WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that a ring made up of 20 or more shafts has been found surrounding the site of the Neolithic settlement of Durrington Walls, which is located about two miles from Stonehenge. Arranged in a circle measuring more than one mile across, each shaft measures about 30 feet in diameter and about 15 feet deep with nearly vertical sides. “When these pits were first noted, it was thought they might be natural features,” said researcher Vincent Gaffney of the University of Bradford. “Only through geophysical surveys, could we join the dots and see there was a pattern on a massive scale.” The pits are thought to have been dug more than 4,500 years ago to mark a boundary around Durrington Walls. Analysis of sediments from the shafts suggests that they were cut and left open, and filled slowly over time, Gaffney added. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Internet Archaeology. For more on Durrington Walls, go to “Neolithic Henge Feasts,” one of ARCHAEOLOGY’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2019.
