ARCHÆOLOGY
A MONTHLY EXCAVATION OF ODDITIES AND ANTIQUITIES PAUL DEVEREUX digs up the latest discoveries, including a pattern of pits and a formation of pots
THE PITS AND THE CONUNDRUM
A recent major archæological discovery centres on Neolithic Durrington Walls in Wiltshire. This site is the largest known henge, some 500m (1,640ft) across. (A henge is an enclosure bounded by an earthen bank and internal ditch.) It is 3km (1.8 miles) north-east of Stonehenge, and the River Avon flows past both sites. Since the 1960s, there have been several archæological field projects investigating the site. The numerous foundations of what would have been timber and plaster houses and two timber circles, one larger than the other, were unearthed, along with extensive signs of feasting. Also, the earliest known metalled road in Europe was found leading 100 yards (90m) down to the Avon from the larger timber circle and is aligned closely to the Summer Solstice sunset. Theories have been put forward that the Durrington Walls henge is where the builders of Stonehenge lived, and also that it may have been a place for funeral feasting prior to the deceased being floated down the river to Stonehenge. The new findings around Durrington Walls are something else again, and provide a literally deeper puzzle.
A team of investigators from the universities of St Andrews, Birmingham, Warwick, Bradford, Glasgow and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, using remote sensing technology including ground penetrating radar and direct sampling techniques, have discovered a partial ring of huge pits 2km (1.2 miles) wide encircling the henge. The pits are tentatively dated to the third millennium BC and are of extraordinary dimensions, each measuring over 10m (33ft) in diameter and 5m (16ft) in depth. They have “quite dramatic vertical sides” say the investigators. Core analysis of selected pits indicate that they silted up naturally over time so were seemingly left open after being dug (but there seems to have been further infilling activity later in the Middle Bronze Age). No significant deposits have been found at the bottom of the pits so far examined, other than random shells and a few animal bones, which have allowed for radiocarbon dating.
So far, 20 of these pits have been identified, collectively forming an approximate circle. This is incomplete, because some are lost beneath overlying surface developments limiting further investigation. The investigating team is confident that this pit ring is a huge structure in its own right and unique in the British Isles. In their extensive paper in Internet Archaeology, the investigators summarise the pits as representing “an elaboration” of Durrington Walls henge “at a massive, and unexpected, scale… The data also hint at evidence for the maintenance of this monumental structure into the Middle Bronze Age which, if correct, would have significant implications for our understanding of the history and development of monumental structures across the Stonehenge landscape”.
Digging these features with Stone Age tools must have taken a truly significant effort. So what were they for? While there are pits of differing purposes and ages across numerous landscapes, including at Stonehenge, nothing like this collection of features has been found previously. A few individual prehistoric ones elsewhere are of similar monumental dimensions, which might indicate that there was some sort of bizarre Late Neolithic ritual practice – though the term ‘ritual’ can all too easily be a catch-all phrase meaning ‘purpose unknown’. And what kind of ritual would call for so many massive pits like this ring? (The investigators warn against considering these pits to be ritual shafts.) There have already been suggestions that the pits might have functioned as some sort of boundary or temenos, but this does not really make sense: posts or other smaller, simpler features like wattle fences would serve that purpose better and without requiring the huge commitment of labour. In short, this major archæological discovery opens up a whole new Stone Age conundrum, as if we didn’t have enough. Internet Archaeology 55, 2020: Gaffney, V. et al. “A Massive, Late Neolithic Pit Structure Associated with Durrington Walls Henge” (https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.55.4); BBC News, 22 June 2020.
LOST AND FOUND DEPARTMENT
Regular readers of this column will know that from time to time we open up its lost-and-found department to announce unlikely discoveries. This sometimes involves whole ancient cities, and such is the case this time. The prehistoric ruins, with an area of 1.17 million square metres, lie 2km (1.2 miles) south of the Yellow River at Shuanghuaishu in the township of Heluo, Gongyi city, in China’s central Henan province. Ring trenches and city walls are still extant at the site and more than 1,700 tombs have been uncovered, arranged into three blocks. The remnants of three possibly sacrificial platforms have been identified within the residential areas. Among numerous smaller finds, which include ceramics and human skulls, are a set of clay pots arranged in the formation of the stars in The Plough (Big Dipper) constellation – “The Big Dipper is a symbol of political rituals in ancient China,” a site archæologist explains. Another delightful find is the representation of a silkworm carved out of a boar’s tusk.
The area where the Shuanghuaishu site is located, commonly known as Zhongyuan or the Central Plains, was traditionally recognised as a centre of early-stage Chinese civilisation; it has yielded other ancient ’lost’ cities going back 5,300 years, and is where at least two whole dynasties later arose. Wang Wei, president of the Chinese Society of Archæology, comments that “Discoveries in Shuanghuaishu have filled a gap in the research of the origins of Chinese civilisation.” Archaeology, 12 May 2020.