Stonehenge Researchers 'Find Major New Prehistoric Monument'

Archeologists believe they have found the remains of the largest prehistoric monument in Britain.

The discovery is less than three kilometres from Stonehenge, and is hidden beneath the bank of the later Durrington Walls 'super-henge'.

Using non-invasive geophysical prospection and remote sensing technologies, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project team uncovered evidence for a row of up to 100 standing stones – some of which may have originally measured up to 4.5 metres in height. Many of the stones are said to have survived as they were pushed over, while the bank of the later henge was raised to incorporate the stones into it.

The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project is a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro). It is led by Professor Wolfgang Neubauer and Professor Vincent Gaffney, University of Bradford.

Professor Gaffney commented: "This discovery of a major new stone monument, which has been preserved to a remarkable extent, has significant implications for our understanding of Stonehenge and its landscape setting.

"Not only does this new evidence demonstrate a completely unexpected phase of monumental architecture at one of the greatest ceremonial sites in prehistoric Europe, the new stone row could well be contemporary with the famous Stonehenge sarsen circle or even earlier."

"The extraordinary scale, detail and novelty of the evidence produced by the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, which the new discoveries at Durrington Walls exemplify, is changing fundamentally our understanding of Stonehenge and the world around it. Everything written previously about the Stonehenge landscape and the ancient monuments within it will need to be re-written," added Paul Garwood, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Birmingham, and principal prehistorian on the project.

The findings have been announced today, 7 September, on the first day of the British Science Festival which is being hosted at the University of Bradford.

(JP)