Description

Summary: 1 antler pick, from Woodhenge, Durrington, Wiltshire, excavated in 1970.

Research results

Antler from Woodhenge, numbered DZSWS:1975.99.1-3, 18 and DZSWS:2004.256.361, was analysed by Historic England in 2019/20. In summary, the timber rings have been radiocarbon dated to c.2,600 BC and the henge bank and ditch to c. 2450 BC. The forthcoming book sets out the Woodhenge dates - 'Stonehenge: Sighting the Sun' due to be published on 8th May 2024. There is a technical paper with fuller details in draft. Amanda Chadburn and Clive Ruggles. In print in The Sunday Telegraph (14th April 2024) and online (13th April 2024): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/new-research-proves-woodhenge-is-just-as-old-as-stonehenge/. Woodhenge ‘just as old as Stonehenge’. The rings of wooden posts aligned with the solstice were erected around 2600 BC, some 300 years earlier than previously thought. New research has revealed that the ancient monuments Woodhenge and Stonehenge are contemporary with one another, not built hundreds of years apart as previously thought, and that Woodhenge was built in at least two phases. The Neolithic monument of Woodhenge had long been thought to have been constructed in a single phase around 2300 BC, a couple of hundred years after the sarsen stones were erected at nearby Stonehenge. However, radiocarbon dating of Woodhenge’s concentric ovals of standing posts, surrounded by a bank and ditch, has found that the solstice-aligned timber rings are earlier than assumed and the monument was constructed over a longer period than previously realised. It now seems the timber rings were erected in the decades around 2600 BC and the surrounding earthworks were made about 150 to 200 years later, circa 2450 BC. The timber rings are therefore broadly contemporary to Stonehenge, which was erected in the decades around 2500 BC, or slightly earlier. The research was co-headed by Amanda Chadburn, English Heritage’s former lead adviser at the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site.