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<< News >> BBC funded excavation at Stonehenge

Submitted by Andy B on Friday, 11 July 2008  Page Views: 6307

StonehengeCountry: England County: Wiltshire Type: Henge

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The first excavation inside the ring at Stonehenge in more than four decades started on the 31st March 2008. The two-week dig was to try and establish, once and for all, some precise dating for the creation of the monument. It also targeted the significance of the smaller bluestones that stand inside the giant sarsen pillars.

Researchers believe these rocks, brought all the way from Wales, hold the secret to the real purpose of Stonehenge as a place of healing.

The excavation at the 4,500-year-old UK landmark is being funded by the BBC. The work will be filmed for a special Timewatch programme to be broadcast in the autumn.

The researchers leading the project are two of the UK's leading Stonehenge experts - Professor Tim Darvill, of the University of Bournemouth, and Professor Geoff Wainwright, of the Society of Antiquaries.

Read more at BBC News and you can follow the dig online.

Note: Chris Watkins describes his experiences working on the Stonehenge excavation earlier this year, see the latest comment on this page

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"BBC funded excavation at Stonehenge" | Login/Create an Account | 6 News and Comments
  
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Re: BBC funded excavation at Stonehenge by Anonymous on Friday, 08 October 2010
There is a high probability that mankind may have existed at a time when the global temperature was much more stable and uniform. We know based on empircal evidence that the earth has been through some major catastrophe's or calamaties, stonehenge may have been erected in order to understand seasonal change due to a period of global stability for the earth to produce food just about anywhere.
http://www.historicaltravelguide.com/
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Stonehenge Excavation 2008 March 30th to April 13th by Andy B on Friday, 11 July 2008
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chris-watkins writes:

From March 30th to April 6th, I participated in the excavation that took place at Stonehenge. However the excavation continued until April 13th. The excavation was part of the Stonehenge - Presseli Bluestone project run by Tim Darvill (Bournemouth University) and Geoff Wainwright. the aim of the excavation was to uncover the early bluesone sockets from the first stage of the building of the stone circle.

The first day was largely a press release day, while the turf was removed and there after the dig started in ernest. The 2.5m - by - 3.5m trench was surrounded by wooden boards and a nearby blue stone was proteced with a foam cover.

Finds from the first day included mainly Post-medieval material - such as glass, pipe and porcelain. This material came from the backfill that was part of Atkinson's trench in 1964 which, cut into the trench that was dug in 2008.

The following day (Day Two) saw more finds coming out of the backfill. This was aided by the large 1cm mesh sieve that was placed over our spoil heap. Day Three was very exciting, not only had the bluestone sockets been exposed. But I had found a piece of Beaker pottery (sadly unstratified from the 1964 backfill and not from the undisturbed 2008 section of the trench).

The following days saw the 2008 section being divided into 50cm2 squares. The squares were each given a letter and all soil was maticulously looked through. With all spoil being sent for environmental sampling to gain as much information as possible.

My last few days of the excavation were based largely on finds processing (washing and sorting) and environmental processing (wet sieving and the carrying of samples from site to the compound - in car park).

Finds processing involved the sorting of finds from each context into foreign stone (sarsen and the all important bluestone), flint (worked and unworked both counted and weighed - which was sorted by Phil Harding), burnt material (weighed) and other items (clay pipe, glass, pottery etc.) and animal bone (mainly sheep and rabbit).

The results from this was that a large quantity of flint and burnt material had come out of the 1964 section of the trench and all this was sorted and looked at by Phil Harding (Time Team).

As all the flint every spit that was taken a context was sorted into worked and unworked flint- each was then weighed and counted. From sorting through all of this, a number of flint tools and hammer stones were found.

The large quantity of environmental samples were wet sieved, through 0.5mm mesh for the 2008 section and 1mm mesh for the 1964 backfill (as specified by English Heritage). Several buckets were taken from both the 1964 section and the new 2008 section of the trench. With samples being taken from every square as the digging progressed down to the chalk bedrock and stone sockets.

The last day that I was there, saw snowfall in the early hours of the morning and later mid-afternoon. While subsequent days were colder work carried on. As the stone sockets were revealed and recorded. Notable finds from this last week included more Beaker pottery, a Roman coin and other flint tools. A conclusion of the findings and a more detailed daily report (includes videos) can be seen on the BBC timewatch website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/stonehenge/
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Stonehenge: Do you dig it? by Andy B on Thursday, 03 April 2008
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Another idiotic headline, this time from IT Wire but lots of useful links in the article:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17451/1066/
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Re: BBC funded excavation starts at Stonehenge by sem on Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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There are six archaeologically accepted circles within 2miles of Fan Brycheiniog, the second highest peak in the Brecon Beacons. None of these has been excavated.
Why are we subjected to repeated Stonehenge when there are unknown sites to explore?
Could it be that the Timeteam boys think that size is important?
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    Re: BBC funded excavation starts at Stonehenge by Andy B on Wednesday, 02 April 2008
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    It's Timewatch, not Time Team, but to be confused with TimeWatch http://www.timewatch.org
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    Re: BBC funded excavation starts at Stonehenge by Anonymous on Saturday, 05 April 2008
    They probably think that money is more important, people will tune in to watch Stonehenge, they will get good ratings, the program will sell elsewhere in the world.

    I am sorry, but a program on a never before excavated stone circle near Fan Brycheiniog is just not going to get the publicity or interest that they can get with Stonehenge.

    ----------------------------------

    Following the website, they have already invited Druids to do a publicity stunt, and make some pretty TV.

    Not really very scientific. I hope that the people doing the archaeology don't loose sight of the task and become TV personalities instead of scientists.
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