Stonehenge Riverside Project

The Stonehenge Riverside Project was a big research study paid for by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It looked closely at the area around Stonehenge landscape during the time of Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. The project studied how Stonehenge connects with other important places nearby, such as the River Avon, Durrington Walls, the Cursus, the Avenue, Woodhenge, burial mounds, and other standing stones.

This project did a lot of work on the ground and lasted from 2003 to 2009. One of its big discoveries was that Stonehenge was built 500 years earlier than people thought before. Many believe Stonehenge was created to bring together different groups of people living in Britain. The project also found a stone circle that no one knew about before, called Bluestonehenge.

Background

The Stonehenge Riverside Project was led by researchers from several universities, including Mike Parker Pearson, Julian Thomas, Colin Richards, Kate Welham, Joshua Pollard, and Chris Tilley. The project aimed to explore the ideas from past studies. These ideas suggested that Stonehenge might have been a place connected to people who had passed away, while nearby sites like Woodhenge and Durrington Walls were thought to be linked to living people or those who had recently passed away.

Previous excavations

The area around Stonehenge has been studied by archaeologists many times. One important dig happened between 1926 and 1929 when Maud Cunnington explored the area near Woodhenge. She found clues from the Neolithic and Bronze Age, like old tools and pottery. Later, in 1967, when a road called the A345 was being built through Durrington Walls, workers found two circles made of timber inside the henge, along with animal bones and more ancient tools.

Fieldwork

The Stonehenge Riverside Project involved many years of fieldwork from 2003 to 2009. In 2003, researchers used special surveys to study the land around Durrington Walls and found two new entranceways to the henge.

Each summer, excavations continued in different parts of the Stonehenge area. In 2004, trenches were dug near the River Avon, revealing signs of people living there long ago. Later years saw more digging around Durrington Walls, the Cursus, and other important spots. Artists also joined in to help record and understand the discoveries. In 2008 and 2009, the team found the remains of another henge near the river, which they called "Bluehenge" or "Bluestonehenge". TV programmes like Time Team, Nova and National Geographic covered some of the work.

Stonehenge as a cemetery

Stonehenge is Britain’s largest cemetery from around 4,000 years ago. It contains the remains of many people, with estimates suggesting between 150 and 240 individuals were buried there. In 2007, researchers from the Stonehenge Riverside Project and the Beaker People Project studied these remains to learn more about when Stonehenge was used for burials. They found that the site began as a place for cremation in the early third millennium BC.

Conclusion

The research showed that Stonehenge was built to bring together people from all over Stone Age Britain. The findings were shared in a book published in 2012 called Stonehenge, Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery by Mike Parker Pearson.