NEOLITHIC AGE
After the first farmers arrived in Britain around 4000 BC, new settlements and extraordinary monuments started appearing across the land. The Neolithic period had begun – and there is no better place to see its impact than Wiltshire,
Early farmers transformed Britain – and where better to see their impact than at Avebury and Stonehenge in Wiltshire, says Francis Pryor
Just off the A4, amid the North Wessex Downs some four miles west of Marlborough, lies the small village of Avebury. This tiny settlement – including a scattering of cottages, the 16th-century manor and thatched pub – lies in the centre of the largest megalithic stone circle in Britain, bigger by far than the more famous Stonehenge, some 20 miles to the south.
In the rolling countryside around this stone circle lie some of the most remarkable prehistoric sites in Britain. Many of these monuments are the work of the people of the New Stone Age, or Neolithic era, who arrived in Britain from the mainland of Europe shortly before 4,000 BC. They brought with them an irresistible new technology: farming.
RISE OF THE FARMERS
From its origins in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago, farming spread across Europe. The first farmers to reach the British Isles may have settled in Kent. While farming represented a significant change to the landscape, the people of the British Isles were ready for it, as many of the native population of hunter-gatherers already lived in permanent settlements. They had also made their first tentative steps toward farming by managing reserves of fish and game, such as felling trees around watering holes to give a clear view of the animals gathered there, and domesticated dogs were already present. In less than 400 years – by about 3,700 BC – farming had swept through England, Wales and Scotland.
The farmers began by removing trees the edges of existing open spaces, gradually enlarging them. Soon farms and small hamlets were all linked together by a network of roads and tracks. Eventually, by about 2500 BC, formal systems of fields began to appear.
The achievements of Neolithic farmers at Avebury are astonishing. Entering the monument through a screen of tall trees and a high earth bank that surrounds a deep ditch, you find yourself within Avebury henge, built between about 2850 and 2200 BC. Its outer stone circle is more than 300m wide and once comprised 98 sarsen stones, the heaviest of which some weighed around 40 tons. Avebury was clearly a major religious centre.
But the stone circles of Avebury are just the start of the journey into prehistory. More than a mile southeast of Avebury lies the Avenue, a Neolithic processional route once flanked by 100 pairs of standing stones (27 now remain), creating a corridor 15m wide.
Near Overton Hill, an ancient route known as the Ridgeway passes close by. Probably pre-Neolithic, it was once used by travellers, herdsmen and soldiers and today is an excellent way to view the ancient landscape, including the stone circles of the Sanctuary, and the Bronze Age burial mounds, or barrows, that cluster along the skyline. West of the Ridgeway is the
West Kennet long barrow, a long mound on the slopes of an open field. You can explore the stone chambers of this tomb, built around 3,600 BC; beneath its grass-covered earthen mound, the atmosphere is cool and silent. Nearly 50 people were buried here before the chambers were sealed. Also nearby is Silbury Hill (c 2400 BC), Europe’s tallest prehistoric mound. Comparable in size to the Egyptian pyramids, it was built at around the same time. No burial chamber has ever been found inside; its purpose remains a mystery.
“The stone circles of Avebury are just the start of the journey into prehistory”
LIFE IN THE NEOLITHIC
The grandeur of these Neolithic monuments contrasts sharply with the lifestyle of their makers. The first farmers lived in small houses with thatched roofs with wide eaves to keep the mud-plastered walls dry. The single room had a central hearth but no chimney, and smoke filtered out through the roof. A doorway faced south, for more light. The cook would kneel in front of the fire and houses excavated at
Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge, still preserve two knee-shaped impressions in the hard chalk floor at the edge of fireplaces. Excellent reconstructions of these houses can be seen at the Stonehenge Visitor Centre.
So what motivated Neolithic people to build huge monuments? The answer lies at Windmill
Hill, some two miles north-east of Avebury, a lonely place that dominates the surrounding country. The hill is famous for its causewayed enclosure, a series of short ditches dug in concentric rings with short gaps. Large quantities of animal bones found here indicate feasting, animal trading or rituals, and it is recognised as one of the best-preserved ancient tribal meeting places. These gathering places were important because the people who
lived in dispersed farms and villages in the surrounding land had to stay in touch. If in-breeding (of both people and farm animals) was to be avoided, communication with communities outside the region was essential.
Society would have been based around clans and tribes that were linked together by ties of blood. These relationships had to be strong in a landscape that was often hostile. Bears, wolves and wild boar were still common, while wild cattle, known as aurochs, roamed the landscape. These beasts weighed up to a ton and had huge horns; their skulls were often given special burial in causewayed enclosures.
Religious sites, such as Avebury, Windmill Hill and Stonehenge, allowed people to gather and were linked to the mystical realms of the sun, moon and cycle of the seasons. Midwinter and midsummer were seen as special times. Many of these beliefs were ancient indeed, as research at Stonehenge has started to reveal.
SOLSTICE SITES
Stonehenge lies about 24 miles south of Avebury on Salisbury Plain, more open and rugged than the Wessex Downs. Yet like Avebury, Stonehenge sits within a carefully laid-out landscape of barrows and religious sites, known as a ritual landscape. There are hundreds of prehistoric barrows, but few great mounds or other large monuments survive.
Set at the end of a processional avenue, the henge is laid out along a series of naturally occurring ice age cracks in the limestone. These fissures, coincidentally, were precisely aligned on the midsummer and midwinter solstice (the longest and shortest days). The cracks surely explain why the site was chosen, sometime around 8000 BC. Stonehenge itself was built much later, from c2900-1600 BC.
The massive lintels of Stonehenge mark it out from any other European site. Its highly complex construction and rebuilding over 1,300 years has transformed our understanding of Neolithic and Bronze Age society. These were people with shared religious views, whose communities lived together and farmed the landscape peacefully.