[quote="fachtna"]hello - I thought people might be interested in a transcript of the Binterview that is referred to on the blogspot

best wishes

fachtna

Transcript by F McAvoy of an interview with Jim Leary (JL) by Evan Davis (ED) broadcast on Radio 4, Today Programme, 08:47, 26th October 2010-10-26

ED - ‘Silbury Hill, the Neolithic chalk mound in Wiltshire, is Europe’s largest prehistoric man-made feature. It’s been pored over and excavated through the centuries in fact but we still appear to be learning things about it. A new book has challenged some of the long-held assumptions about it. Jim Leary is the author, an archaeologist for English Heritage, and joins us from Southampton.

Good morning

JL - Good morning Evan

ED - Have ever been quite clear about the purpose of Silbury Hill?

JL - We haven’t. The received wisdom that we had when we went into the tunnel in 2007 was that the hill was constructed as a single construct, if you like it was a piece of architecture.

So all of our ideas, our understandings of the hill were .. we had this idea that it was there was a blueprint and it was a single construction constructed to that blueprint.

ED - Built as a monument like Stonehenge or somewhere so what’s your thinking on it now?

JL - Well what was the most remarkable thing about us going into the tunnel was we discovered that it wasn’t a single construction it was actually made up of lots and lots of little tiny phases which is completely different to what I’ve ever been taught and what we believed before.

So it seems as though the hill developed organically - it sort of grew. The strangest thing is that it hasn’t hasn’t always been a hill – I mean the first phases of it were actually a bank and ditch enclosure much like a henge monument

ED - So your feeling is now that it was more about the building rather than the conventional view of it – the ‘process’

JL - Exactly, exactly that’s what it seems to be. The actual process seems to be more important than the construction. The people that started work at Silbury Hill could never have known that it would have ended up the size that it is today and so you know that really is is a change from what we previously believed.

ED - Are people going to be able to visit it – to get inside it at some point?

JL - No the tunnel has been completely filled in now and in fact they are not even allowed onto the hill because it’s a triple SI due to the rare type of chalk grassland on it.

ED - Oh dear so but you can look at it from a distance

JL - You can look at it from a distance and you can also buy a copy of The Story of Silbury Hill and engage with the landscape and I would, I would urge every, every one of your many millions of listeners to go out and buy a copy.’

Hi Fachtna,
During your time at Silbury did you have time to form opinions of your own on the construction and possible meaning of the hill and whether it was pre-planned or not? I'd love to hear your views.