Stone circles can be found all around the British Isles. In fact, these lands have the highest concentration of the monuments anywhere in the world.
Archaeologists aren’t exactly entirely sure why this is but they think the unique style of engineering may have come from northern Britain, perhaps in Orkney. The most famous of all Britain’s stone circles is, of course, Stonehenge, the great hulking structure which sits on Salisbury Plain and has captured the imagination of millions.
Yet, there is a much older structure, not all that far from Stonehenge, that was built almost 1,000 years before it: Avebury henge. According to English Heritage, Averbury henge and its stone circles “are one of the greatest marvels of prehistoric Britain”. They were built and altered during the Neolithic period, somewhere between 2850 BC and 2200 BC, meaning they predate Stonehenge by about 800 years.
Today, the area survives as a huge circular bank and ditch which encircles a vast piece of land including a slice of Avebury village. Inside the henge sits the largest stone circle in Britain which once, it is thought, consisted of around 100 stones and itself encloses two smaller stone circles.
Avebury isn’t all that far from Salisbury Plain and is part of a spine-tingling ceremonial site used by Britons in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Back then, it would have been viewed as a highly sacred land, somewhere that significant people may have taken their deceased to be buried, to watch rituals and also to witness pagan ceremonies.
There is a wide network of ceremonial sites that link with Avebury to create what would have been a spiritual landscape on a gargantuan scale. West Kennet Avenue, West Kennet Long Barrow, The Sanctuary, Windmill Hill and the mysterious Silbury Hill all in some way link back to Avebury, and all date to around the same time.
Many of these ancient sites can be reached on foot from the main henge, with much of what has been found during excavations held in the nearby Alexander Keiller Museum. While Avebury henge and stone circle have been poured over by archaeologists, it is still unclear in what exact sequence the banks, ditches and stone circle itself were built.
Limited excavations and some aerial and geophysical surveys suggest that the site was once home to several more features, though these have since been lost to time. Before the stone circles were erected, timber circles and structures may likely have filled the area, like that seen at Woodhenge.
At some point, two avenues of stones were built which linked the Greater Henge at Avebury with the other ceremonial sites of Beckhampton and Overton Hill. The enormous pyramid-like structure of Silbury Hill isn’t too far away either, and researchers believe the two may have in some way been linked.
The size and openness of Avebury suggest it was built to accommodate masses of people, for gatherings and processions. If correct, archaeologists believe the various stone monuments may have been built as public “theatres” for rites and other events that formed a physical expression of how the ancient people believed the world worked.
That could be from religious to political order, perhaps how they thought society should be set up, as well as how authority should be channelled. It is quite breathtaking to think just how long these monuments have stood in their current forms.
The ancient Celtic tribes would have seen them, as would the Romans and later the Anglo-Saxons, as well as the Normans under William the Conqueror. During the Middle Ages, it is thought that Avebury was used for pagan and devil worship, and many similar structures were either buried or destroyed because of this.
Te site in its present form owes much thanks to Alexander Keiller, a marmalade baron who bought the site and cleared away buildings to re-erect many of the stones from their fallen positions in the late 1930s.
