More evidence has emerged that Stonehenge may have been a ritual
site long before the standing stones were placed on the
The most recent investigations have focused on the Stonehenge
Cursus, "an immense linear enclosure, 100 metres wide and two
and a half kilometres across, north of
Stonehenge", which stretches from west to east. This has
previously been dated as older than the stone circle.
Archaeologists led by the University of Birmingham with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for
Archaeological Prospection have unearthed within it two giant
pits, which they say have a celestial alignment.
The Birmingham team
explains: "Shedding new light on the significant association of
the monument with the sun, these pits may have contained tall
stones, wooden posts or even fires to mark its rising and setting
and could have defined a processional route used by
agriculturalists to celebrate the passage of the sun across the sky
at the summer solstice."
The discovery of the pits was made after the latest geophysical
results from the
Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project were analysed. The project
has been running since the summer of 2010, and has been named "the
world's biggest-ever virtual excavation".
Non-invasive technologies have been deployed by a team of 20 people
around the site and have revealed that Stonehenge would not have
been the only sacred structure.
Professor Vince Gaffney, archaeologist and project leader from
the IBM Visual and Spatial
Technology Centre at the University of Birmingham said that
activity within the Cursus could have related to the ceremonies
taking place within Stonehenge. He says: "It is possible that
processions within the Cursus moved from the eastern pit at
sunrise, continuing eastwards along the Cursus and, following the
path of the sun overhead, and perhaps back to the west, reaching
the western pit at sunset to mark the longest day of the year.
Observers of the ceremony would have been positioned at the Heel
Stone, of which the two pits are aligned."
Dr Henry Chapman, senior lecturer in Archaeology and
Visualisation added: "If you measure the walking distance between
the two pits, the procession would reach exactly half-way at
midday, when the sun would be directly on top of Stonehenge. This
is more than just a coincidence, indicating that the exact length
of the Cursus and the positioning of the pits are of
Gaffney suggests that the discovery of the pits; and their
placing within the Cursus, suggest that Stonehenge may not have
always been the most important ritual focus within the site; and
"the area of Stonehenge may have become significant as a sacred
site at a much earlier date". The team has already found a
"horseshoe arrangement" of large pits north-east of Stonehenge
which may have also contained posts, a henge-like monument and
small monuments, which "may have functioned as minor shrines".
The team is confident of further discoveries, too. Paul Garwood,
a lecturer in prehistory at the University of Birmingham, says:
"Our knowledge of the ancient landscapes that once existed around
Stonehenge is growing dramatically as we examine the new
geophysical survey results. We can see in rich detail not only new
monuments, but entire
landscapes of past human activity, over thousands of years,
preserved in sub-surface features such as pits and ditches. This
project is establishing a completely new framework for studying the