How to Read Prehistoric Monuments by Alan Butler

How to Read Prehistoric Monuments by Alan Butler

Author:Alan Butler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: How to Read Prehistoric Monuments
ISBN: 9781780283302
Publisher: Duncan Baird Publishers Limited
Published: 2011-12-14T16:00:00+00:00


Avebury

Avebury, near Marlborough, Wiltshire

LATITUDE : 51° 25’ 43.04” N LONGITUDE : 1° 51’ 14.66” W

Avebury is my favourite stone circle in the south of England, partly because of its beauty but mostly because of its scale. John Aubrey (see Stonehenge) once said that if Stonehenge could be said to represent a parish church, Avebury was the greatest of cathedrals. Avebury isn’t simply large, it is massive in scale. True, it doesn’t have the trilithons and lintels of Stonehenge but some of its stones are incredibly large and heavy and in terms of its geometric planning it far surpasses its southern neighbour.

The henge within which the stones of Avebury were erected is not simply large, it is colossal. It is not strictly circular and Alexander Thom demonstrated the method used to create it using poles and ropes. He maintained that it was constructed around two foci and that it was never intended to be a perfect circle. At its widest the henge at Avebury is around 460 yards (420 metres) in diameter, making it many times bigger than all henges in the British Isles (except the super-henges in Yorkshire and Oxfordshire which, for all their massive dimensions, are still not as large as Avebury).

A Massive Ditch

When it was first dug, the ditch at Avebury was 36ft (11 metres) deep and a probable 69ft (21 metres) wide, though, as with other henges, it was never meant to be a defensive structure since the ditch lies within the banks, which would make it hopeless for defensive purposes. It can only be described as ‘ritual’ in intention and it was a feat of engineering that beggars belief, especially since it was dug out of natural chalk using nothing more than deer antlers for picks.

The spoil was most probably removed from the site in baskets of the sort we know to have been used in the construction of the nearby Silbury Hill, and I suppose it isn’t out of the question that much of the material removed from the huge ditches of Avebury is presently to be found incorporated into Silbury Hill. It would have made great sense to use this material, rather than spreading it across the landscape. Even the contemplation of removing all this earth and chalk is so daunting it is hard to imagine how anyone in that remote period could have planned such a task, let alone carried it out. However, this presupposes that the builders of Avebury were somehow inferior to us in terms of brain power, which they most certainly were not. Their technological achievements may not have been so great as ours are but the evidence shows they could and did get things done.



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