Avebury Transition

After Stonehenge, Avebury is probably the best known prehistoric site in Britain, and its fame extends far overseas.  Repeated media attention in recent years has placed it firmly on the tourist circuit and there are days when it is almost crowded.  Yet approached off season, and with patience, it can still be entered in solitude, or with a few friends.  The modern village of Avebury is partly built inside a great neolithic stone circle, which itself contains the remains of two lesser rings.

Archaeologists characterise Avebury as a henge monument.  Spatially it comprises an area approaching 30 acres enclosed by an immense ditch, itself surrounded by a giant bank, not much less than a mile in circumference.  It is estimated that the still impressive bank once stood perhaps 16 metres or more above the deepest section of the ditch, now partly infilled.  These structures were carved from the chalky landscape with a technology of stone tools and antler picks.  The social relationships of their construction are less clear, but it is widely assumed that a project of this scale assumes a high level of social organisation.  It may well also imply an organising social hierarchy of some sort.  As an international phenomenon, monumental stone building appears to emerge within a few centuries of agricultural settlement and Avebury fits this picture.  The neolithic revolution, with its introduction of cultivated plants and domesticated animals, is associated with the formation of permanent villages and development of such crafts as pottery and weaving.  Increased levels of food production (albeit typically with greatly reduced diversity of food sources) underpin these cultural shifts.  The social division of labour is intensified alongside the growth of an economic surplus. Potentially this provides a foundation for both supporting and empowering economic and/or religious elite groups.  The societies which constructed the monuments appear to be both far more hierarchical than the paleolithic social formations that preceded them and profoundly collectivist in organisation and outlook. It may be that much of the pathos of many such sites reflects a tension between neolithic socisl collectivism on the one hand and the embryonic divisions of class society on the other.  Much of this, however, is speculative as material evidence is sparse and often ambiguous.  Moreover, there seems no good reason for rejecting the possibility of more egalitarian forms of collectivism at least limiting the crystallisation of priestly, chiefly or kingly power in this transitional human phase.

Avebury circle is believed to have been built, extended and modified over perhaps two centuries beginning around 2600BC (some 500 years before Stonehenge was begun).  The surrounding landscape has even more ancient monumental significance.  Early use of Windmill Hill, a nearby site, is dated to about 3700BC, as is the first work on what was to become West Kennett long barrow (see image), just a short walk from the circle.

The stones, many estimated to weigh around 35-40 tons (one weighs in the region of one hundred tons), are part of a wider ritual landscape that contains other remarkable features.  Notable among these are Silbury Hill (see image) and the haunting long barrow at West Kennett.  For centuries the stones have been greatly diminished in number.  Originally, for the main outer circle, they numbered around a hundred.  Restoration work in the twentieth century created the currently visible monument of 27 stones.  Prior to this the circle was targeted by medieval christians as a pagan abomination, much as Mullah Omar’s Taliban holy warriors destroyed the giant Buddha statues of Bamyan.  More recently, as Avebury grew in size, and as society became more quantitative in its calculations, the stones were seen less as a spiritual menace than a convenient quarry for construction materials.  Particularly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some of them reincarnated in buildings still in use.

Rediscovered initially through the researches of antiquarians of the eighteenth century, Avebury has been subject to many interpretations.  Understanding of the site has undoubtedly grown with developments in both academic and less conventional research,  Yet much remains uncertain.  While Avebury was obviously of  enormous contemporary importance, the purpose of the project remains opaque.  There are no known astronomical or seasonal alignments (as there are at Stonehenge and various other contemporary sites).  Silbury Hill was long assumed to be a burial mound, but repeated excavations have discovered no trace of human bones or even chambers.  The preliterate tribes that built it left no records apart from the structures themselves, and it is to them that we must turn for such understanding as we might achieve.

The great circle is awesome, even with many gaps of missing stones.  It long seemed reasonable to assume that they were as gone as their builders.  Extraordinarily, the lost stones are coming back!  A geophysics survey conducted this year by the National Trust discovered 15 forgotten megaliths (great stones) buried within the embrace of the circle, and there may be more.  What is happening is the acceleration of a longer process.  Some of the familiar stones were recovered from their christian burial in the 1930′s.  Other stones, leading from the circle towards the Beckhampton long barrow, south west of the village, emerged from their long subterranean sleep in the course of archaeological work in the summer of 1999.  Now an entire arc of the circle is detected beneath the earth, preserved by the attempts of zealots half a millennium ago to finally undermine the stones.  On the face of it this all seems as probable as a full Beatles reunion, but the face of things is rarely clear in such a place.  While there are no current plans to re-erect the recent discoveries, the prospect of a renewal of something close to the original complete circle has become real.  The circle seems about to complete its own circle.

This happens precisely as Avebury peaks as a focal point for spiritual and cultural development.  The summer solstice has long been celebrated in the circle, with drum-based music and dancing, in the apparent spirit of the place.  Over the last two years, however, new features appeared that influence the character of the gathering.   The growing popularity of the Avebury solstice and the resulting emergence of problems around traffic and parking rights have caused a reaction among some residents.  With this comes a new sense of limitation, scarcity and the prospect of, in time, the spectacular vacuity of Woodstock.  Perhaps, as the circle re-emerges, the modern phase of development at Avebury is reaching a close and the significance of its established status as a national gathering point is changing.  Or perhaps this most recent manifestation of Avebury will contribute to a broader reappraisal of the relationship between traditionally recognised “special places” and the rest of life.  Throughout Britain, as elsewhere, there are many lesser known prehistoric sites of great beauty and potential.  Clophill, described elsewhere in this website, is one example among many.  I was not the only person at Avebury last midsummer who felt – and still feel – that the development of what has been achieved there over time could now best be furthered with a new attention to the local level.  It’s time for bringing it all back home, closer to daily life, making everywhere special, and finding ways to link those many specialnesses.

Shortly we will be posting more Avebury images, including photographs from previous solstice gatherings.  They will be shared as glimpses of what self-organised collective activity can bring about and to underline the importance of the conscious transformation of everyday life, with music at the centre.

David Binns