A spectacular image showing an extremely lumpy and pitted sarsen lying in the woodland of West Woods. This one would be more appropriate at Avebury rather than Stonehenge, where it's claimed that the stones required were "rectilinear" and suitable for use as pillars and lintels.
Actually this puff for the article is not too bad -- it does use the phrases "claims to have shown" and "the likely source". So that's a promising start....
STONEHENGE SARSENS SOURCED
A pioneering study claims to have shown that the sarsens, all the large stones at Stonehenge, were brought by the monument’s builders from the Marlborough Downs 20 miles to the north, identifying an area at West Woods, not proposed before, as the likely source. In an exclusive feature for British Archaeology, the research team explain how they did it.
2 comments:
If it turns out that West Woods as a probable provenance of most of Stonehenge's sarsen stone orthostats is agreed upon after due reflection, then it seems that the area which includes West Woods, Silbury Hill, the Avebury circles and Avenues, and the Marlborough Mound, will be spoken of as an extremely dynamic area in the production of late Neolithic monuments. Marlborough is also being seen as a location where much settlement and other activity was going on.
West Woods is also very close, to its south, to Knap Hill Early Neolithic causewayed camp, Adam's Grave long barrow, and Golden Ball Hill Mesolithic settlement, all of which look down upon the Pewsey Vale, wherein lies Marden Henge.
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