"I have been arguing with the undemocratic union of archaeos who seem to think that they are the public voice and knowing what is good for the public is all that matters re Silbury. Talk about white Silbury's, views in and out, etc., are used as the public being preoccupied as Causebon (Elliot - Middlemarch) and that the issues are for others to decide."

What an infuriating and terrible state of affairs you paint.

Of course, people can only pretend to superior knowledge and superior judgement if they do so in private since otherwise there's a risk that the inferiorati will ask the devastating question - "On what do you base that assertion?" So, they do it in private.

OK, VBB and I certainly respect and share your concerns. If I can (without misleading the entire archaeological establishment) have a further word or two on china clay spoil heaps:

I know that they are of a purer white than Wiltshire chalk and I know that they are not truncated like SH, but the serious point I want to make is that they shine and change with the weather. I have no fixed opinion about how long SH remained white and it seems to me that it was pretty rapidly turved over, but if it was ever white - then it too would have shone in the sunlight, glowed blue in the moonlight and breathed like a living creature as clouds cast their changing shadows across it - and at sunrise and sunset WOW.

That is what china clay spoil heaps do and that is why I said that an impression of a white SH could be observed by looking at them. They stay whiter than white for ages and so it all really comes down to whether SH was deliberately grassed up or not - or even scoured. The labour of scouring would be nothing compared to the labour of construction

That publication arguing Silbury as a spoil heap is by Dick Parry, a civil engineer 'Engineering the ancient world, Sutton of Stroud, £20.

According to the Western Daily Press his evidence is its proximity to Avebury !

Evidently he has never looked at the actual construction.

VBB