The lesser known stone circles of Avebury are the
Most visitors to England would readily recognize the great columns of Stonehenge as they are so often seen depicted in silhouette against a pastel evening sky – but Avebury seems to be a well-kept secret.
If it is within your time constraints, a drive up the A4361 from the Cornish coast can fuel Arthurian legends with only a couple of slight detours. The crumbling ruins of Tintagel, sprawled atop a wind swept cliff, and the romance of Avalon and Glastonbury Hill offer untold enchantment and are easily assessable.
The Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor, with it’s colorful history, makes a convenient place to stop for refreshment and should you be remarkably blessed with a bright clear day for your journey, just watching the lovely English countryside roll by is, in itself, worth the drive.
The Neolithic monuments of Avebury, where some of the sites date back over 4000 years, will suddenly appear out of nowhere. About halfway between Devizes and Swindon, the A4361 goes right through the middle of all of it!
To give you some idea of the overall size of this place, the ancient hills and barrows and the great stone circles, which happen to be the largest and most complete prehistoric complexes in Britain, are divided into quadrants by the modern highways. The banks, ditches and the area enclosed by the largest of the circles, cover over 28 acres and the hill is on a natural chalk dome. To traverse all of the pathways and walkways would, no doubt, take days.
Avebury is a World Heritage site and is managed by the National Trust but probably a visit here is not for everyone. Perhaps it would only hold a fascination for those individuals who revere that which is ancient. However, if archaeology is “your thing”, this place offers a glimpse of many different time periods in England’s early history and the setting is truly lovely. History buff or not, the place is impressive!
Windmill Hill, first occupied about 3700 BC, is the oldest area and was the first to be excavated. Although it is a small hill compared to Silbury, it is important for providing the first clear picture of this time period in Southern Britain. You can walk or drive to it but parking could be a problem on a busy day.
Here, enclosed by three concentric rings of ditches, is the largest Neolithic causeway known. Due to the lack of substantial structures it is thought that activities here might have been seasonal in nature. Small groups of people, using shovels made of ox shoulder blades and picks and rakes of deer antler, most probably did the digging. It’s estimated that it would have taken nearly 65,000 man-hours stretched over many seasons for its completion.
In the early 20’s, during the first five-year excavation, Windmill Hill produced an abundance of artifacts and much work was done in pioneering the use of modern equipment and archaeological methods.
In digs elsewhere on the grounds people from other periods left behind tools of flint and stone weapons and axes, copper knives, coins and gold jewelry. These relics, along with a fine collection of the various types of Neolithic pottery, can be seen in the museum that is located at the back of the Avebury parish church. The displays change from time to time and the staff there can answer most questions. If you have the time, a quick “walk through” will give you a good idea of the timetable and the technology of the various archaeological endeavors.