with a parish church, and during the early fourteenth century the priest instructed his parishioners to destroy what he considered to be a heathen monument in their midst. The villagers began to systematically pull down the stones and bury them in pre-dug pits where they fell. After much work, a fatal accident occurred. While one of the huge 13-ton megaliths was being toppled, it collapsed early, crushing one of the workers to death. As the monolith could not be lifted, the corpse remained beneath the stone until it was moved by archaeologists in 1938. Underneath was the skeleton of a man together with the belongings he had with him the day he died. These included three silver coins dating from the 1320s, along with a pair of rusted scissors and a razor. Because of these items he is thought to have been a barber, and after the monolith was re-erected it became known as the Barber’s Stone. The destruction of the megaliths appears to have ceased after the death of the “barber.” Perhaps the local people feared the curse of the stones more than the wrath of their own priest.
Sadly the Barber’s Stone incident was not the last religious vandalism that Avebury endured. In the mid-1600s the Puritan régime of Oliver Cromwell seized power in England, and the destruction of the megalithic complex resumed with a vengeance. This time the stones were smashed to pieces with sledgehammers, their fragments used to construct and repair buildings in and around the village.10 Even though the Puritans only ruled England for a short while, once people started breaking up the stones for building material it didn’t stop. Nearly all the stones that still stood were destroyed by the end of the eighteenth century. By a strange irony, however, a reasonable number managed to survive: those that the medieval priest had ordered to be buried. Today they have been uncovered and re-erected by archaeologists, but because they are no longer in situ it is impossible to obtain reliable dating from organic or ceramic remains that lie beneath them.
So what do we know? There does appear to have been some kind of monument at Avebury at the time the first bluestone ring was built at Stonehenge, although it was not a stone circle. Well inside the Avebury ring there are two particularly large stones—the tallest, a bulky megalith 14 feet high—standing close together. Called the Cove, these
stones somehow managed to escape the vandalism and remained standing without disturbance. (There were originally three monoliths in the group, in a triangular formation, but one of them was broken up in 1713.) Consequently it has been possible to date them to around 3000 BCE, the same period as the original stone circle at Stonehenge. Avebury and Stonehenge, therefore, both appear to have been ceremonial sites well before their grand stone circles were created. Although dating the monoliths of the Avebury stone circle is problematic, its henge can be dated. Antler picks excavated from the embankment—presumably the remains of the tools used to create it—have been radiocarbon dated to around 2600 BCE.11 As this is the same period that the other great henge monuments were being constructed, it is fairly safe to assume that the stone circle was a contemporary undertaking. Archaeologists have also been able to establish the layout of the Avebury stone circle by using both excavations and geophysics surveys, determining that it originally consisted of about a hundred stones, of which thirty survive. Judging by the remaining monoliths, they averaged about 13 feet in height and, being much bulkier than the Stonehenge megaliths, weighed as much as 40 tons (as opposed to the Sarsen Circle’s 25 tons). So we can say with a fair degree of certainty that the Avebury henge and its grand stone circle did date from the same period as the Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge, and it is quite possible that the builders of each site were attempting to outdo each other: one community with sheer size, the other with splendor.
In addition to the usual accompaniment of avenues, outlying stone circles, and artificial hills found at other megalithic complexes, the builders of Stonehenge and Avebury made further modifications to their respective monuments not found elsewhere. The most amazing accomplishment of this stone-raising contest occurred with the erection of even larger rectangular arches at Stonehenge. Soon after the Sarsen Circle was created, its builders erected some mammoth constructions inside this ring: five pairs of massive sarsen megaliths, each over 20 feet high and weighing up to 50 tons, on top of which were set 8-ton lintel stones. Called trilithons, these five separate freestanding arches were arranged in an open-oval shape, some 45 feet across at its widest point, facing toward the Heel Stone (which was probably erected around the same time). Called the Trilithon Horseshoe, it towers over six feet above the surrounding Sarsen Circle.12
Fig. 7.2. Avebury stone circle by 2000 BCE.
At Avebury, geophysics and subsequent excavations have revealed that two further stone circles were created, one to the north and one to the south, inside the main ring. Approximately the same size and measuring well over 300 feet in diameter, they each consisted of about thirty stones up to 10 feet tall. Four and five stones survive, respectively, from these northern and southern inner circles, but as with the main circle, dating has proved difficult as they were re-erected, having been toppled centuries ago. Nevertheless, it has been possible to date them indirectly. Today, twenty-seven stones stand upright for the first half of the West Kennet Avenue (see chapter 6). Although most have been re-erected, four of them managed to survive the carnage of the past, probably because they stood well outside the village, and still remained standing when the Scottish archaeologist Alexander Keiller excavated the site in the 1930s. Animal bones unearthed from beneath these stones, thought to have been used to line the pits into which the stones were set, were later radiocarbon dated to provide a central date of around 2400 BCE. As similar organic remains dating from the same period have been excavated from a hole that originally contained one of the inner circle’s monoliths, it is thought that both features were contemporary. If so, then Avebury’s inner circles were created a century or two after trilithons at Stonehenge.13
By this time, Stonehenge saw the creation of its own inner circle: 80 feet in diameter, it consisted of thirty stones, averaging about 6 feet high, set between the 108-foot-diameter Sarsen Circle and the Trilithon Horseshoe. Known as the Bluestone Ring, it was not made from newly cut monoliths, but from the bluestones that are thought to have once formed the original circle at the site, presumably having survived being discarded somewhere nearby. Later, around 2000 BCE, another feature was added within the Sarsen Circle. Made from a further twenty of the original bluestones, it was an open-oval arrangement inside the Trilithon Horseshoe. Called the Bluestone Horseshoe, it measured some 35 feet across and matched the arrangement of the trilithon formation.14
If Stonehenge, with its extraordinary arches, had once bettered Avebury, it seems that by 2000 BCE circumstances had reversed. These new features at Stonehenge, the Bluestone Ring and the Bluestone Horseshoe, had no lintel stones and required none of the work and ingenuity needed to create the earlier Sarsen Circle and the trilithons. As existing monoliths were employed, these new features did not even necessitate the quarrying, cutting, and hauling of new megaliths. At Avebury, on the other hand, the builders were still going strong. Not only had they created two long avenues, rather than Stonehenge's one, but they also had built a completely new type of feature in the middle of the southern inner circle. Geophysics surveys in the summer of 2017 revealed that at the center of the ring about twenty new stones had been erected in a 100-foot-square arrangement, surrounding what is estimated to have been a huge, 20-foot-tall obelisk.15 This giant freestanding megalith dwarfed the 6-foot-tall monolith, now confusingly called the Altar Stone (see chapter 1), erected in the center of Stonehenge by this time. And when Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in the British Isles, was added to the Avebury complex around 2000 BCE, the people of Stonehenge were just not up to the competition. Silbury is enormous, 548 feet in diameter, compared to Stonehenge’s artificial hill of just 65 feet across. The Stonehenge mound would probably not have been much more than 20 feet high, whereas Silbury was a gigantic 130 feet high.
Although at Stonehenge and Avebury we find the same synchronous developments that occurred at the other megalithic complexes, like the addition of avenues, satellite circles, and artificial hills, the significant internal embellishments, such as the large-scale and elaborate arrangement of other monoliths, are limited to these two sites. There are a few isolated examples of inner rings being added to some smaller stone circles. For instance, the 90-foot-diameter Gunnerkeld Stone Circle in Cumbria, consisting of forty 5-foot stones, had a 30-foot-diameter ring of thirty stones erected inside it sometime around 2600 BCE, which might have been an attempt to outdo the nearby, similarly sized Castlerigg Stone Circle, about 18 miles to the west. Apart from Avebury and Stonehenge, of all the thousands of stone circles that would have existed in Britain, less than thirty are known to have had inner rings, and most of these were small monuments with stones less than a couple of feet high, and they were erected during the later Bronze Age, after 1500 BCE. Hence, it is difficult to interpret the exceptional embellishments found at Stonehenge and Avebury as anything other than evidence of local rivalry.
So by 2000 BCE we have around fifty large megalithic complexes all over Britain, the most imposing being Stonehenge and Avebury, each perhaps serving a particular tribal region in which there were hundreds of simple stone circles. But there is another type of monument that survives from the Megalithic era, and there are thousands of them. These are the solitary monoliths known as menhirs that stood alone and isolated from the stone circles. These lone standing stones are just as mysterious as anything created during Neolithic times, perhaps more so. Their existence has ignited one of the greatest controversies concerning the prehistoric British Isles: the enigma of the infamous ley lines.
8
Long Stones and Ley Lines
THE TERM FOR AN ISOLATED, freestanding monolith from the Neolithic period is “menhir,” an old Celtic word meaning “long stone,” coming from maen (stone) and hir (long). This may have been what the Celtic people called these enigmatic solitary megaliths, but the Celts didn’t arrive in Britain until the late Megalithic era (see chapter 9). As with the stone circles, we have no idea what these single standing stones were called by the people who first erected them or, as archaeologists have
found no evidence that they were grave markers, what purpose they originally served. They vary from just a couple of feet to over twenty feet high and, as their name implies, are generally tall and slender—the average being about 8 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 2 feet thick—and they tend to taper toward the top. However, there are numerous examples of other, different shapes and sizes. It is impossible to know just how many once stood throughout the British Isles, but some researchers have suggested there may have been over twenty thousand. There is no official estimate of how many still exist, but it has to be in the thousands.
Like the other megalithic monuments, surviving menhirs are found mainly in less populated areas such as the boggy uplands of Dartmoor in the county of Devon. There, many remain, such as the Beardown Man, the Loughtor Man, and the Harbourne Man, ranging between 8 and 11 feet tall, which all stand alone on the windswept moors. These are examples where the word “man” has replaced the earlier word “maen” for such stones, but in nearby Cornwall, where the Celtic language was spoken longer than elsewhere in England, the old name for the isolated standing stones is still found, such as Boswens Menhir, near the town of St. Just; Trevorgans Menhir, near the village of St. Buryan; and Try Menhir, near the village of Newmill, all about 8 feet high. The tallest of Dartmoor’s menhirs is a 4-foot-wide, 14-foot-high megalith called the Bone, which stands in a misty vale aptly known as Drizzlecombe. But this was not the largest standing stone to have stood on Dartmoor. Many of its historically recorded menhirs have been destroyed, such as one on Hart Tor. (Tor is an old English word for a hill or rocky peak). Sadly, this 25-foot-tall monolith was broken up for building rubble in the late 1800s.1
Wisdomkeepers of Stonehenge Page 13