Landscape of the Megaliths : Excavation and Fieldwork on the Avebury Monuments, 1997-2003

This volume describes the results of the Longstones Project, a joint-universities programme of excavation and survey designed to develop a fuller understanding of the context and dynamics of monument construction in the later Neolithic (3rd millennium BC) of the Avebury region, Wiltshire. Several elements of this internationally important prehistoric monument complex were investigated: an early-mid 3rd millennium BC enclosure at Beckhampton; the recently re-discovered Beckhampton Avenue and Longstones Cove; a section of the West Kennet Avenue; the Falkner's stone circle; and the Cove within Avebury's Northern Inner Circle. The research sheds new light on the complexities and development of this monument rich area and consideration is given to the questions of how and why ceremonial centres such as that at Avebury came into being in the 3rd millennium BC. The importance of understanding the agency - the affective and perceived inherent qualities - of materials and landscapes is stressed; and the unusual character of the Wessex monument complexes is highlighted by comparison with the format and sequences of other ceremonial centres in southern Britain. The second part of the monograph tracks the later, post-prehistoric, lives of Avebury's megalithic monuments including a detailed account of the early 18th-century records of the Beckhampton Avenue made by the antiquary William Stukeley. Chap 01 Cover 1 Title Page 2 Copyright Page 3 Contents 4 List of Contributors 10 Acknowledgements 12 1. Introduction:The Longstones Project and its context 14 The legacy of research and how it shaped the project 15 The research questions 16 Organisation of fieldwork 17 Landscape of the Megaliths 17 2. Monumentality in the third millennium BC– the Beckhampton Complex 20 2.1 The Longstones Enclosure and associated features 22 Geophysical survey Andrew David 23 Excavation results 24 The form of the ditch 25 Ditch fills 27 Finds from the ditch 30 The gully-defined enclosure 34 Dating the Longstones Enclosure 36 Artefactual and environmental evidence 37 Earlier prehistoric pottery 37 Lithics 42 Faunal remains 43 Molluscan analysis 52 Charcoal 55 Archaeobotanical material 57 Soil micromorphology 58 Discussion: location, sequence, activities and analogies 65 2.2 The Beckhampton Avenue and Longstones Cove 70 Sarsen 71 The ‘snake dream of the fanciful doctor’: antiquaries, archaeologists and the Beckhampton Avenue 71 Survey and excavation on the Beckhampton Avenue and Longstones Cove, 1989–2003 75 Geophysical survey and the Beckhampton Avenue and Longstones Cove 76 Excavation 83 Investigation Methodology 83 Stone numbers 85 Longstones Field south-west 85 Detailed stone and stone-hole descriptions 88 The eastern section of the Beckhampton Avenue: earlier observations and reconstruction 128 Artefactual material 103 Worked flint from the Longstones Cove and Beckhampton Avenue 103 Worked flint from Avenue contexts 111 Worked chalk 115 Molluscan analysis 115 Avebury Trusloe 116 Geophysical survey 116 Excavation results 118 Discussion 121 Observations and fieldwork on the area south-west of Longstones Field 122 Survey and excavation in Long Barrow Field, 2002 124 Geophysical survey in Long Barrow Field 124 Excavation 125 Surface collection and geophysical survey in Beckhampton Field, 2001 126 Geophysical survey at Manor Farm, Avebury Trusloe, 2005 128 Discussion 131 The course of the Beckhampton Avenue 131 Dating the Beckhampton Avenue 132 The format and construction of the avenue and associated activities 133 The relationship between the Longstones Enclosure and Beckhampton Avenue 134 The Cove and avenue terminal 137 The Cove and the Sanctuary: architectural references 139 3 Monumentality in the third millennium BC– the West Kennet Avenue andFalkner’s Circle 142 3.1. The West Kennet Avenue 142 Post-processional perspectives 144 Excavations on the West Kennet Avenue, 2002 and 2003 144 Excavation Results 146 Test pit sampling 147 Geology and buried soils 148 Features 148 Prehistoric pottery 150 Worked flint 151 Discussion 152 Pre-avenue activity 153 The logic of avenue construction 154 3.2. The Falkner’s Circle 155 The 2002 Excavations 156 Geophysical survey 156 Excavation methodology 157 Results 157 Prehistoric pottery 162 Worked flint 162 Discussion 164 The circle as a hybrid construction 164 The circle as a ‘conventional’ monument 165 4. Monumentality in the third millennium BC– the Avebury Cove 166 Excavation results 169 Trench 1 (Stone II) 169 Prehistoric features 169 Later features and deposits 173 Trench 2 (Stone I) 175 Prehistoric features 176 Worked flint 176 Radiocarbon dating 178 Optically stimulated luminescence dating 177 Discussion 178 Constructing the Cove 179 The structure and symbolism of the Cove 180 5. Landscape, environment and monumentality 183 Wider context and chronology 184 Schematic representations 185 The Avebury landscape 187 Geology, topography, hydrology and soil 187 Palaeoenvironmental data sources 190 Plant communities and their habitats 192 Before the Neolithic (before c.4200BC) 193 Mesolithic/Neolithic transition (c.4200–3700BC) 196 Earlier Neolithic (c.3700–3400BC) 198 Middle Neolithic (c.3400–3000BC) 201 Later Neolithic (c.3000–2600BC) 203 Final Neolithic (c.2600–2200BC) 206 Early Bronze Age (c.2200–1600BC) 209 Middle and later Bronze Age (c.1600–600BC) 211 Monuments in their landscape 212 6. Monumentality in the 3rd millennium BC– Avebury and beyond 214 The sequence and chronology of monuments in the later Neolithic of the Avebury region 215 Avebury in context 217 Wessex and its hinterland 218 The Stonehenge Region 218 Dorchester, Dorset 220 Stanton Drew 222 Discussion 223 Beyond Wessex 225 Etton/Maxey 226 Dorchester-on-Thames 227 Walton Basin 229 Thornborough 230 Ferrybridge 232 Theme and diversity in later Neolithic ceremonial centres 232 Monuments, cosmology, materiality and non-human agency 234 Coda: a return to the Avebury landscape 236 7. Later Prehistoric, Roman and early Post-Roman activity in Longstones Field 238 The later prehistoric ditch system 238 Roman and early post-Roman activity at the Longstones Cove 243 Metalwork 245 Romano-British pottery 247 Faunal remains 247 Discussion 248 Roman activity elsewhere in the region 249 8. Bounding the Avebury landscape 251 The interior of Avebury 252 The North-West Quadrant 253 The South-West Quadrant 256 The South-East Quadrant 257 Avebury Summary 258 The Beckhampton Avenue 260 The West Kennet Avenue 263 Ownership 263 Stones and boundaries 264 9. Stone burial 265 Early encounters with buried sarsens 266 The excavations of Keiller 266 West Kennet Avenue (Figure 9.3) 267 North-West Quadrant (Figure 9.4) 269 South-West Quadrant (Figure 9.4) 270 South-East Quadrant (Figure 9.5) 271 Excavations on the Beckhampton Avenue 272 Excavations on the West Kennet Avenue 279 Finds from the burial pits 279 Medieval pottery 280 Metalwork from the T1 burial pit 281 Animal Bone 282 The practices of stone-burial 282 Digging the burial pit 282 Toppling the stone 286 Preparing the stone 286 Manoeuvring stones into the pits and back-filling 287 Summary: the practice of burying stones 287 Dating the burials 288 Stratigraphy: burials 289 Stratigraphy: boundaries 289 Stratigraphy: destruction pits 289 Stratigraphy: structures 290 Material culture 290 Radiocarbon dating 291 Summary of dating evidence 292 The impact of stone burial 293 Motivations 294 Simple economics: burial for clearance 295 Challenging the clearance hypothesis 296 Burial: a religious dimension? 298 Problems with superstition and religion 299 Stone burial in the Avebury landscape 300 Conclusions 302 10. Stone-breaking 304 Destruction and depredation 304 Ad hoc usage and the pragmatic breaking of stones 304 Documentary evidence for deliberate stone breaking 305 The Stukeley drawings 306 A poetical assault 307 Archaeological evidence for stone destruction 308 The unpublished Keiller records 309 North-West Quadrant 309 South-West Quadrant 310 South-East Quadrant 311 The West Kennet Avenue 313 Clay pipes from the Keiller excavations 313 After Keiller 315 Stone destruction at Millbarrow 316 Excavations on the Beckhampton Avenue 1999–2003 316 Excavations at the Falkner’s Circle, 2002 326 Medieval and post-medieval artefacts from the Beckhampton Avenue and Falkner’s Circle 327 Post-medieval pottery 327 Glass 328 Clay pipes 328 Ironwork from settings L7–L16 329 Animal Bone 332 Analysis of the destruction debris associated with Beckhampton Avenue setting L10 332 Approaching stone destruction debris 332 Quantifying the assemblage 333 Fuelling Destruction 335 Charcoal from the Beckhampton Avenue 336 Charcoal from the Falkner’s Circle 337 After the destruction 338 The process of destruction 339 Variations in practice 341 Approaches to burning upright stones 341 Approaches to burning recumbent stones 343 Direct fracture 344 Dragging away 345 Further complications 345 What does this variation represent? 345 Dating the destructions 345 Summary of dating evidence 349 Techniques revisited 351 Which stones were destroyed? 351 The pace of destruction 353 Who was breaking the stones and why? 353 A religious dimension? 356 Non-conformity in the latter half of the 17th century 357 Acts of resistance? 358 The everyday life of the village 358 Dispute and persecution 361 The danger of replacing one orthodoxy with another 362 The five-mile boomtown 363 Stone destruction and the parcelling up of the land 364 Conclusion: one rationale and one motivation? 366 The Stukeley factor 366 Conclusions: stone destruction in the Avebury landscape 367 Postscript: stone burning today 368 11. Burial and burning in context 369 Introduction: seeking parallels 369 Burial and burning: a capsule summary 369 The Sarsen Stones Project 370 ‘Wrecking’ Stonehenge 371 The Devil’s Quoits 372 Burial, breaking and the Medway megaliths 374 Stanton Drew 375 Conclusions: a unique phenomenon? 376 12. Antiquarian encounters with the Beckhampton Avenue 378 Thomas Twining’s account of the Beckhampton Avenue 378 William Stukeley and the Beckhampton Avenue 379 Summary of Stukeley’s observations on the Beckhampton Avenue 389 Appendix 1: Stukeley manuscripts relating to the Beckhampton Avenue held in the Bodleian Library. A summary list and transcription of notes 391 Appendix 2: The social and economic relationships between individuals named by Stukeley withi nearly 18th-century Avebury 399 Appendix 3: Concordance between the Avebury stone numbering schemes adopted by Keiller (unpublished excavation records) and Smith (1965) 401 Bibliography 403 The Longstones Project was a joint-universities programme of excavation and survey designed to develop a fuller understanding of the context and dynamics of monument construction during the later Neolithic period in the Avebury region. This text presents the results of the project.