St Andrews scholar seeks secrets of Stonehenge's sister
A Fife lecturer is part of a European team that has found a Stonehenge "twin," a discovery described as the most exciting of a lifetime at the prehistoric site.
Stonehenge.
Archaeologists have found a major ceremonial monument less than a kilometre from the stone circle near Salisbury.
The circular ditch, which probably held a ring of timber posts, may have been used for feasting and is within sight of its world-famous neighbour.
Dr Richard Bates, a St Andrews University geophysicist, has conducted surveys and analysed data.
The new henge, which is hidden from view, was discovered just two weeks into a three-year international study.
Imaging techniques, including ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetics and resistivity imaging are being used to map 14 sq km of land around Stonehenge.
It is believed the late Neolitic monument was built around the same time as Stonehenge, 5000 years ago.
While Birmingham University, which is leading the British contingent in the project, says the discovery has already rewritten Stonehenge history, Dr Bates expects there will be lots more exciting finds before the project is complete.
He said, "We are trying to reconstruct what it was really like. The Stonehenge landscape was built over thousands of years. Its whole development came to its zenith at the building of Stonehenge as we know it.
"When we started looking at the images, it became apparent that what we thought was another burial mound was this henge structure.
WThe landscape has burial mounds all around it, Stonehenge itself sitting at the centre of this landscape that is dominated by other henges, as we are now finding out, and these burial mounds."
The project involves scientists and archaeologists from Bradford University, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria, and teams from Germany, Norway and Sweden.
Dr Bates said, "I'm quite sure we are going to find many, many more equally or more fascinating parts of the landscape. To understand the true significance (of the new henge) we need to find out more. We need to finish putting it into the context of the Stonehenge landscape."
Dr Bates, who lives in St Andrews, is the only Scottish representative in the consortium investigating Neolithic and Mesolithic archaeological sites in the UK.
English Heritage said the newly discovered monument is part of a growing body of evidence which shows how important the summer and winter solstices were to the ancient peoples who built Stonehenge.
Photo used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user Todd Baker << technowannabe.
11.40am - 08.10.2010 Jehnavi - Fl , USA Report This
Stonehenge and Avebury Henge became a World Heritage Site in 1986. Stonehenge itself is owned and managed by English Heritage and hills surrounding the ownership of the National Trust. <br />http://www.historicaltravelguide.com/
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