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Independent Archaeoacoustical Research at Avebury Stone Circle Wiltshire

Submitted by SteveMars on Thursday, 03 January 2008  Page Views: 3982

Neolithic and Bronze Age

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Country: England County: Wiltshire Type: Stone Circle

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Steve Marshall writes: I've just put up some pages about my investigations into the echo effects in Avebury.

I am not an archaeologist. I have some training in acoustics and I happen to live very close to Avebury, but I'm not trying to prove a theory as I don't have one. I've simply noticed that repeat echoes exist inside the Avebury Henge, and that this might possibly be an intended element of the design. By displaying my findings, I hope to provoke some discussion and ideally, learn more about Avebury.

These echoes may well be just an accidental effect, but there is reason to suspect otherwise. William Stukeley, as early as 1720, noted that the stones of the Avebury circle were arranged with their smoothest sides facing the inside - as were the stones of the two inner circles.

At Stonehenge the stones have been dressed, but again, they are smoother on the inner side. Why should this be? There may be some other reason lost to history, but the fact remains that the flatter, smoother, inner surfaces of the stones do reflect sound extremely well and can produce clear repeat echoes. The echoes of human voices are not very loud but sharp sharp percussive sounds and short whistles echo well.

Read more and listen to the MP3s on Steve Marshall's site. (archive link)
Contributor Bio for SteveMars: Based in Somerset, contributing since 2017. Favourite site: Avebury. Occupation: Writer & musician.

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