LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND—Newsweek reports that an earthwork henge measuring nearly 250 feet across has been discovered in eastern England, on what was once a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water and marshes. Smaller henges have been found in the region, indicating that this one may have been a hub for ceremonial activity, according to Duncan Wright of Newcastle University and Hugh Willmott of the University of Sheffield. Based upon information in a medieval text, the researchers had been looking for a hermitage built by an Anglo-Saxon monk on a plundered burial mound when they found the earthwork. “In prehistoric times the henge would have formed a large circular enclosed space, with a huge bank and ditch running around the outside. It may have had one or more burial mounds built inside it during the Bronze Age,” Wright said. The excavation also uncovered pottery, two bone combs, fragments of a glass drinking vessel dated to the eighth century, and traces of an abbey hall and chapel later built on the site in the twelfth century. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Journal of Field Archaeology. To read about another henge monumen in England, go to “Stonehenge’s New Neighbor.”
