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Durrington Walls

Durrington Walls

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Drove psat Durrington Walls on Wednesday, and there's what appears to be an excavation taking place in the SE quarter. Anyone any idea what the project is?
Much obliged,
TE.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/stonehenge. This might be something to do with it.

I've been down there all week. Some amazing finds coming out including loads of arrowheads and bucket loads of pig bones.
Time Team are running around filming a TV special. The Dig goes on for another 3 weeks.

Dig throws new light on Stonehenge mystery

by David Vallis

THREE weeks of excavations at Durrington Walls have been helping to throw new light on the mysteries of the Stonehenge World Heritage site.

The dig, which started on August 21 and is due to end today (September 15) has attracted interest from eminent archaeologists, who have been regularly visiting the site since the work got underway.

And last Saturday and Sunday members of the public got the chance to view the excavations and talk to members of the team carrying out the research project.

The visits were arranged as part of last week's Heritage Open Days and included demonstration of Neolithic craft, performed by a re-enactment group. Durrington Walls lies close to Woodhenge and is one of the key prehistoric monuments of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site.

It is a circular henge enclosure - the largest of its kind in Britain - and is surrounded by a bank and ditch that is even bigger than that at Avebury.

And it was built at the same time as the first stones were put up at Stonehenge.

The latest excavations have been taking place as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Research Project, with the aim of exploring the links between Durrington Walls, the River Avon and Stonehenge.

It is believed the once massive circular earthwork, which was about 500 metres (about a third of mile) in diameter, was erected for rituals and feasts - such as midsummer pig roasts.

And new excavations have revealed traces of a causeway or walkway, leading from Durrington Walls to the Avon, about 30-metres away.

This, say archaeologist suggests the dead were ritualistically carried from the earthworks to the river, where their remains were deposited.

Archaeologists and students from Salisbury and the universities of Bournemouth, Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol and London have been carrying out the excavations and some of the work has been filmed by Channel 4's Time Team for a programme to be shown next spring.
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/wiltshire/salisbury/news/SALIS_NEWS1.html

Camera 1 Exterior.
Focusing on the sun and pannning down to the top of a pair of huge timber uprights.
Camera pulls back to reveal a setting of massive wooden posts in a circular setting.
Tony Robinson steps out from behind the left timber and says;

"So the Neolithic people built these huge fabulous wooden structures inside Durrington Walls,
the largest Henge in the country and the nearest to Stonehenge."

CUT
Camera 2 Exterior at ground level looking up at the wooden circle from the center as TR continues to walk towards the camera.

"These same wooden buildings have been found at nearby Marden Henge and at the famous Avebury stone circles and Henge.
No one really knows the true function or meaning of these incredible places and we can only wonder what the real spiritual meaning of these structures meant in the heads of our neolithic ancestors."

Camera focuses onto TR's face as a small figure appears to rise out of the top of TR's head gradualy getting bigger.

(background voice) Mike Aston.

"A Fucking Cherry Picker!"

TR looks confused and steps to the left and falls into a newly dug but unused posthole revealing a TMA'er ontop a speeding Cherry Picker yelling "Up! UP Higer! Faster! Faster! Focus you sonnofa..." CUT

Camera 1
An out of control Cherry Picker is seen hurtling towards the structure as directors and producers run out from behind the camera yelling;

"Get away from here! Were Filimg here you Daft £&*%(^g B*£#$!*#d"

Cherry Picker does a dangerous about turn and heads off amid an air of obscenities.
Confusion ensues.

CUT

Camera3. Interior of a pub.
TR is sat at the bar gibbering

"A Cherry Picker!? A cherry Picker!"

(Almost a true story! Now would the TMA'er concerned like to own up to riding onto a TV set ontop said Cherry Picker with a digital camera in hand? and can we see some of the footage?)