Stonehenge #4

Stonehenge — The Land of the Dead?

The protracted building of a British Icon

Stonehenge, showing the processional Avenue entrance route (foreground) with still discernible ditches left & right, the deeper enclosure ditch (mid, left and right), and the recumbent ‘Slaughter Stone’ peeping through the grass close to the left ditch. Sarsens with lintels are facing, with bluestones peeping between. Image, taken on a drizzling August day, © Linda Acaster 2023.

Two miles from the site of the prehistoric village of Durrington Walls stands Britain’s most spectacular Neolithic site: Stonehenge. But what, exactly, was it built for?

If, as conjecture has it, that Durrington Walls was built for the Living, was Stonehenge originally built for the Dead? If so, did it preserve that mission throughout the 800 years of its construction phases? 21st century people can only surmise, but there are clues.

c.3100–3000BC

Around 5,000–5,100 years ago people came to this plateau area of what is now Wiltshire to construct an earthwork enclosure. They weren’t the first to build an earthen monument in this area, and they certainly weren’t the last. The builders of all the different monuments possibly chose the area because it is high in a landscape with thin topsoil — a grassland with few trees to fell. However, the overriding attraction could have been that below the topsoil lay crumbly chalk-stone that is bright white in sunshine and attracts the eye over a substantial distance.

The enclosure ring measures some 110 metres/360 feet in diameter and originally held two entrances: the larger faces north-east (see header image) and remained…