Late Neolithic Sites

Here are some key sites from the Late Neolithic, 5200 years ago!

Amesbury Archer, Wiltshire

One of the richest prehistoric burials in Britain was found at Amesbury in 2002. It was a complete skeleton of a man, aged 35–45, who walked with a limp. He had three copper knives, two small gold hair ornaments, archery wristguards, 16 flint arrowheads and five Beaker pots. Analysis of his teeth showed that he grew up in the Alps in central Europe. A nearby grave contained a close relative, perhaps his son, who grew up in Britain. It may be the archer came here as a young man and married a local wife. He was buried around 4,300 years ago, very close to Stonehenge.

Avebury, Wiltshire

One of the biggest henges in Britain, so big there is a modern village inside it. It measures 420 metres across and its ditch was 21 metres wide at the top and 11 metres deep. Inside the ditch is a circle of 98 stones. Inside this are smaller circles and other features. There were four entrances, and an avenue of stones led to one of them. It was begun around 4,800 years ago. One curious find was the skeleton of a surgeon buried underneath one of the stones that had fallen on him while he was digging a pit. He had coins from the 1320s in his purse: a medieval man killed by a prehistoric site!

Grimes Graves, Norfolk

This is the biggest flint mine in Britain, with at least 430 mine shafts and was begun about 4,600 years ago. The shafts go down as deep as 14 metres and can be 12 metres across at the top. It would take 20 people 5 months to dig one shaft, and each shaft could produce 60 tons of flint; enough for 10,000 axeheads! One shaft had a small shrine with carved chalk fertility symbols, but these are suspected to be fakes made in the 1930s during the excavations.

Maes Howe, Orkney

Possibly the most impressive prehistoric tomb in Britain. This passage grave was built around 4,800 years ago, and was a round mound originally 30 metres across and 11 metres high. Inside this is a stone passage leading to a high roofed chamber. The midwinter sunset shines straight down the passage to light up the back of the burial chamber. It was built inside a circular bank and ditch filled with water, and might have replaced an earlier stone circle. Inside the chamber there are runic inscriptions left by 11th century Vikings who raided it for treasure, met their girlfriends there or simply sheltered there from the rain.

Skara Brae, Orkney

This is a small settlement lived in 5,000 to 4,300 years ago. The houses were built into a midden; a dump of household waste left to rot down into compost! This kept the houses warm, but meant they had to be connected by a low, dark passage through the midden. The local stone splits easily, and the house had stone furniture in them. In other places this would be made of wood and never survives. In the middle of each house was a square hearth. To the right of the door a large bed, and the left of the door a smaller bed. Beads and paint were found in the smaller beds and so they are thought to be where the women slept, with the men in the larger beds. (But where would the children sleep?) Opposite the door on the far wall is a stone ‘dresser’, like a set of cupboards for storing and displaying things. One house stood outside the midden and was full of bits of chert* and had no beds or dresser. This was the village workshop where they made their tools.

Stonehenge, Wiltshire

The most famous of all prehistoric sites in Britain. The stones we see now are not the earliest phase of the site. The first Stonehenge was a circular bank and ditch 110 metres across, with the ditch unusually on the outside of the bank, and was built 5,100 years ago. Inside the bank was a ring of 56 pits. One idea is that pits had wooden posts and were a timber circle. Cremated burials were later added to some of the pits, placed in the ditch and in holes dug into the inside of the henge. Around 4,600 years ago, two stone circles were added, one inside the other. The stones for these were brought all the way from Pembrokeshire in South Wales, 250 kilometres away! In 2003, archaeologists found burials at Boscombe Down near Stonehenge. Analysis of three adults showed they had spent their childhood in West Wales. Preseli is in West Wales. These circles were very soon replaced by what we see today: the great circle of large uprights with flat stones on top and the inner horseshoe of trilithons*. They were built 4,600 to 4,400 years ago. The entrance, stone circles and the trilithons point to the mid-summer sunrise, although some archaeologists think the midwinter sunset was the more important direction.

Silbury Hill, Wiltshire

The most enigmatic site in Britain: which means it is the one we know least about, and don’t know what it was used for. Silbury Hill is the largest artificial mound in Europe, 170 metres wide at the bottom, 30 metres wide at the top and 40 metres high. No structures or artefacts have ever been found in it. It is 4,400 years old it and we can’t decide whether it took 100 or 400 years to build. Was it used for ceremonies on the top, as a place to view other sites like Avebury which can be seen in the distance, or was it meant to be an artificial hill viewed from somewhere else, perhaps Avebury? One thing it certainly wasn’t was a burial mound.