The Stonehenge Riverside project Research design and initial results

Abstract

Stonehenge was in use throughout the third millennium BC, within a landscape of linked Neolithic and Early Bronze Age timber, chalk and earth monuments. Its stone phase began probably in the mid-third millennium BC and its famous sarsens were erected around the same time that the henge enclosure of Durrington Walls with its timber circles was constructed three miles upstream along the River Avon. The river may have been significant as a link between the living and the dead, represented in the use of perishable wood and permanent stone materials. This theory has been elaborated to develop expectations about the landscape which may be investigated on the ground. One of these is the expectation that Durrington Walls was connected to the river by an access in a similar way that Stonehenge is linked to the river by the Avenue. This paper sets out the research design for a new project “Stonehenge riverside” and reports on the findings of the 2003 field season.