The Living with Monuments Project is a joint venture between researchers from the Universities of Southampton, Leicester, Ghent and Cambridge, Allen Environmental Archaeology and the National Trust.
Their aim is to redress a critical imbalance in what we know of life and cultural landscapes during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (c.4,000-1500 BC). Archaeologists’ accounts of these periods mainly deal with why and how the ceremonial and funerary monuments – which form the most visible and tangible part of its archaeological record – were created.
But we know remarkably little about where and how people lived in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age or what other sorts of non-monument focussed activity they were undertaking . To solve this problem they are carrying out an innovative programme of carefully targeted fieldwork alongside reassessment of existing data – including material in the Museum archives – within a landscape famed for its monumental architecture: the area in and around Avebury.
This year the Living with Monuments team is based at a the foot of Avebury Down, in an area to the east of Avebury henge, where they will be for the first three weeks in August
The site is in an area where Rev. H.G.O. Kendall and W.E.V. Young began to collect Neolithic flintwork in the 1920s, and where a fantastic, dense scatter of early and middle Neolithic flintwork (c.4000-2900BC) was identified. Though Kendall’s collection is housed in the Alexander Keiller Museum in Avebury the exact location of the scatter remained a mystery until 2006 when map detective work by Jim Gunter identified its probable location and shortly afterwards on the ground investigations by Josh, Ros and Nick established its exact position.
The Living with Monuments Project is being directed by Dr. Josh Pollard (Southampton University), Dr Mark Gillings (Leicester University), Prof. Alistair Pike (Southampton) and Dr Nick Snashall (National Trust) together with Dr. Ben Chan (Southampton), Dr. Ros Cleal (National Trust) and Dr Mike Allen (Allen Environmental Archaeology).
More at
https://ntarchaeostonehengeaveburywhs.wordpress.com/category/dig/foot-of-avebury-down/page/5/
and four more pages of dig diary which unfortunatey come up in reverse order, currently at Day 14 and backwards:
https://ntarchaeostonehengeaveburywhs.wordpress.com/category/dig/foot-of-avebury-down/
and on our page here
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=10474#comments
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