Silbury Hill
Posted on 11/27/2001 8:30:21 PM PST by blam
Archaeologists date tool discarded 4,500 years ago
Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent
Thursday November 22, 2001
The Guardian
A scrap of antler has proved that Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe, was completed around 4,500 years ago.
The first scientific evidence for the date of one of the most puzzling of our ancient monuments is one of two antlers found at the summit of the 128ft hill. It was discovered as archaeologists agonised over how to fill a gaping hole which had threatened the collapse of the Wiltshire monument.
The fragments are the broken tips of the picks with which the monument was built, that were thrown into the top of the hill as the last gaps between the blocks of cut chalk were filled with rubble.
While the first phase of building at Silbury may be centuries older, the dating of the antler proves the structure was complete almost 1,000 years before the last arrangement of the boulders at Stonehenge.
The dating, by the Oxford University radiocarbon unit, yields a late Neolithic date of about 2490-2340BC, with 95% certainty of accuracy.(We have a tree ring event date at 2354BC)
Earlier attempts to date Silbury Hill were based on educated guesses of 2800-2000BC: its form is so unusual there is almost nothing to compare it with. "An archaeologist shouldn't say this, but it is the result we were hoping for," said Amanda Chadbury, English Heritage's ancient monuments inspector for the area.
Although the Roman coins and the scraps of medieval horse harness also found in the excavation looked more intriguing, it was the antlers which caused most excitement. They were the first organic finds from a previously undisturbed part of the mound.
Amateurs have been burrowing into the mound over centuries, the main cause of the huge shaft that opened up last winter.
The monument remains as enigmatic as ever. Its construction was estimated to have taken more than 3m working hours. Despite a legend concerning a king buried on his horse - the target of generations of treasure hunters - no evidence was found of that.
The question is still whether the monument was built before, after, or as part of the same project as nearby Avebury - where nothing giving such a reliable date has been found.
The hole in the mound has been closed with blocks of polystyrene and a layer of chalk, and a seismic study, due within weeks, will show if Silbury is still unstable and in danger.
Ok, I'll bite. How old was it?
Lying roughly between Avebury and the West Kennet long barrow is a massive manmade, conical mound, believed to be some four and a half thousand years old. This 'hill' has a base circumference of 1630ft (494m), and reaches a height of some130ft (41m).
Silbury Hill covers an area of five acres and was built as a series of six terraces. Constructed primarily of chalk, each terrace was covered with a layer of loose flint, chalk and gravel to form the current cone shape. The uppermost terrace was left to form the distinct 'cap' at the top which is still clearly visible on the eastern side of the hill.
Many theories have been put forward in an effort to understand the original purpose of Silbury Hill, and numerous legends surround it. However, one explanation that seems plausible is that it provided a means of following solar activity, as shadows were cast from it's summit. There is plenty of evidence of ancient Ley lines that link key sites in this area, and Silbury is also at the centre of alignments for straight prehistoric tracks, re-surfaced by the Romans. About a thousand years ago, it is known that Saxons occupied the top of the hill.
Despite several attempts to excavate the site over the last two hundred years, no concrete evidence has yet been discovered to help solve the mystery of why the mound was first built. One thing is certain from the excavations made, and that is that nothing is buried at the centre.
Although factual knowledge of these incredible Neolithic constructions is limited, and their true purpose may never be known, they certainly have a magnetic appeal to modern civilisations. Visitors come from far and wide to stare in wonder, and almost disbelief, that so primitive a people could have achieved such a feat all those thousands of years ago. And even more staggering - why?
Did they take it out to dinner and movie or just drinks?
Silbury Hill
I dunno, but it sounds suspiciously clintonoid to me. Ask Monica.
Silbury Hill
Hot car, smooth music, great food, good wine, and thee.
--- Every kid thats played 'king of the hill' knows why.
Silbury Hill, part of the complex of Neolithic monuments around Avebury in Wiltshire (which includes the West Kennet long barrow), is the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe and one of the world's largest.
On a base covering over 2 hectares (5 acres), it rises 39.6m (130ft) high. It is a display of immense technical skill and prolonged control over labour and resources.
Archaeologists calculate that Silbury Hill was built about 4600 years ago and that it took 18 million man-hours to dump and shape 248,000 cubic metres (8.75 million cu ft) of earth on top of a natural hill. Every man, woman and child in Britain today could together build such a mound if they each contributed one bucketful of earth.
The base of the monument is 167m (550ft) in diameter and it is perfectly round. Its summit is flat-topped and 30m (100ft) wide. We know that the construction took two phases: soon after work was started, a re-design was ordered, and the mound enlarged.
It is constructed in steps, each step being filled in with packed chalk, and then smoothed off. There have been three excavations of the mound: the first when a team of Cornish miners led by the Duke of Northumberland sunk a shaft from top to bottom in 1776, another in 1849 when a tunnel was dug from the edge into the centre, and a third in 1968-70 when professor Richard Atkinson had another tunnel cut into the base.
Nothing has ever been found on Silbury Hill: at its core there is only clay, flints, turf, moss, topsoil, gravel, freshwater shells, mistletoe, oak, hazel, sarsen stones, ox bones, and antler tines.
Moses B.Cotworth, at the beginning of this century, stated that Silbury was a giant sundial to determine seasons and the true length of the year. More recently, the writer Michael Dames has identified Silbury Hill as the winter goddess but he finally acknowledges that the monument remains a stupendous enigma.
According to legend, this is the last resting place of King Sil, sitting on a fabled golden horse. Another legend states that the mound holds a lifesize solid gold statue of King Sil and yet a third, that the Devil was carrying an apron of soil to drop on the citizens of Marlborough, but he was stopped by the priests of nearby Avebury.
The West Kennet Long Barrow is situated on a ridge one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury in Wiltshire. The photograph at left, taken from a point on the Ridge Way near the Sanctuary, shows the placement of the barrow within the surrounding landscape and the low ridge upon which it sits.
The site was recorded by John Aubrey in the 17th century and by William Stukeley in the 18th century. Aubrey describes it as "On the Brow of the hill, south from the west Kynnet" (i.e. the River Kennet, see Silbury Hill for some comments on this stream), and adds that it is "without any name."
Stukeley observes that "It stands east and west, pointing to the dragon's head on Overton-hill." The barrow is marked on Stukeley's drawing of the 'great stone serpent' of Avebury in which one can also see Overton Hill (also called The Sanctuary by Stukeley).
The barrow was dug into in in 1859, and properly excavated in 1955-56. It originally consisted of a trapezoid mound 330 feet long formed of a core of sarsen boulders and a capping of chalk rubble from two flanking quarry ditches.
At the eastern end of the mound is an elaborate megalithic structure of five chambers opening off an axial passage. The entrance passage is fronted by a semi-circular forecourt with a flanking facade of massive sarsen uprights aligned along a north-south axis.
The photograph at left shows the interior with the chambers located off the axial gallery. A minimum of 46 individuals of all ages and both sexes, together with many pottery sherds, flint implements, beads and other objects, were discovered in the course of excavation.
The burials evidently took place over a considerable period of time. It appears that a number of the bones, mainly skulls and thigh bones, were abstracted from the tomb at different times, possibly for ritual purposes.
At some point the chambers and passage were filled with chalk rubble and the semi-circular forecourt blocked with a filling of sarsen boulders. At this time, it seems, a 'false entrance' of twin uprights was erected, and three massive blocking stones placed in line across the entrance to the forecourt. This final blocking and closure of the tomb appears to have occurred around 1600 B.C.E.
West Kennet Long Barrow
West Kennet Long Barrow
West Kennet Long Barrow (Chamber)
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