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Devil's Trackway

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MJB M
MJB Sep 9, 2005 11:35:09
Replying to Rhiannon

It is a trackway - or tramway if you like. It was used to haul carts up to fetch chalk from the post-medieval chalk and flint quarrying on the hill-top. See 'The Avebury Landscape: Aspects of the field archaeology of the Marlborough Downs' (2005), edited by Graham Brown, David Field and Dave McOmish (Oxbow), especially pages 5 (site plan) and 6; plus of course 'The Creation of Monuments: Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures in the British Isles' (2001) by Al Oswald et al, published by English Heritage.

R Rhiannon
Rhiannon Sep 9, 2005 12:02:43
Replying to MJB

Oh thank you JMB, that's very interesting! I didn't realise in my ignorance that such quarrying had gone on up there. Which demonstrates the importance of considering what has gone on at a place over time and not letting the 'obvious' era (obvious to your own interests at least) cloud your understanding / interpretation. I guess the 'track' also clearly joins that road at the bottom ('workway drove') that looks so obvious when you're actually sat on Knap Hill, so that makes a lot of sense too now.

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