Mike Parker Pearson (MPP) spoke about “Future research priorities.” He’s interested in where the people came from, and envisages more isotope analysis like that which determined the origins of the Amesbury Archer. So the Beaker People Project will sample a proportion of the well-preserved skeletal remains of the Beaker period, aiming to reconstruct individuals’ diet and mobility. He wondered whether Stonehenge was a specific place of pilgrimage, and appeared to answer his own question by saying that there are similar results from other equivalent sites … but I’m afraid that I didn’t capture the details of what I presume are still pilot studies.
He also talked about some post-excavation research for the Stonehenge Riverside Project that he called “Feeding Stonehenge.” This involves analyzing the large quantities of pig and cattle remains from Durrington Walls. I’m not sure how definite these results are, but he said that the animals are raised off the chalk, and are therefore imported, and that all the evidence points to temporary settlement. Interestingly, the evidence from the pigs points to slaughtering at two peak points in the year: midwinter and, less convincingly, midsummer. All of those straws seem to point to a pattern of twice-yearly solstitial use. He plans to look for similar patterns at Avebury, but he suggested that it would not be the same at Avebury, where there are no strong solstitial alignments. However, there do appear to be spring/May Day alignments. And that raises the interesting possibility that perhaps Avebury and Stonehenge were used in a complementary way at different times of the year, by a widespread Wessex people. Just my speculation.
Mike wouldn’t be Mike without leaving us a little surprise. On this occasion, he told us of some recent fieldwork he’d done near the Devil’s Den, a cromlech at the bottom of the long valley running south from Fyfield Down and the Grey Wethers, a valley that must have been a stone chute for the sarsens sliding down the valley sides. MPP said that he and Mike Pitts had spotted large depressions in the valley above the Den, and he suggested that these might have been the resting places of sarsen stones before they made the journey to Stonehenge. So, what would that journey have been? It’s very unlikely that they’d have been dragged up the valley and then down again to Avebury. So the only reasonable suggestion is that they went down Clatford Bottom, the valley continuation to Clatford, and crossed the river Kennet. Crossing the Kennet would require a causeway – and MPP thinks he’s spotted one beside the existing bridge. Exciting, or what? The obvious route then is to take the easy slopes through Lockeridge to Knap Hill, and then down to Marden henge, and the headwaters of the Avon. Perhaps the Marden henge monumentalizes the crossing of the Avon? The Clatford hypothesis should be easy enough to test and, if MPP is right about a heavily-piled Kennet causeway strong enough to carry stones weighing up to 50 tons, there could still be some mud-preserved remains in the river bottom. And that could lead to an RC dating that would date Stonehenge precisely.
More at
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