Perhaps we need to 'scale back' our perception of places like Avebury; perhaps scale back our perception of other stone circles and 'henges' as well. Perhaps we should see these places more as places to corral livestock or, in the case of Avebury, perhaps see it as the market mecca of its day rather than a 'mysterious temple' or 'megalithic observatory' (though it was certainly some of that as well).
The Avebury mound and ditch is a bit of a puzzle to say the least, it couldn't function as a defence structure because the mound is higher than the inner circle. I know the theories about a 'false horizon' etc and wouldn't dismiss those theories out of hand but why not just get a bit more practical? What, after all, if the ditch at Avebury was no more than a big pigpen; a place where swine herders could corral their livestock during festive/religious/market times of the year? Avebury is situated very close to the Ridgeway; the Ridgeway was the Neolithic equivalent of the M4 and, where you've got a major highway you've got towns, religious centres, markets and all the other structures and functions associated with those things - what we see at Avebury today fits the marketplace/market town bill pretty well in those respects.
Swindon (a few miles up the road from Avebury) derives it's name from 'swine-down' and, though the words 'swine' and 'down' stem from Old English, I wonder if the place name of Swindon and the peculiar ditch and bank configuration at Avebury (a configuration that suggests that things were being kept <i>in</i> rather than being kept <i>out</i> of the circle) doesn't hark back to a very ancient swine-herding tradition at Avebury and the surrounding area?
Just a thought (plus of course, even now we've still got the tradition of excellent Wiltshire ham) - now how far back does that tradition go?
 Reply | with quote | Posted by Littlestone
28th May 2005ce
01:30 |
The Big Avebury Pigpen (Littlestone, May 28, 2005, 01:30) |
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