Archaeologists Reveal Origins of Famous Stone Age Monument
The origins of Arthur’s Stone, one of the UK’s most famous Stone Age monuments, were discovered by archaeologists from the Universities of Manchester and Cardiff.
According to Manchester’s Professor Julian Thomas, who led the excavation, the ominous Herefordshire tomb links to nearby “halls of the dead” discovered in 2013.
This construction inspired the ‘stone table’ in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and, for the first time, it has been properly excavated.
Located on an isolated hilltop outside of the village of Dorstone, facing the Black Mountains in South Wales, Arthur’s Stone dates back to the Neolithic period in 3700BC.
Archaeologists consistently assumed that its large capstone elevated on a collection of supporting stones and lower chamber with a right-angled passage stood within a wedge-shaped stone cairn, comparable to those discovered in the Cotswolds and South Wales. However, Professor Thomas and Cardiff’s Prof Keith Ray demonstrated that the monument initially extended into a field immediately south of the tomb.
The English Heritage cares for Arthur’s Stone which is a scheduled monument. Outside the area of guardianship in an area south of the burial chamber, the excavations took place.
They discovered that the tomb had initially been a long mound composed of piled turf, retained by a palisade of upright posts embedded in a slim palisade bordering the pile. However, when the posts deteriorated away, and the mound had broken down, an avenue of bigger posts was included, leading towards the pile from the Golden Valley below.
Thomas states that Arthur’s Stone’s origins had been unclear until now, despite being an iconic Megalithic monument of international importance. He also muses about how being able to shine a light on this tremendous 5700-year-old tomb is exciting and helps to relay the story of our origins.
The first pile, recognizable in the palisade slot and the parch-marks noticeable from the air surrounding the stone chambers – points towards the nearby hilltop of Dorstone Hill.
However, the later avenue of posts, along with the two stone chambers and an upright stone located promptly in front of them, straighten on the far horizon in the space between Skirrid and Garway Hill to the southeast.
Professor Thomas adds that the diverse orientations of the two-phase of construction are substantial since their excavations on Dorstone Hill in 2011-19 showed three long mounds similar in construction to what is now known to represent the first phase of Arthur’s Stone.
“Each of these three turf piles had been established on the footprint of a big timber building that had been intentionally burnt down. So Arthur’s Stone has been recognized as being strongly related to these neighboring “halls of the dead,” which reached the headlines in 2013.
“Certainly, the block of upland in between the Golden Valley and the Wye Valley is currently coming to be revealed as holding an integrated Neolithic ceremonial landscape.”
The excavations at Arthur’s Stone make up part of the “Beneath Hay Bluff Project,” which has been examining early prehistoric southwest Herefordshire ever since 2010, under the directorship of Keith Ray and Julian Thomas, with associate directors Nick Overton (University of Manchester) and Tim Hoverd (Herefordshire Council).
Originally published on Phys.org. Read the original article.
