Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T14:57:42.082Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Durrington Walls: a Ceremonial Enclosure of the 2nd Millennium BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Extract

Durrington Walls lies one quarter of a mile to the north of the outskirts of Amesbury in Wiltshire and 9 miles north of Salisbury (SU 150437). Stonehenge is situated 2 miles to the south-east and 80 yds. to the south of the enclosure is Woodhenge which was excavated by Mrs Cunnington in 1926-8. The much ploughed bank, which encloses a dry valley opening on to the River Avon, was initially recorded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in the early 19th century (1812, 169), but until the recently completed series of excavations the only digging on the site was that carried out by Professor Stuart Piggott in 1952, despite recognition of the enclosure as being one of the largest henge monuments in the country. The 1952 excavations were in the nature of an exploration on both sides of a pipe trench where it intersected with the bank in its southern sector (Stone, Piggott and Booth, 1954). A double row of post-holes was recorded along the outer edge of the bank and a quantity of animal bones, flints and sherds of Grooved Ware was found on top of the old land surface which was preserved beneath it. Sherds of Grooved Ware and two small fragments of Beaker were recorded from domestic refuse overlying the bank talus. Radiocarbon dates of 2620± 40 and 2630 ± 70 BC were obtained from charcoal under the bank in its southern sector (Piggott, 1959, 289). These determinations were described by Professor Piggott as ‘archaeologically unacceptable’ as two small scraps of Beaker pottery were found in association with the abundant Grooved Ware.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

* Later reconsideration of the evidence suggests that this structure is most probably a midden and not a roofed building.