stonehenge - English Heritage

047-120 section 2.qxd 6/21/05 4:18 PM Page 47
played a part in ongoing activity, as for example the
Stonehenge Cursus with its evidence for later Neolithic
flintworking well down in the ditch fill (Saville 1978, 17).
Others, for example the Lesser Cursus and perhaps Robin
Hood’s Ball, seem to have fallen out of use, their gradually
eroding earthworks trapping archaeological material thereby
providing a record of the process of abandonment.
The creation of new monuments in the later Neolithic is
amply demonstrated at Stonehenge itself; both the overall
sequence and the problems surrounding its robustness
have been extensively published (Cleal et al. 1995). The
main elements that can be assigned to the third millennium
BC are as follows (Illustration 29):
Phase 1, a circular earthwork monument, constructed
around 2950–2900 BC, comprised a ditch with an internal
bank defining an area about 90m across. Immediately inside
the bank was a ring of 56 equally spaced holes (the socalled
Aubrey Holes) some of which probably contained
upright posts. Outside the ditch was a small counterscarp
bank. There were at least three entrances. Deposits of
animal bones were placed on the bottom of the ditch in
some areas, with particular emphasis on the entrances. An
organic dark layer formed over the primary silting of the
ditch (Cleal et al. 1995, 63). It may be noted that the
construction of the Phase 1 enclosure at Stonehenge is
broadly contemporary with the construction of the bank and
ditch at Avebury (Pitts and Whittle 1992, 205).
Phase 2, 2900–2400 BC, the basic structure remained the
same, but there is evidence for the deliberate back-filling of
parts of the ditch, natural infilling, and some features cut
into the fills. The Aubrey Holes survived as partly filled
features lacking posts by this stage, but timber settings
were constructed in the centre of the monument, at the
northeastern entrance, near the southern entrance, and
outside the earthwork boundary to the northeast. Towards
the end of the phase, cremation burials were deposited in
the Aubrey Holes, in the upper ditch, and around the
circumference of the monument on and just within the bank
(Cleal et al. 1995, 115).
Phase 3i, broadly 2550–2200 BC, the first stone phase
of the monument is built with the erection of a setting of
paired bluestones, the plan of which is far from certain,
Illustration 29
Schematic phase-plans of
Stonehenge 3000–1200 BC.
[After Cleal et al. 1995,
figures 256–7.]
47