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Dr Mark Gillings, Co-Director
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Dr Josh Pollard, Co-Director
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Dr David Wheatley, Co-Director
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Dr Rick Pearson, Research Assistant
Collaborative project involving academics from the Universities of Leicester, Bristol and Southampton.
This project was awarded £149,362 under the AHRC Research Grants Scheme (2000-2004). It was a collaborative project, involving academics from the Universities of Leicester, Bristol and Southampton.
Developing an enhanced understanding of our ancient Heritage is a crucial element in encouraging tourists and visitors to these remarkable sites. This AHRC project unlocked some of the secrets of a significant group of major Neolithic and Early Bronze Age ceremonial monuments (dating to the 4th- early 2nd millennia BC) which together represent one of the most impressive complexes of prehistoric monuments in Europe.
One of the major outputs of the research has been to shed important new light upon the remarkable group of structures at Avebury, revealing wholly new prehistoric monuments, such as the Longstones enclosure, and confirming the existence of others long thought lost, such as the 1.5km 
of paired standing stones that once made up the Beckhampton Avenue. These discoveries alone served to effectively double the area known to be covered by the monument complex. The research has also enabled us to refine our understanding of the chronology of monument building – from the erection of the individual stones that collectively make up the Avebury circles (the largest stone circle in Europe) to the group of monuments that collectively make this landscape so extraordinary.
Archaeological research is often labour intensive, involving substantial teams of people ranging from professional archaeologists and students to enthusiastic local volunteers. Large scale research projects provide an excellent training environment for those keen to gain practical experience in the excavation and interpretation of heritage sites and there are at least two examples where young people have gone on to study Archaeology and gain employment in the sector, as a result of the introductions gained through the Avebury project.
By involving a substantial number of local people and other interested parties in the research, both in the research team and through public lectures and tours, the project has provided a valuable opportunity for developing social networks and building social capital. The Longstones project is exemplary in the way that the project Directors in particular have made substantial efforts to engage and discuss their work - not just in academic or archaeological circles but also with the wider public and visitors. Public engagement in these projects is fundamental to maximising public value.
Media interest in the Longstones project has been substantial, particularly around the time of the re-discovery of the Beckhampton Avenue, which attracted nationwide coverage.
PwC estimate that all research projects conducted at the site collectively could have generated a net additional £13 millions of visitor expenditure in the period 1986-2006. Funding provided by the AHRC supported the majority of the research activity and facilitated substantial excavation, survey and the provision of equipment and other research costs for the Longstones project.
The results of the project have already informed a significant new published history of the site (Gillings, M. and Pollard, J. 2004. Avebury. Published by Duckworths) and the detailed results of the AHRC funded work are to be published as a major book entitled ‘Landscape of the Megaliths’ (Oxbow Books) in Spring 2008.
PricewaterhouseCoopers calculated the economic impact of research on the Avebury site using visitor data, assuming that research activities generated 100,000 additional trips per annum since World Heritage Site designation in 1986, equating to more than 2 million visits. Focusing purely on overseas visitors, for which there is an impact on the economy at a UK level, this equates to £83.5 million in visitor expenditure. PricewaterhouseCoopers assumed that no more than 10% of these visits were attributable to Avebury, and used a multiplier of 1.32 for the local economy and 1.56 for the UK economy to assess net additional expenditure.