stonehenge - English Heritage

047-120 section 2.qxd 6/21/05 4:18 PM Page 42
Stonehenge Landscape (Illustration 24). Small-scale
excavations in 1956 confirmed the identification of the
earthworks as a causewayed enclosure of fourth-millennium
BC date (Thomas 1964; Oswald et al. 2001, 157; McOmish et
al. 2002, 31–5), but no more precise information about the
chronology of the site is available. Morphologically, the site
has two roughly concentric ditch circuits. The inner circuit is
sub-circular, the outer circuit pentagonal in plan with the
flat base to the southeast (Oswald et al. 2001, 5). The
entrance in the inner circuit opens to the southeast. Surface
evidence suggests complex patterns of ditch recutting and
changes to the alignment of individual ditch segments.
Despite the generally high level of aerial reconnaissance
in the region, Robin Hood’s Ball seems to be a fairly isolated
enclosure spatially associated with a relatively discrete
cluster of long barrows and oval barrows fitting well with a
dispersed pattern of middle Neolithic enclosures across
central southern Britain (Ashbee 1984b, figure 6; Oswald et
al. 2001, 80). This pattern was interpreted by Colin Renfrew
(1973a, 549) in terms of emergent chiefdoms, with the long
barrows representative of scattered local communities
whose collective territorial focus was a causewayed
enclosure (and cf. Ashbee 1978b, figure 22).
Barrows in and around the Stonehenge Landscape have
been the subject of surveys and investigations since the
eighteenth century, and in some cases represent major
contributions to the classification of such monuments.
Several types can be recognized, of which the largest,
typically over 50m in length, are the classic long barrows.
At least eight long barrows can be recognized in the
Stonehenge Landscape, although none have been fully
excavated (Illustration 25). Amesbury 42 at the east end of
Illustration 25
Long barrows in the
Stonehenge Landscape.
A: Netheravon 6.
B: Milston 1. C: Durrington
24. D: Amesbury 42.
[A after McOmish et al.
2002, figure 2.4; B after
Canham 1983, figure 2.25;
C after McOmish et al.
2002, figure 2.8C; D after
Richards 1990, figure 64.]
42