Mesolithic Machans

Yesterday the Mesolithic tree-throw and post holes were showing up well with grass mown and it reminded me to record my belief that there may have had been a practical purpose. 

If you are ever to try a spot of big game hunting, I haven't myself, I am assured that the Cape Buffalo is the most dangerous beast to hunt. I imagine Aurochsen were similar. They don't take kindly to being wounded and a couple of tonnes of beef behind some horns travelling at speed intent on revenge is best avoided. Using only spears and arrows kills would not have been quick and easy. 

Deer hunters in our local woods still use high seats, not so much to avoid the danger, as to be out of sight and smell of the prey and have a better view and platform to operate from. 

In India and south Asian countries, such platforms, in trees and where trees were absent on poles, are called "Machans". Thankfully they now more often used to photograph big game from than for shooting.

David Saunders* in his excellent studies on prehistoric cattle movements touches on the roles the posts may have played but doesn't, I think, suggest them as machans. So combining a sketch from E P Stepping's Diary of a Sportsman Naturalist in India and a photo of the post holes let me supply a suggestion of how the posts alongside a natural funnel for the beast may have been used.

*Saunders, David. The Cursus Enigma: Prehistoric Cattle and Cursus Alignments. Austria: NIELSEN BOOKDATA, 2021.

How many original entrances did Durrington Walls have?

 It seems surprising that the number of entrances that Durrington Walls originally had is uncertain.

1, 2, 4 and even 3 have been suggested.

Model from Gaffney V, Neubauer W, Garwood P et al (2018) Durrington Walls and the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project 2010-2016. Archaeological Prospection. 25(3): 255-269. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/16081

"Durrington Walls is a large oval henge, classified as a type 2 henge (Piggott 1939), with an internal irregular ditch and external bank, and with two entrances known, to the east and to the west (Wainwright and Longworth 1971, 1), although Parker Pearson et al. (2007) suggest four entrances."

Higham, R., & Carey, C. The Durrington Walls Sarsen Burial relocated and reconsidered. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society Magazine, 112, 74-84.

 

"It was not possible to determine the presence or absence of the assumed north-west entrance in the bank/ditch as there is significant metallic noise at the surface here. Similarly, it is not possible to establish the nature of the apparent breaks on the north and east sides due to the presence of the old and new main roads cutting through the earthworks at these points."

"There appears, for example, to be no certain evidence for a north-west entrance. The air photograph used by Crawford (1929, 54-6, pl.III) might indicate such an entrance, but this also seems to show a gap in the ditch on the east side of the enclosure which certainly does not exist. The land surface in the area of the supposed entrance is steep and very uneven, apparently heavily-disturbed, suggesting relatively recent modification of the scarp slope possibly to create an entrance ramp into the field within the enclosure area, which might account for the ‘gap’ observed by Crawford. The geophysical survey data (GPR and FDEM) are ambiguous, but there is certainly a suggestion that the ditch is continuous (see fig. 15). It is possible, therefore, that the Durrington Walls henge enclosure only had a single south-east entrance." Gaffney et al 

So the South -East entrance is certain, it seems to be ceremonial and aligned to the Solstice.

The North West one opposite seems to be becoming less certain, the area was used as a rubbish dump so it is hard to survey but there doesn't seem to be any evidence it was there.

 "the vexed issue of the north-western entrance to Durrington Walls henge becomes significant. Initially postulated by Crawford (1929, 54–56, plate III), the entrance is complicated by the presence of a large scarp that lies between the bank and ditch, and which must pre-date the enclosure (Gaffney et al. 2018, 10). The area associated with the postulated entrance is very steep, uneven and heavily disturbed and the geophysical survey data from the henge is ambiguous regarding whether an entrance actually exists at this point."   Gaffney, V. et al. 2020 A Massive, Late Neolithic Pit Structure associated with Durrington Walls Henge, Internet Archaeology 55. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.55.4

The North and South entrances are hard to interpret as the old road went through them. Talking to archaeologists the feeling is that the north one probably is the least certain and is probably more a modern agricultural access to the interior. The South entrance has more features such as a curve to the ditch which hint it may be original. 

To answer the question, I think 1 is certain and 2 probable, but not the traditional two. I think as at Stonehenge there was a ceremonial entrance and maybe a more functional one to the south. 

The Stonehenge Sarsens didn't float down the Avon

The route that the great sarsens were brought from the Marlborough Downs to Stonehenge is still debated. This blog was started to investigate it and it is still of interest.

I am using 40 tonnes as the maximum weight of an untrimmed sarsen that was moved. The raft or sledge it was moved on then adds to this weight.

The idea that they were brought down the River Avon from Upavon to Amesbury is still popular despite the impossibility of it.

The River Avon we see now isn't the same as it was in Neolithic times, the main difference is that it has historically been dredged, over-widened and impounded in many places due to past river management.

It would have been a multichannel meandering stream in a marshy valley bottom with trees and bushes growing over and in it.

1) They weren't slid on the frozen river. 

The River Avon is largely fed from ground water along its route, water that is referred to as warm during the winter as it stays at near constant temperature all year round. The river doesn't freeze solid and according to Gold's Formula the ice would need to be over 500mm thick 

The River at Amesbury has a normal maximum depth of 700mm and is usually half  of that, and at Upavon it is a lot less.

Photo from Pennsylvania Lumber Museum 

2) They weren't loaded onto rafts and floated down.

To float 40 tonnes of stone  40 cubic metres of water must be displaced. If we had a weightless box to load the stone on it would need to be 4 metres wide, 20 metres long and 500mm deep, the depth of the river being a limiting factor here.

A wooden raft made of logs would need to be much larger. Wood has a specific gravity of 500 - 800 kg per m3 . The photo shows how only half of a  log raft is out of the water. At the lightest end the raft would need to weigh another forty tonnes to displace enough water, at a more realistic weight for hardwoods of 750kg/m3 it nearly 100 tonnes. A forty five meter by five meter wide raft at 500 mm deep. The river is not big enough.

Only by using hollowed logs or canoes could the weight and size of the raft be reduced but would they be strong enough for the massive stones?

Dragging heavy stones through an overgrown bog didn't happen, they went overland away from the river.

Reconstructing extraction techniques at Stonehenge’s bluestone megalith quarries in the Preseli hills of west Wales

A very detailed look at the Bluestone quarries and the associated stone tools discovered there.  

Abstract: Excavations at two of the sources of Stonehenge’s bluestones in Mynydd Preseli, west Wales, have led to the discovery of stone tools associated with megalith quarrying in the final centuries of the fourth millennium BC, shortly before the suspected date of the bluestones’ erection at Stonehenge, 240 km away. Among the most plentiful of these tools are stone wedges, three of which were found in situ at the rhyolite bluestone quarry of Craig Rhos-y-felin. Two of these were positioned in the joints of a rhyolite pillar adjacent to a recess left by a removed pillar. Geochemical analysis reveals that these and the third wedge are of compositions different to the rock on either side of the cracks into which they had been driven, confirming their identification as quarrying tools. This research sheds new light on the methods used to extract the stones for Stonehenge.

Reconstructing extraction techniques at Stonehenge’s bluestone megalith quarries in the Preseli hills of west Wales,

Mike Parker Pearson, Richard Bevins, Nick Pearce, Rob Ixer, Josh Pollard, Colin Richards, Kate Welham

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports,

Volume 46,

2022,

103697,

ISSN 2352-409X,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103697

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X22003601)

Keywords: Megalith quarries; Dolerite; Rhyolite; Stonehenge; Mynydd Preseli; Neolithic

Mythical rings? Waun Mawn and Stonehenge by Timothy Darvill and the response!

Mythical rings? Waun Mawn and Stonehenge Stage 1 by Timothy Darvill 

"In a recent Antiquity article, Parker Pearson and colleagues (2021) presented results from excavations at Waun Mawn in south-west Wales, interpreting the site as a dismantled stone circle and source for some of the Bluestone pillars used in the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge. Here, the author examines the evidence, showing that alternative interpretations are possible. Waun Mawn is argued to represent a series of smaller stone settings, typical of ceremonial sites in south- west Wales. Meanwhile the Aubrey Holes are shown to reflect a well-established regional sequence in which post circles are followed by pit circles. A Welsh ‘source-circle’ for Stonehenge cannot be excluded but, the author argues, the claim is unsupported by the current evidence."

The full article is at : https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.82

Mike Parker Pearson et al have responded: 

How Waun Mawn stone circle was designed and built, and when the Bluestones arrived at Stonehenge: a response to Darvill

"In response to Timothy Darvill's article, ‘Mythical rings?’ (this issue), which argues for an alternative interpretation of Waun Mawn circle and its relationship with Stonehenge, Parker Pearson and colleagues report new evidence from the Welsh site and elaborate on aspects of their original argument. The discovery of a hearth at the centre of the circle, as well as further features around its circumference, reinforces the authors’ original interpretation. The authors explore the evidence for the construction sequence, which was abandoned before the completion of the monument. Contesting Darvill's argument that the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge originally held posts, the authors reassert their interpretation of this circle of cut features as Bluestone settings."

The response is at:  https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.132

Darvill plan showing the recorded stones and stone-sockets at Waun Mawn, Pembrokeshire (figure by G. Belmont after Grimes 1964: fig. 36 and Parker Pearson et al. 2021: fig. 4a).

 

MPP et al "the reader should ignore Darvill's Figure 1 and refer only to our plan to understand the site. How do we know that Waun Mawn is an unfinished circle? Because it has an entrance, convincing arcs of stoneholes, and—most significantly—a centre."

Plan of the unfinished and dismantled stone circle of Waun Mawn, Pembrokeshire. Remaining stones, standing and recumbent (purple), are shown, with stoneholes of dismantled standing stones (red), pits dug for standing stones but never used (green) and other features (black). Viewed from the hearth (131) at the centre of the circle, the midsummer solstice sun rose within the entrance formed by stoneholes 128 and 21 (figure by C. Casswell)  

The 52 Hillforts of Wiltshire

 

Rybury Camp - Tim Daw

My list of the 52 Hillforts of Wiltshire. 

UPDATE AUGUST  2026 - an interactive map and gazetteer of the 52 hillforts: https://52-hillforts-of-wiltshire.netlify.app/

I visited them all in 2022 - some aren't accessible so I went as close as I could legally and safely. But where I could I walked within each one.

Thoroughly enjoyable way to visit the whole of Wiltshire and experience some wonderful places and views - I recommend doing it thoroughly.

	Name	Longitude	Latitude
1	Castle Hill, Blunsdon St Andrew	-1.77441	51.61914
2	Bury Hill Camp, Purton	-1.9183	51.60967
3	Nuns Walk, Malmesbury.	-2.09482	51.58369
4	Ringsbury Camp	-1.89333	51.57961
5	Liddington Castle	-1.70066	51.51583
6	Bincknoll Castle	-1.84618	51.51221
7	Barbury Castle	-1.78635	51.48527
8	Membury Camp	-1.56636	51.47567
9	Bury Wood Camp	-2.2632	51.46427
10	Nash Hill	-2.09702	51.42346
11	Oldbury Castle	-1.93037	51.42246
12	Chisbury Camp	-1.60051	51.39205
13	Oliver's Castle	-1.99994	51.38113
14	Rybury Camp	-1.88173	51.37463
15	Martinsell Hill Camp	-1.7514	51.37447
16	Giant's Grave	-1.76244	51.36796
17	Budbury	-2.25754	51.34854
18	Godsbury	-1.68904	51.31853
19	Fosbury Camp	-1.54311	51.30692
20	Broadbury Banks	-1.86838	51.29888
21	Castle Combe	-2.14601	51.29561
22	Sunton	-1.65939	51.28765
23	Chisenbury Camp	-1.78358	51.28374
24	Casterley Camp	-1.83531	51.28101
25	Bratton Castle	-2.14302	51.26376
26	Sidbury Camp	-1.6913	51.25365
27	Battlesbury Camp	-2.14668	51.20994
28	Cley Hill Camp	-2.23204	51.20298
29	Scratchbury Camp	-2.1262	51.19727
30	Knook Castle	-2.05856	51.19553
31	Vespasian's Camp	-1.79108	51.17399
32	Codford Circle	-2.02644	51.16419
33	Yarnbury Castle	-1.95097	51.16271
34	Ludgershall Castle	-1.37222	51.15252
35	Ogbury Camp	-1.79669	51.14368
36	Bilbury Rings	-1.98711	51.12541
37	Grovely Castle	-1.93238	51.12132
38	Ebsbury Hill	-1.91339	51.11762
39	Park Hill Camp	-2.33901	51.11122
40	White Sheet Castle	-2.28097	51.11032
41	Figsbury Ring	-1.73232	51.10337
42	Kenwalch's Castle	-2.36163	51.10056
43	Old Sarum	-1.80464	51.09337
44	Wick Ball Camp	-2.00071	51.08687
45	Castle Ditches, Tisbury	-2.0533	51.05463
46	Chiselbury	-1.97559	51.05239
47	Great Woodbury	-1.79653	51.04969
48	Odstock Copse	-1.79517	51.02569
49	Castle Rings, Donhead St Mary	-2.16153	51.02501
50	Clearbury Ring	-1.78401	51.01836
51	Winklebury Camp	-2.06945	50.99478
52	The Earldoms	-1.64684	50.99299

 Listed North to South

Information from The Oxford Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland: Lock, G. and Ralston, I. 2017. which includes much more information about each Hillfort.

Ordnance Survey and Google Street View to preview parking also highly recommended.

(Castle Combe and Ludgershall added as there is enough evidence for them be classed as Hillforts)

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Strontium Values Reappraisal - The South-West not Scotland?

That pigs, cattle, humans and even a dog came to the Stonehenge area from distant parts in prehistory has been one of the more interesting scientific discoveries of recent times. The links to Orcadian culture has also been speculated on. 

Behind the headlines and speculation there is solid research - some links to start from:

Evans, J., Parker Pearson, M., Madgwick, R. et al. Strontium and oxygen isotope evidence for the origin and movement of cattle at Late Neolithic Durrington Walls, UK. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 11, 5181–5197 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00849-w 

Snoeck, C., Pouncett, J., Claeys, P. et al. Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales. Sci Rep 8, 10790 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-28969-8 

The interpretations of Strontium and other isotope analysis lead to controversy. 

Gordon J. Barclay & Kenneth Brophy (2020): ‘A veritable chauvinism of prehistory’: nationalist prehistories and the ‘British’ late Neolithic mythos, Archaeological Journal, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.2020.1769399

Richard Madgwick, Angela Lamb, Hilary Sloane, Alexandra Nederbragt, Umberto Albarella, Mike Parker Pearson & Jane Evans (2021) A veritable confusion: use and abuse of isotope analysis in archaeology, Archaeological Journal, 178:2, 361-385, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.2021.1911099

The ‘omphalos of Britain’: iconic sites and landscapes, methodological nationalism and conceptual conservatism in the writing of ‘British’ prehistory. A reply to Madgwick and collaborators 2021 Gordon J. Barclay and Kenneth Brophy DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.17296994

So a reappraisal is warranted: The high strontium levels that have been taken to indicate movement from Scotland might now indicate the South-West instead.  A recent paper:

Müldner, Gundula & Frémondeau, Delphine & Evans, Jane & Jordan, Alexis & Rippon, Steven. (2022). Putting South-West England on the (strontium isotope) map: A possible origin for highly radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr values from southern Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science. 144. 105628. 10.1016/j.jas.2022.105628.

"Reconstructions of ancient mobility based on strontium isotopes are only ever as reliable as estimates for baseline values of bioavailable strontium in the study area. Current biosphere mapping for Britain suggests that there are no sizeable areas hosting 87Sr/86Sr values above 0.714 south of Cumbria. As a result, archaeological humans or animals with such (for Britain) ‘highly radiogenic’ strontium isotope values are commonly interpreted as having moved either from Scotland or abroad. This paper presents the first dedicated strontium isotope map for South-West England based on 98 modern biosphere samples (including 68 new measurements). Numerous samples from the Cornubian granite (Dartmoor) have 87Sr/86Sr values above 0.714 (maximum 0.7287) and, based on their distribution, it is suggested that the previously elusive ‘highly radiogenic’ values are characteristic for areas where the soil has with high rubidium concentrations. These occur at lower elevations which are better suited for agriculture and permanent human settlement than the high moors. Previous interpretations of archaeological samples from southern Britain may need to be revised considering these new results, but they also highlight the continued need for biosphere sampling and the usefulness of geochemical maps as a routine part of strontium isotope investigations in archaeology."

An excellent summary is at https://the-past.com/news/redrawing-the-strontium-isotope-map-for-the-south-west/