|
Introduction
The great henge complexes of southern Britain have long been recognised as ceremonial sites for large-scale feasting by gatherings of people who probably came from far and wide. Yet we have little indication of the catchment or hinterland of Stonehenge and its close neighbours Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, or of the other 3rd millennium BC Wessex henge complexes where feasting debris is prolific. Were these henges the foci of competing polities within the Wessex chalklands or were they destinations for celebration at specific moments in a calendrical round? Nor do we know much about the rearing and movement of livestock slaughtered at these sites, or the details of the henge builders’ provisioning and consumption. The 2003-2007 excavations at Durrington Walls, by the Stonehenge Riverside Project, have uncovered an unexpectedly well-preserved and artefact-rich Neolithic settlement with surviving house floors and their debris, yard compounds with middens identifiable to particular houses, and distinct zoning between public and private spaces. These present a unique opportunity for a detailed economic study of the Stonehenge people at nested scales from household to henge community. |
Project Objectives
The principal objectives of the project are as follows: |
| • To establish the catchment areas of Stonehenge and other major ceremonial sites through the analysis of strontium and sulphur isotopes within cattle molars. |
| • To establish seasonality patterns of animal culling at Stonehenge and Durrington walls through the study of animal bone assemblage and the analysis of oxygen isotopes within cattle molars. |
| • To reveal the spatial articulation of activities across the Durrington Walls settlement through the analysis of micro- and macro-artefact debris and geochemical residue patterns |
| • To find out where the Durrington Walls pots were made and what they contained through petrography and lipid analysis. |
| • To investigate the organisation of labour and stoneworking techniques involved in quarrying, transporting and dressing the Stonehenge sarsen stones. |
| • To investigate the potential use of copper tools at Durrington Walls through the analysis of cut marks on animal bones. |
| • To investigate the changing role of flintworking during the mid 3rd-2nd Millennium BC (i.e. Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transition). |
Project Members
The Principal Investigator for the Feeding Stonehenge Project is Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield and the Co-Investigators are Umberto Albarella of the University of Sheffield, Oliver Craig of the University of York and Jane Evans of the British Geological Survey. The project’s Research Associates are Benjamin Chan, Sarah Viner and Mandy Jay of the University of Sheffield and Lisa Shillito of the University of York. The project is funded by the AHRC and is due to run from 2010-2013. |
