AHRC-funded excavation of Aubrey Hole could change Stonehenge’s meaning
A new excavation of Stonehenge, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has revealed that an Aubrey Hole – one of a circle of pits surrounding the stones at Stonehenge – had probably held a standing stone.
The excavation of Aubrey Hole 7 was directed over one week in August 2008 by Mike Parker-Pearson, Mike Pitts and Julian Richards for the Stonehenge Riverside Project. The project, sees a collaboration involving five UK universities and over 200 archaeologists, and is funded by a £500,000 research grant from the AHRC.
Professor Mike Parker-Pearson at the University of Sheffield says, “If all 56 pits had held stones, this would have been one of the first and largest stone circles in the country, made of Welsh bluestones in 3000BC. A recent claim that these stones arrived at Stonehenge in 2300BC would then relate to the time when the bluestones were moved into the centre of the site 700 years later. Stonehenge’s history as envisaged since the 1950s is overturned.”
The pit had already been excavated twice: when discovered in 1920, and again in 1935 when all the cremated human bone found earlier at Stonehenge was reburied. Recovery of this bone for modern examination was the prime goal of the new dig (the bone was in excellent condition, and study will begin over the winter).
Another reason was to look at the Aubrey Hole itself – the first to be seen open since 1950. It was believed that these pits had been dug for oak poles, but Parker-Pearson had revived an old interpretation that they had held bluestones: the evidence of crushed and compacted chalk had been recorded in 1920 in three of the pits. He says, “Aubrey Hole 7 had crushed chalk on its base indicative of a standing stone. This had been missed by archaeologists twice before: it seems likely that similar evidence still survives in other Aubrey Holes. We propose that very early in Stonehenge’s history, 56 Welsh bluestones stood in a ring 285 feet 6 inches (87m) across”. He concludes, “This has sweeping implications for our understanding of Stonehenge.”
The new evidence from Aubrey Hole 7 suggests megaliths were present throughout Stonehenge’s existence. The first three radiocarbon dates for human cremation burials, obtained in May from the only bones then available for study, range between about 3000 and 2300BC. Contrary to claims made in the recent BBC Timewatch film, which promoted a theory of Stonehenge as a healing centre built after the practice of cremation burial had ceased, standing stones and burial of the dead may have been prominent aspects of Stonehenge’s meaning and purpose for a millennium.
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Media Contact: Emi Spinner, Communication Officer, tel: 0117 9876 770 / 07854 005662
Editors Notes
Arts & Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and dance. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,000 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. Arts and humanities researchers constitute nearly a quarter of all research-active staff in the higher education sector. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.
Contacts on the project
Mike Parker Pearson, professor Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, director Stonehenge Riverside Project
07790 254237
011 4222 2908
Mike Pitts, editor British Archaeology, director excavations at Stonehenge 1979–80, author Hengeworld (Century 2001)
07940 591422
01672 512130
Julian Richards, writer and broadcaster, director Stonehenge Environs Project 1980–90, author Stonehenge, the Story So Far (English Heritage 2007)
07974 913878
01747 851531
Aubrey Holes
56 pits named after the 17th century antiquarian John Aubrey, were discovered by archaeologists in 1920. Thirty four were excavated 1920–1924 and two in 1950. They average about 3.5 feet across (1.1m) and 3 feet deep (0.9m) – similar to pits in the centre of Stonehenge known to have held bluestones. Their contents included mostly undistinguished artefacts, and pockets of cremated human bone and ash.
The pits’ purpose has been much debated. The original excavators first thought they were dug to hold small standing stones (the Welsh bluestones): the great Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie suggested they were a war indemnity paid by a Welsh tribe. But debate followed on whether they had held stones or wooden posts. After the 1950 excavation of two pits, they were believed to have been only for the placement of ritual deposits, with no stones or posts. In the 1960s astronomers suggested they may have held markers to predict eclipses. Since 1995, the standard interpretation has been that, when first dug, they held tall oak posts that had no astronomical function.
Cremation at Stonehenge
About 60 finds of cremated human bone are recorded at Stonehenge, representing some 50 people. Most of what survives has now been recovered in the excavation of Aubrey Hole 7. All such remains had originally been buried in or near Aubrey Holes or the ditch beyond. Pitts has suggested that in total, the cremated remains of some 240 people were buried at Stonehenge. This is by far the largest cemetery of this era we know of in Britain.
After the 1920s excavations had ended, no institution wished to curate the cremated bone, and in 1935 Wiltshire archaeologists William Young and Robert Newall buried them in Aubrey Hole 7. A lead plate with an inscription briefly describing the event was found in August. Today we expect to be able to learn a great deal from these remains, identifying sex, age and health of the individuals, and with a new process we can radiocarbon date them.
Bluestones
The great majority of researchers agree that almost all the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge by people from a small area of Pembrokeshire around the Preseli Hills. There are no stone chips at the bottom of the Aubrey Holes, but large numbers elsewhere on the site. It may be that 56 stones were brought to Stonehenge as natural boulders around 3000BC, and erected in the Aubrey Holes. Only later were some of them (not all) carved to shape, and further bluestones must have been brought to Stonehenge either then or before.
The total weight of all original bluestones at Stonehenge was around 260 tons. The total weight of the sarsens (the larger stones, brought from some 20 miles away) was around 1,700 tons.
BBC Timewatch
These new claims conflict with those made by Timothy Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright, who excavated at Stonehenge in April. In a BBC broadcast on September 27, they said the first bluestones arrived at Stonehenge in 2300BC, by which time cremation burial had ceased.
We cannot support the 2300BC radiocarbon date. It was obtained from a single cereal grain, which most archaeologists would find unacceptable. Items this small can be moved by burrowing animals – Charles Darwin showed the burying power of earthworms specifically at Stonehenge in 1877. It also conflicts with other radiocarbon dates and the known sequence of megalithic construction at the site, which together place the first erection of bluestones in the centre of Stonehenge at an unknown date before 2470BC.
There are currently only three radiocarbon dates for cremation burials. It is statistically unlikely that the last burial that took place at Stonehenge is amongst those dated, so the most recent date of 2470–2300BC should not be read as dating the end of that tradition.
Stonehenge Riverside Project
Responsible for major excavation within the Stonehenge world heritage site over the past five summers. Directors are Mike Parker Pearson (Sheffield University), Joshua Pollard (Bristol University), Colin Richards and Julian Thomas (Manchester University), Christopher Tilley (UCL) and Kate Welham (Bournemouth University).
Website at www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/stonehenge