Evergreen Dazed wrote:
I can't remember if snail or perhaps plant analysis has confirmed this was a possibility, but I do remember reading there were no signs of water staining or silting upon excavation.
Thoughts? Is all they can ever be. It does seem as though Avebury and Silbury were about water as much as anything else. With the Winterbourne flowing around the western edge of Avebury towards Silbury. Also we know there were several wells inside the circle e.g. on the site of the Red Lion - and that the water table was probably a lot higher back then. I can visualise water in the Avebury ditches but perhaps, like Silbury today, only at certain times of the year. Given the ditches and banks were chalk wouldn't it permeate through and rise elsewhere in the wells and river (almost like a reservoir). However, I can't shake the feeling that the ditch held water, intentionally, as a vital element of the complex. It feels right to me, which is obviously proof of nothing beyond my own tendency toward romance, but it is an enduring image.
The green against the gleaming chalk, wood, stone and the water surround, reflecting the sky, the people peering into it, the sun, the moon.
Any thoughts, feelings, ideas about this?