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Stonehenge may have been used as a site where knowledge was communicated ritually, according to a new theory.

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Lynne Kelly, La Trobe University doctoral researcher and science writer, has been working on technologies oral cultures used to present and pass on scientific knowledge.

Kelly demonstrated the constant changes in the archaeology at Stonehenge are consistent with the mnemonic (conveying through chants and rituals) needs of the knowledge elite as they settle, while delivering the inaugural Marshall McLuhan Lecture in Chicago.

‘Instead of moving between sacred places to perform the cycle of ceremonies which encode all formal knowledge of their culture, Neolithic Britons replicated that landscape in the monuments they built over 1,500 years in transition from a mobile hunter-gathering to settled agriculture,’ says Kelly.

The Neolithic Britons who built Stonehenge, like other cultures starting to settle, lacked a written language with which to preserve their knowledge.

Kelly says the most reliable recording system they had were mnemonic methods, whereby knowledge ranging from animal behaviour to astronomy could be communicated.

To facilitate this, she argues that Stonehenge itself acted as a knowledge centre, a function that it had in common with many other sites around the world, says a university release.

Kelly’s research draws parallels with oral cultures such as Native American, African and Aboriginal Australian, and finds clues in the physical remains of Stonehenge

Nicholas – Tour Guide
Histouries UK – Stonehenge Tours

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A new research project that promises to significantly improve our understanding of Stonehenge is going ahead after receiving an £800,000 grant.

Dr Oliver Craig, from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, is part of the team behind Feeding Stonehenge, a follow-up to the earlier Stonehenge Riverside project which saw a wealth of material excavated from nearby Durrington Walls.

The latest stage of the research involves the analysis of that material, including pottery, stone tools and animal bones, to shed new light on the people who built and visited Stonehenge.

“Earlier investigations have made huge inroads into our understanding of what is one of the world’s most important prehistoric monuments but many questions remain unanswered”

Feeding Stonehenge is being supported by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Dr Craig said: “This research will allow us to gauge Stonehenge’s significance in the 3rd Millennium BC and the extent of its sphere of influence.

“Earlier investigations have made huge inroads into our understanding of what is one of the world’s most important prehistoric monuments but many questions remain unanswered.

“The next stage will focus on how the people who built Stonehenge lived, what they ate, when the monument was visited and where the visitors came from.”

Initial chemical analysis of cattle teeth found in the area suggests the animals were raised hundreds of miles away before being walked to Durrington Walls for slaughter and consumption.

One aim of Feeding Stonehenge that will be covered by the York team will be to try and understand what the pottery was used for by conducting chemical analysis of any organic residues present.

Pottery was used for domestic as well as ceremonial activities but it is not known what types of foods were prepared for these different activities.

The Feeding Stonehenge research is led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield working alongside Dr Craig, Dr Umberto Albarella, from the University of Sheffield and Dr Jane Evans, from the NERC British Geological Survey.

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Inevitably dubbed Stonehedge, the evidence from a new survey of the Stonehenge landscape suggests that 4,000 years ago the world’s most famous prehistoric monument was surrounded by two circular hedges, planted on low concentric

banks. The best guess of the archaeologists from English Heritage, who carried out the first detailed survey of the landscape of the monument since the Ordnance Survey maps of 1919, is that the hedges could have served as screens keeping even more secret from the crowd the ceremonies carried out by the elite allowed inside the stone circle.

Their findings are revealed tomorrow in British Archaeology magazine, whose editor, Mike Pitts, an archaeologist and expert on Stonehenge himself, said: “It is utterly surprising that this is the first survey for such a long time, but the results are fascinating. Stonehenge never fails to reveal more surprises.”

“The time these two concentric hedges around the monument were planted is a matter of speculation, but it may well have been during the Bronze Age. The reason for planting them is enigmatic.”

Pitts wonders if the hedges might have been to shelter the watchers from the power of the stones, as much as to ward off their impious gaze.

If the early Bronze Age date is correct, when the hedges were planted the Stonehenge monument already had the formation now familiar to millions of tourists, after centuries when the small bluestones from west Wales and the gigantic sarsens from the Stonehenge plain were continually rearranged.

The survey also found puzzling evidence that there may once have been a shallow mound among the stones, inside the circle. It was flattened long ago, but is shown in some 18th century watercolours though it was written off as artistic licence by artists trying to make the site look even more picturesque. The archaeologists wonder if the circle originally incorporated a mound which could have been a natural geological feature, or an even earlier monument.

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