The Avebury District
| During the later prehistoric era the significance of the chalk downlands surrounding the village of Avebury lay in their provision of open, well-drained areas favourable to the cultivation of crops and animal husbandry. From the Neolithic period onwards (see below), the region began to be heavily occupied by primitive farming communities moving into this country from the continental mainland. For some three thousand years or more these societies flourished in the area establishing their settlements, raising cattle, growing crops, engaging in trade, burying their dead in monumental tombs or barrow cemeteries and worshipping their unknown deities. Within the village, the great stone circle of Avebury, the largest of its kind in Europe, surrounded by a massive encircling bank and ditch, was an important centre of ritual worship and assembly.
The excavation of such settlements and ritual monuments carried out mainly during the century, has resulted in the discovery of many items of domestic and everyday equipment, throwing much light on the economy and the religious beliefs and practices of their builders.
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Avebury Stone Circle and West Kennet Avenue |
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The largest stone circle in Europe, Avebury formed the centre of one of the most impressive Neolithic ceremonial landscapes in Britain.
The great circles, 200 standing stones arranged in an outer and 2 inner circles, surrounded by a massive bank and ditch, were the focal point of the area. They were connected by the West Kennet Avenue of standing stones to the Sanctuary on Overton Hill. Hundreds of great sarsen stones from the downland around, often weighing over 20 tones, were used in the construction of the site, some 2500 – 2200BC. It is thought that the circles may have taken centuries to complete.
Destroyed by local people during the Medieval and later periods, the stones were partly restored to their original positions by Alexander Keiller in the 1930s.
The site is now owned and managed by the National Trust. |
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