Feeding Stonehenge: provisioning henges and households in southern Britain in the 3rd millennium BC

This project is the third in a trilogy of multi-institutional research investigations aimed at revolutionizing our knowledge of Stonehenge: investigating the monumental landscape of Stonehenge (the Stonehenge Riverside Project), the people of Stonehenge (the Beaker People Project), and the economic provisioning for Stonehenge and associated sites (Feeding Stonehenge, this project).

This proposal is for a study of the material resources required for building Stonehenge and the other henge complexes of Wessex. It goes beyond already-completed surface analysis of finds and investigates inside them, using newly developed scientific analyses to find out about the animal, vegetable and mineral resources utilized by these prehistoric people - where the resources were found, how far they were brought, how they were prepared, and how they were consumed and discarded. All the proposed analyses have been trialled by pilot studies to ensure that they will deliver significant findings.

Stonehenge and its associated sites undoubtedly attracted builders and celebrants from many parts of Neolithic Britain. Until now, archaeologists have only been able to speculate on the size and nature of these sites' catchments and on whether centres such as Avebury and Stonehenge were in competition with each other or were visited at different times in the seasonal round. Isotopic and age analysis of the herds slaughtered for feasting at Durrington Walls and other henges will reveal patterns of rearing, mobility and seasonality to answer these questions. Preliminary investigations have produced unexpected results: they indicate that the animals were brought considerable distances to ceremonial centres.

While much work has been done on the Welsh bluestones brought to Stonehenge, relatively little attention has been paid to the large sarsens. Excavations at Stonehenge in 2008 have revealed that sarsen-working methods varied within and around the monument, allowing earlier excavation results to be re-assessed, to increase our understanding of the methods, process and techniques of stone-working. From largely forgotten antiquarian observations 300 years ago, some of the quarry sites may have been about 20 miles from Stonehenge, between Avebury and Marlborough.

Recent excavations of the Stonehenge people's houses at Durrington Walls will also provide new information: scientific study of the finds will reveal detailed insights into the people's way of life. Geochemical and geophysical analysis of the house floors and yard surfaces will reveal spatial patterns of occupation and activities within a village probably inhabited by the builders of Stonehenge. Combined with the spatial mapping of artefacts, plant remains and animal bones (both large and microscopic), these analyses can reveal how interior and exterior domestic spaces, as well as ceremonial spaces, were used within this short-lived but large settlement occupied for less than 50 years around 2500 BC.

Study of the Durrington Walls settlement's animal bones will indicate dietary preferences, methods of carcass dismemberment and consumption patterns, and reveal differences between small-scale domestic and large-scale ceremonial settings. This settlement was inhabited about 50 years before copper tools are thought to have been adopted in Britain, and there is tantalising evidence that copper axes may have been used at Durrington Walls; the study of cut-marks on animal bones should reveal whether any were made by copper daggers as opposed to flint tools. Study of the hundreds of flint arrowheads, some embedded in pig bones, will reveal patterns of use and breakage as well as variations in manufacture by stone-tool makers with varying knapping skills.

The large quantity of pottery from Durrington Walls can be analysed to find out where it was made and what was cooked in it. Preliminary studies suggest local manufacture from riverine clay; contents included dairy products, pork and beef.