Sacred Mound, Holy Rings : Silbury Hill and the West Kennet palisade enclosures: a Later Neolithic complex in north Wiltshire / A. W. R. Whittle, J. Best.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whittle, A. W. R., author.

Best, J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Neolithic period.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 176 pages)

Other Title:

Sacred Mound, Holy Rings

Place of Publication:

Oxbow Books 1997

Oxford, England : Oxbow, 1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The excavations at Silbury Hill in the late 1960s were broadcast to the world on television and generated a huge amount of excitement, but until now have not been published. This report gives a full account of the excavation and discusses the archaeological and environmental evidence from the tunnel, the ditch section and the cuttings on the top of the mound, as well as the radiocarbon dates. Neolithic enclosures at nearby West Kennet have been the subject of research excavations since 1987, carried out by Cardiff university. One is a nearly circular double enclosure that straddles the present Kennet, the other is a larger elliptical enclosure. The character of the palisades, their construction, the finds and the radiocarbon dates are fully reported. Very importantly there is an extensive discussion of the interpretation of Silbury Hill and the enclosures and of their relation to each other and to the other features of the Neolithic landscape: the Sanctuary, the West Kennet Avenue and Avebury itself.

Contents:

Foreword v

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xi

Archive xii

Radiocarbon dates xii

Summary 1

Part One: The Silbury Hill monumental mound 5

Location and setting 5

The present state of the site 7

History of previous investigations 8

Excavations in 1968-70: aims and progress 11

The tunnel 13

The top and upper part of the mound 20

The ditch 22

The nature and sequence of construction and the date of the mound 24

Soils 26

Pollen 29

Macroscopic plant remains 32

The insects 36

Mollusca 47

Vertebrates and small vertebrates 47

Plates 51

Part Two: The West Kennet palisade enclosures 53

Location and setting 53

The sequence of discovery and the aims of research 54

Palisade enclosure 1 57

The palisade ditches 57

Interior features 70

Palisade enclosure 2 76

The palisade ditch 76

Radial ditches 82

Interior features 83

Other ditches 86

A natural channel and valley history 86

Finds 90

Flint 90

Stone 93

Pottery 93

Animal bone 117

The wood charcoal 129

Charred plant remains 134

Part Three: A Later Neolithic complex in north Wiltshire 139

Dating and sequence 139

Environments and the settlement context 140

Silbury Hill: interpretations and comparisons 142

The West Kennet palisade enclosures: interpretations and comparisons 151

The social and the sacred: settlement and monumentality in the Avebury area and beyond 164

Appendix: The Marlborough Mound 169

Bibliography

171.

Notes:

CC BY-NC-ND

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781789256475

178925647X