Archaeologists from the Birmingham University-led Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project have discovered 17 previously unknown archaeological monuments around the Stonehenge site.
Detailed archaeological map of the Stonehenge landscape. Image credit: Vincent Gaffney / Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project.
“The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project is unique at a global level. Not only has it revolutionized how archaeologists use new technologies to interpret the past, it has transformed how we understand Stonehenge and its landscape,” said Prof Vincent Gaffney of the University of Birmingham.
“Despite Stonehenge being the most iconic of all prehistoric monuments and occupying one of the richest archaeological landscapes in the world, much of this landscape in effect remains terra incognita.”
Using remote sensing techniques and geophysical surveys, the team discovered hundreds of new features, including 17 previously unknown ritual monuments, and created the most detailed archaeological digital map of the Stonehenge landscape ever produced.
Archaeologists discovered more than a dozen of new monuments close to Stonehenge. Image credit: Mario Wallner / LBI ArchPro / Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project.
Dozens of burial mounds were mapped in detail, including a long barrow – a burial mound dating to before Stonehenge – which revealed a massive timber building, probably used for the ritual inhumation of the dead following a complicated sequence of exposure and excarnation, and which was finally covered by an earthen mound.
The archaeologists also revealed exciting new – and completely unexpected – information on previously known monuments.
Among the most significant relate to the Durrington Walls ‘super henge’, situated a short distance from Stonehenge. This ritual monument, probably the largest of its type in the world, has a circumference of more than 1.5 km.
The scientists revealed that it was once flanked with a row of massive posts or stones, perhaps up to 3 m high and up to 60 m in number – some of which may still survive beneath the massive banks surrounding the monument.
The image shows the artistic reconstruction of a massive timber building discovered at the Stonehenge site. Image credit: Vincent Gaffney / Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project.
They also discovered novel types of monument including massive prehistoric pits, some of which appear to form astronomic alignments, plus new information on hundreds of burial mounds, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman settlements and fields at a level of detail never previously seen.
Prof Gaffney said: “this project has revealed that the area around Stonehenge is teeming with previously unseen archaeology and that the application of new technology can transform how archaeologists and the wider public understand one of the best-studied landscapes on Earth.”
“New monuments have been revealed, as well as new types of monument that have previously never been seen by archaeologists. All of this information has been placed within a single digital map, which will guide how Stonehenge and its landscape are studied in the future.”
“Stonehenge may never be the same again,” he concluded.
