Thread: Huge 4,500-year-old stone circle discovered near Stonehenge

Archaeologists have discovered a major new prehistoric monument just a short distance away from Stonehenge. Some 20 or more massive prehistoric shafts – more than 10 metres wide and five metres deep – form a vast circle more than two kilometres in diameter around the Durrington Walls henge. Coring of the shafts suggest the features are neolithic and excavated more than 4,500 years ago, around the time Durrington Walls was built. It is thought the shafts served as a boundary to a sacred area or precinct associated with the henge. The discovery comes just after the Summer Solstice, which took place online this year as the famous annual gathering was cancelled due to coronavirus. Experts from the University of St Andrews were joined by counterparts from institutes including Birmingham, Warwick, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (at the University of Glasgow).

Dr Richard Bates, of the university’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: ‘Yet again, the use of a multidisciplinary effort with remote sensing and careful sampling is giving us an insight to the past that shows an even more complex society than we could ever imagine. ‘Clearly sophisticated practices demonstrate that the people were so in tune with natural events to an extent that we can barely conceive in the modern world we live in today.’ Tim Kinnaird, of the same school, said: ‘The sedimentary infills contain a rich and fascinating archive of previously unknown environmental information. ‘With optically stimulated luminescence profiling and dating, we can write detailed narratives of the Stonehenge landscape for the last 4,000 years.’

Dr Nick Snashall, National Trust archaeologist for the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, hailed the ‘astonishing discovery’. He said: ‘As the place where the builders of Stonehenge lived and feasted Durrington Walls is key to unlocking the story of the wider Stonehenge landscape, and this astonishing discovery offers us new insights into the lives and beliefs of our Neolithic ancestors. ‘The Hidden Landscapes team have combined cutting-edge, archaeological fieldwork with good old-fashioned detective work to reveal this extraordinary discovery and write a whole new chapter in the story of the Stonehenge landscape.’



Huge 4,500-year-old stone circle discovered near Stonehenge | Metro News

Stonehenge
Superhenge.
Woodhenge.
Similar oddities in the region
.....and the newest discovery.

All within several kilometres from one another.

Must be fascinating, for those that deeply research and study these mysteries [in which, they rightly still are].
Offering lucid alternative curiosities for their existence.