Stonehenge tunnel ‘risks ruining unique Ice Age site’

Archaeologist says flawed £1.6bn road scheme would destroy priceless ‘library’ of early farmers’ remains

PLANS to build a tunnel past Stonehenge risk destroying a nationally important nearby prehistoric site an archaeologist has warned.

Prof David Jacques, of Buckingham University, accused the Government of wrongly marking its location on a map. The Blick Mead site a mile and a half from Stonehenge can trace a human presence back to the last Ice Age, but is threatened by a £1.6billion scheme to improve the road past the stone circle.

Prof Jacques said the planned tunnel on the A303 in Wiltshire and a flyover could irrevocably damage the site, which provides insights into early humans’ shift from hunters to farmers.

Prof Jacques said the impact on the site had not been assessed, despite it being the only place in Britain that can trace people living there since the end of the Ice Age, around 8,000 BC.

Building a tunnel and flyover risks lowering the water table and drying out the peat and silt conditions which preserve archaeological remains, he said. Roadworks in the Sixties have already thinned the protective peat covering.

His most recent excavations found aurochs hoofprints, a species of ancient cattle, which had apparently been purposely preserved under a stone surface. Prof Jacques said there was a real possibility that human footprints could be discovered. He said: “This is the only site in Great Britain where there is evidence that people have been living there from just after the end of the Ice Age to now. Essentially the place is like a national archive for organic material which are like documents. It would be like destroying a unique library.”

The Government has backed plans to put the A303 into a tunnel as it passes the neolithic stone circle as part of measures to ease congestion and improve the setting of Stonehenge. But opponents warn the plans could harm the rich archaeological landscape.

Prof Jacques also accused the authorities of “negligence or worse” for a map of the plans which he said put Blick Mead in the wrong place, where construction of the flyover and tunnel would be less damaging.

He said: “If Highways England and the Government can’t even locate Blick Mead in the right place, how can we trust anything in this process? The Stonehenge world heritage site landscape is unutterably precious and you tamper with it at your peril. You cannot make it come back.

“There should be perpetual inquiry here and the Government, the National Trust and English Heritage either value that or they don’t. The tunnel scheme will clearly compromise the archaeology. Whose interest would that be in?”

David Bullock, Highways England project manager, said the plan “shows indicative general features and was never intended as a geographical map”. He said statutory consultation on the road scheme will begin this week.