Stonehenge Riverside Project 2008 | Forum

copius-freakus2 Aug 19, 2008 11:15:30

Hi,

Has anybeen up to Stonehenge yet to have a look at this (2008) Stonehenge Riverside Project excavatios, which run from 18th August until the 12th September? I intend to visit either this Thursday weather permitting or this Bankholiday possibly Sunday!

cheers

copius-freakus2 (Richard)

This year excavations will include the following:

"Between 18th August and 12th September 2008, a team of archaeologists from Sheffield, Manchester, Bournemouth, Bristol, Preston, Birmingham and elsewhere are digging around Stonehenge and on the Stonehenge Cursus to find out more about these sites and their link with Stonehenge.

At Stonehenge´s avenue, immediately north of Stonehenge, we will be excavating parts of this solstitial processional route to discover if it began as a short avenue which led only as far as the nearby streambed known as Stonehenge Bottom. We will also be digging next to the avenue to find out if Stonehenge´s stones were shaped here before being put up.

At Stonehenge we will be re-digging an Aubrey Hole (on 26th August-1st September) to recover and analyse prehistoric cremations put there by archaeologists in 1935.

At Stonehenge Down (west of Stonehenge) we will be excavating the remains of a large settlement (originally enclosed behind a wooden palisade) which we think may have been inhabited by the builders of the earliest Stonehenge around 3000 BC.

At the Stonehenge Cursus (Strangways, Larkhill) we will be excavating parts of its ditch and interior at its east end to find out why this mysterious 3km-long earthwork was built.

Come and see what we are doing
Visitors are welcome between 10am and 4pm every day between Mon 18th August and Friday 12th September. Stonehenge car park gets very busy at this time of year and you may be charged for parking there.

Open Days
There are special open days between 10am and 4pm on Sat 6th & Sun 7th September (Heritage Open Days). The open days start at Woodhenge car park. A shuttle bus will carry people to the Cursus excavations where there will be re-enactors and archaeologists, including Time Team´s Phil Harding. Come along and see how the people who built these monuments lived and worked.

How to get there
You can find Woodhenge on the west side of the A345, north of Amesbury and south of Durrington. Bus 5/6 links Durrington to Salisbury and Swindon train stations.

Please remember that you are within a World Heritage Site and that these remains are protected as Scheduled Ancient Monuments."
All info from: http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/stonehenge

Sounder Aug 19, 2008 12:27:28

Replying to copius-freakus2

Will be going to Stonehenge pre access visit and then on to Avebury Friday - was wandering when things were happening this year so cheers for the post!

Will check out the excavations and let you know whats happening.
C

UncleRob Sep 7, 2008 17:39:37

Replying to copius-freakus2

Jimit and I went up there today for the last of their open days. There has been a huge amount of work done in just 4 weeks (and one more to go). There seems to have been a few interesting finds, including (we are told - I haven't seen it) a chalk figurine of a pig, an infant burial (probably early iron age - they are waiting for the coroner to visit tomorrow morning before they expose the remains), an entire articulated sheep skeleton (possibly sacrificial) in a filled ditch. All those come from the Palisades site and nearby ditches. Over the road at the top of the Avenue is now a confirmed site where sarsens AND bluestones were chipped into shape prior to erection. And an astonishingly deep ditch at the long barrow at the east end of the Cursus - worth a visit to see that alone. But the consensus seemed to be that the "20 foot high fence" had been over-egged by the papers and may well be more of a windbreak at an exposed early Iron Age farmstead. Keep watching out for the official press release which can't be far away.

Avuncularly yours,
Roberto