<< Our Photo Pages >> Windmill Hill (Avebury) - Causewayed Enclosure in England in Wiltshire

Submitted by Andy B on Tuesday, 17 September 2024  Page Views: 27300

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Country: England County: Wiltshire Type: Causewayed Enclosure
Nearest Town: Marlborough  Nearest Village: Avebury
Map Ref: SU08677144  Landranger Map Number: 173
Latitude: 51.441888N  Longitude: 1.876647W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 5

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mesolithica visited on 26th Aug 2024 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 4 Access: 2

NDM visited on 1st Jan 2023 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 4 Access: 2

FrothNinja visited on 2nd Oct 2016 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 4 Access: 2

Jansold visited on 15th May 2016 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4

jeffrep visited on 27th May 2011 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 2

graemefield visited on 1st Jun 2010 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 3

SolarMegalith visited on 1st Jul 2008 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 5 Access: 3

TheCaptain visited on 4th Oct 1998 Visit lots of ancient sites on a long off road cycle tour from Avebury to Windmill Hill, along the Wansdyke and back up Kennet Avenue

Chrus visited on 1st Jan 0002 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 5 Access: 3

Andy B: would like to visit Featured in Episode Two of BBC's History of Ancient Britain with Neil Oliver

mdensham have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 2.75 Ambience: 4.25 Access: 2.63

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Horatio : Neolithic and Bronze age combined, this is an excellent site for sun worshipping especially, you can see why this gradual sloped hill was chosen for the fairly flat horizon (Vote or comment on this photo)
Owned by the National Trust, Windmill Hill lies close to the stones and village of Avebury and is the site of a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure and later barrows. The hilltop is enclosed by three ditches. Finds from Windmill Hill can be seen in the museum at Avebury.

From 2016: Prehistoric Sex Objects: The Phalli of Windmill Hill, a fascinating talk by Helen Wickstead given at TAG 2016 with a brief overview of some of her research - see the latest comment below.
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Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Bladup : Windmill Hill (Avebury) Causewayed Enclosure lidar image (Vote or comment on this photo)

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Horatio : Must be the excitement of being back in Avebury, woke up at 5am! I decided instead of tossing and turning in bed I'd get a sunrise and after walking around the stones in the henge for a bit in the dark, I decided to head off up Windmill Hill and watch the sunrise from there. I wasn't disappointed, bit chilly though. This is very first light as the sun first made her appearance over the distant ... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by NDM : The oldest site in Avebury? (Vote or comment on this photo)

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Bladup : Windmill Hill Causewayed Enclosure bank and ditch with some barrows just outside the enclosure (Vote or comment on this photo)

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Bladup : Windmill Hill Causewayed Enclosure

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Bladup

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Bladup : Windmill Hill Causewayed Enclosure, Slight bank and ditch

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Horatio : It's a difficult site to picture even after after walking around it several times. Took a photo of the information board as it shows how this site might've looked. The sun was reflecting on the perspex so not a great photo but enough to give you an idea. (1 comment)

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Horatio : A view looking SE down one of the better defined ditches of the causeway. Radiocarbon dating has shown that the inner and outer ditches where probably dug before the middle ditch but all where dug in the span of a single lifetime. (3 comments)

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Humbucker : Some dramatic light behind one of the barrows on Windmill Hill.

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Humbucker : One of the concentric circle earthworks surrounding the Windmill Hill enclosure.

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Humbucker : Sun shining on Windmill Hill. Taken from the lane next to Beckhampton Avenue.

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Postman : Ditches and barrows. (mixin it up)

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Postman : Barrows and ditches

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Postman

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Postman : The end to a dream winter solstice day, except for being a day late.

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Postman : The inside out barrow

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Postman : Late one winter solstice

Windmill Hill (Avebury)
Windmill Hill (Avebury) submitted by Thorgrim : One of the concentric causewayed ditches of Windmill Hill. (1 comment)

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 98m SSW 204° Windmill Hill Barrows* Round Barrow(s) (SU08637135)
 156m SSW 207° Picket Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SU086713)
 940m S 185° Horslip Long Barrow* Long Barrow (SU0858970503)
 1.2km ENE 65° Winterbourne Monkton* Chambered Tomb (SU09797197)
 1.7km WSW 255° Yatesbury Field Barrows* Round Barrow(s) (SU0703171000)
 2.0km SE 139° St. James's Church (Avebury) Ancient Cross (SU0997669968)
 2.1km SE 141° Alexander Keiller Museum* Museum (SU100698)
 2.1km SE 132° Avebury - The Cove* Standing Stones (SU10257002)
 2.1km S 174° Longstone Cove* Standing Stones (SU0888769301)
 2.2km SW 228° Cherhill Cursus Cursus (SU07057000)
 2.2km SE 133° Avebury* Stone Circle (SU10266996)
 2.2km S 189° North of The Grange Round Barrow(s) (SU08346928)
 2.2km S 171° South Street Long Barrow* Chambered Tomb (SU09006927)
 2.2km E 101° Avebury Down Earthwork Misc. Earthwork (SU10837102)
 2.2km S 184° South of Penning Barn* Round Barrow(s) (SU08506921)
 2.3km SW 225° Bowl Barrow, north of Knoll Down Round Barrow(s) (SU0707269838)
 2.3km S 179° Longstones Barrow* Long Barrow (SU08706914)
 2.4km ESE 102° Avebury Down Bell Barrow* Barrow Cemetery (SU11047094)
 2.6km E 100° Avebury Downs Barn Tumuli* Barrow Cemetery (SU1125170971)
 2.6km SSW 213° Knoll Down Barrows* Barrow Cemetery (SU0725369219)
 2.6km SW 227° Old Bath Road Tumulus* Round Barrow(s) (SU06746963)
 2.7km SE 136° West Kennet Avenue polisher* Polissoir (SU10576947)
 2.8km E 94° Avebury Down Stone Circle* Stone Circle (SU11437127)
 2.9km SSW 203° Fox Covert Barrows* Barrow Cemetery (SU07536873)
 3.0km SE 137° West Kennet Avenue* Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue (SU10696928)
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"Windmill Hill (Avebury)" | Login/Create an Account | 7 News and Comments
  
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Re: Prehistoric sites and unspoilt villages,21 July 2007, Avebury by Anonymous on Friday, 19 July 2019
Windmill Hill lies 310 deg. from Avebury which is the geometric summer solstice set direction. There is a (usually uncharted) linear earthwork leading in this direction from the base of the hill up to the Great Bell Barrow. It points straight towards the Obelisk marker within Avebury Henge. To learn more about it's part in the general geometry of the Avebury landscape follow this link; https://ancientwhisperspenwith.blogspot.com/2018/11/avebury-geometry-pt-2-a.html
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Understanding Early Neolithic Human Remains at Causewayed Enclosure Sites - Pietrzak by Andy B on Monday, 04 February 2019
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Understanding Early Neolithic Human Remains at Causewayed Enclosure Sites by Adam Pietrzak

Over nearly a century of study, a number of interpretive paradigms have been proposed to account for the presence of Early Neolithic human remains at causewayed enclosures in England, and to suggest what they might mean. The human remains have largely been understood as the result of the deliberate exposure of bodies on-site as part of the excarnation process, or have been seen as votive deposits. However, the evidence has not been precisely defined in the literature, and the nature and scale of mortuary practices at causewayed enclosures remains unclear. This thesis collates, presents and analyzes the published data relating to 36 certain excavated causewayed enclosures to evaluate the validity of current interpretive paradigms for understanding the presence and meaning of the human remains.

http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/6125/1/Pietrzak15MRes.pdf
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Identity and Agency at the Causewayed enclosures of Windmill Hill and Etton by Andy B on Friday, 30 June 2017
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Performative practice: identity and agency at the causewayed enclosures of Windmill Hill and Etton - Oliver Harris

How did people create, sustain or undermine particular notions of identity in the past and how was agency caught up in this? In this dissertation I will deal with this question in relation to two particular Early Neolithic sites, the causewayed enclosures of Windmill Hill and Etton. I will argue that any attempt to understand identity in the past must reject modern essentialist notions of gender, personhood and agency, and instead recognise that these factors were produced through contextualised performative practice. It is particularly important to move away from essentialist notions of agency that have dominated much of archaeology in the last ten years so that this powerful analytical concept can continue to be of use to us.

http://www.hardav.co.uk/MA%20-%20HTML/contents.htm (archive link)
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Prehistoric Sex Objects: The Phalli of Windmill Hill - Helen Wickstead, Kingston Univ by Andy B on Sunday, 16 April 2017
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Prehistoric Sex Objects: The Phalli of Windmill Hill - Helen Wickstead, Kingston University, London

Helen Wickstead writes: What is a phallus and how shall we know it? Today, answers to this question are likely to be different depending on whether the psychoanalytic phallus or a category of archaeological artifact is at issue. Yet these two approaches to the world of things have not always been easily divided. This paper examines how the thingliness of two phalli changed over the course of the early twentieth century, a period in which anthropology, archaeology and psychoanalysis were often closely associated, and the boundaries of archaeological discourse were in the process of construction.

It draws on the results of a Wellcome Trust funded project exploring how relations among bodies, objects and concepts have been stabilized through the practices of archaeologists
and museum curators.

In this paper I explore the thingliness of two carvings once known as ‘phalli’. Both objects were carved from chalk in the Neolithic. In the 1920s they were excavated from the henge ditches at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire. Unpublished archaeological archives, including archaeologist’s letters and diaries and the records of museums, reveal how each object participated in practices that reconfigured both the emplacement of artefacts and the category of the phallus more broadly.

Through these practices one phallus was re-categorized as a “female” figurine and both were subject to changing forms of museum display and representation. Gendered objects participated in practices enacting archaeological professionalization, first wave feminism, ‘primitive’ sexuality, and the receptions of psychoanalysis and sexology. I conclude by asking how archaeological history can contribute to the future of the phallus.



https://youtu.be/wQoeG35D-3I
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Windmill Hill Survey Report from 1994 by Andy B on Sunday, 10 May 2015
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D McOmish, M Barber (1994). A New Earthwork Survey of Windmill Hill, Wiltshire. RCHME Survey Report.

An earthwork survey of the Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Windmill Hill, near Avebury. The report describes the extant earthworks and includes a brief summary of previous work at the site. The survey was undertaken at the request of Alasdair Whittle (Cardiff University), and also formed part of the RCHME national survey of early Neolithic enclosures. The survey and further description/discussion can also be found in A Whittle et al (1999) The Harmony of Symbols: the Windmill Hill causewayed enclosure, Wiltshire; and A Oswald et al (2001) The Creation of Monuments: Neolithic causewayed enclosures in the British Isles.

https://www.academia.edu/12242253/D_McOmish_M_Barber_1994_._A_New_Earthwork_Survey_of_Windmill_Hill_Wiltshire._RCHME_Survey_Report
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Re: Prehistoric sites and unspoilt villages,21 July 2007, Avebury by Estrela on Saturday, 07 September 2013
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We found the walk from Avebury to the barrows on Windmill Hill tiring - but we are in our late '60s and unused to walking on metalled tracks. We took the field footpath back and found it much more pleasant, although you have to look out for cow pats.
The hill does not look like much of a hill as one ascends, as the rise is long and gradual. There are a number of barrows spread around at the top, and a good view of Silbury Hill the other side of the Avebury henge.
The ditches were not very visible in late summer.
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Prehistoric sites and unspoilt villages,21 July 2007, Avebury by Andy B on Saturday, 23 June 2007
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Prehistoric sites and unspoilt villages
Start: 21 July 2007 - 10:00am
End: 21 July 2007 - 3:30pm
Description
On this walk, National Trails Volunteers and experienced walkers George Darmody and Colin Minto will visit the prehistoric sites of Avebury and Windmill Hill (one of the oldest known settlements in Wiltshire). The walk will take in several (less ancient) unspoilt villages and beautiful views along The Ridgeway. There will be a break for lunch at a pub (dogs permitted in the garden only, on leads). Meet at the start of the footpath to the village in the northeast corner of the main National Trust car park for Avebury, southwest of stone circle off A4361. Avebury can be reached by bus from Swindon and Marlborough. SU 098696 (Landranger 173)

Category: walk
Cost of the event: free of charge
Additional information:

Contact information
01865 810224

http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/Ridgeway/event.asp?PageId=10&EventId=90
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