Tisbury Stone Circle and Henge
Tisbury Stone Circle and Henge was a stone circle and henge in Tisbury, Wiltshire. Archaeologists believe that it was likely erected during the Bronze Age.
Tisbury Stone Circle and Henge was part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread through much of Great Britain, Ireland, and Brittany between 3,300 and 900 BCE, during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The stone circle tradition was accompanied by the construction of timber circles and earthen henges, reflecting a growing emphasis on circular monuments. The purpose of such rings is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circle's builders.
Nothing of the monument remains.
Location
The site was 12 miles west/south-west of Stonehenge,[1] and was positioned just north of the River Nadder.[1] From the available descriptions, the Tisbury monuments appears to have combined a stone circle with a henge.[1] The placement of an inhumation burial near the centre stone has also been found at other monuments in the British Isles, such as at the Longstone Rath henge in County Kildare, Ireland.[1]
Nothing remains of the Tisbury Stone Circle in situ though a small decorative stone circle at Wardour Castle grotto incorporates three of the standing stones.[1][2]
Context
While the transition from the
These stone circles typically show very little evidence of human visitation during the period immediately following their creation.[7] This suggests that they were not sites used for rituals that left archaeologically visible evidence, but may have been deliberately left as "silent and empty monuments".[8] The archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson suggests that in Neolithic Britain, stone was associated with the dead, and wood with the living.[9] Other archaeologists have suggested that the stone might not represent ancestors, but rather other supernatural entities, such as deities.[8]
In the area of modern Wiltshire, various stone circles were erected, the best known of which are Avebury and Stonehenge. All of the other examples are ruined, and in some cases have been destroyed.[1] As noted by the archaeologist Aubrey Burl, these examples have left behind "only frustrating descriptions and vague positions".[1] Most of the known Wiltshire examples were erected on low-lying positions in the landscape.[1]
References
Footnotes
- ^ a b c d e f g h Burl 2000, p. 310.
- ISBN 0-9509596-0-X.
- ^ a b Hutton 2013, p. 81.
- ^ Hutton 2013, pp. 91–94.
- ^ a b Hutton 2013, p. 94.
- ^ Burl 2000, p. 13.
- ^ Hutton 2013, p. 97.
- ^ a b Hutton 2013, p. 98.
- ^ Hutton 2013, pp. 97–98.
Bibliography
- Burl, Aubrey (2000). The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08347-7.
- Gillings, Mark; Pollard, Joshua; Wheatley, David; Peterson, Rick (2008). Landscape of the Megaliths: Excavation and Fieldwork on the Avebury Monuments, 1997–2003. Oxford: Oxbow. ISBN 978-1-84217-313-8.
- Hutton, Ronald (2013). Pagan Britain. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-19771-6.
- Pollard, Joshua; Reynolds, Andrew (2002). Avebury: The Biography of a Landscape. Stroud: Tempus.
Further reading
- Hoare, The Ancient History of South Wiltshire 1812, p. 251
- Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 51 (1946), p. 423
- Wiltshire Victoria County History I, 1957, p. 114
- Old Wardour Castle, HMSO, 1968