AVEBURY SUM

The Avery Henge Monument is an ancient ring of standing stones in Wiltshire, England. It was built 5,000 years ago and is the largest stone circle in Britain. The construction of Avery was a remarkable engineering feat, with the largest stone weighing over 100 tonnes. Much of the monument was destroyed during the Middle Ages, but it is believed to have had a significant impact on the lives and thoughts of those involved in its construction. The purpose and use of Avery are still debated by archaeologists. The experience of visiting Avery would have been powerful, invoking emotions of awe, fear, and belonging. The monument was likely a place of esoteric and spiritual significance. Avery was made up of three stone circles, surrounded by an earthwork bank and ditch. It also had two avenues that extended towards other nearby monuments. The stones were chosen with specific associations and placed within the monument to create a reverential space for the ancestors. The experience of visiting Today, I'm going to discuss an extraordinary ring of ancient standing stones, known as the Avery Henge Monument. A visitor's first impression would be of its sheer size. Each stone comfortably dwarfs the human body, and Avery is the biggest stone circle in Britain. Avery was built nearly 5,000 years ago in the Chalkland Valley in Wiltshire, at a time when a once densely forested landscape gave way to cultivated grasslands and pasture. Neolithic societies had by this stage established an agrarian lifestyle, and freed from the urgency of survival, now had time to reflect on their place and purpose in the world. Avery Monument was a remarkable feat of engineering. It would be even today, with the largest stone weighing in at over 100 tonnes. Many attempts have been made to estimate just how many man-hours it would have required, and the figures vary, but since construction spanned nearly 600 years, cycling through numerous successive generations of Neolithic people, perhaps we should just say it is incalculable. For all those involved, their lives and thoughts will have been shaped inextricably by this huge endeavour. As with any big topic, there are many routes this podcast could take. I could address the site or the context, the construction or the stones themselves, all of which have been the focus of many studies over the years. But in this podcast, I will focus mainly on the esoteric and experiential aspects of this sacred landscape, encompassing Avery and similar monuments nestled nearby, like West Kennet Long Barrow, the Sanctuary, Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill. I will start by saying that, inevitably, there is more that we do not know about Avery than we do. Much of it was destroyed during the Middle Ages, at a time when the stones were deemed by Christians to be the work of the devil, harbouring dangerous spirits, and only a small fraction of what survived this onslaught has been excavated – around 6% or so. Our understanding of Avery and its connection to the neighbouring monuments derives largely from the drawings and observations of 17th century antiquarian William Stuckley. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, archaeologists are still debating every aspect of its construction and use. What took place during centuries of building and even beyond? There are no clear answers, in prehistory there seldom are, yet by looking at different components of experience at Avery, hopefully we can get closer to understanding some of these mysteries. I should start now at the beginning. What is the monument? Let's first paint a broad picture so we can visualise it. Avery sits at the heart of the valley. It was made from not one, but three stone circles, the biggest using roughly 100,000 sandstones, each set 11 metres apart. There are two smaller but still massive circles contained within, comprised of even bigger stones. At the centre stood some of the least understood yet most intriguing stone features, notably the cove, comprising three enormous stones formed in the shape of a shelter, and the obelisk. Around the outside, encircling everything, is an earthwork bank and ditch, establishing a 420 metre perimeter. Sprouting from its four entrances are two avenues, Kennet and Beckhampton, extending at least two and a half kilometres out towards other monuments. Originally these were lined with smaller pairs of standing stones that helped to frame and guide ritual processions. These avenues, which are now sited within the open grassland, are thought to have followed former ancient pathways which held symbolic significance from a time when the landscape was densely forested, still today preserving their memory. Now that we have some concept of the monument's features, I want to move on and consider the experience it engendered, both for the Neolithic and the modern visitor. For it is here that the power of Avery resides, even now. Firstly, let's think about what gives value and substance to experience. It is enacted through the body, certainly the physical act of seeing and walking through the monument would have played a role, but there would also have been a significant emotional response of awe, of fear, trepidation perhaps, or more importantly of belonging and maybe even exclusion. Stories and ideas woven around the stones and passed down through time will have influenced successive generations, shaping their thoughts and then later their recollections. More than anything, it is the esoteric that was the likely force behind Avery's potency, with deeply held beliefs and meanings binding certain communities together, or conversely, for those uninitiated newcomers and strangers like us, it might remain the mysterious or perhaps even a frightening force. Let's focus now on the very beginning of Avery's experience, the monument's conception and construction. The process of building will inevitably have been hugely significant, for those involved possibly even more so than having the monument itself. Everything would have been difficult to do, breaking the ground for the ditch, evidently this was done using deer antlers, moving the sarsen stones, shaping the sockets and hauling the stones upright, it all must have been a communal effort, enlisting thousands of people over hundreds of years, it was surely all a spectacle. Alongside this, everyone, including women and children, would have made contributions through basket making, feeding the workforce, chalk carrying, timber and rope preparation and perhaps with a continual need to persuade more and more helpers to stay the course by giving powerful speeches. Through successive generations, Neolithic communities will have forged important relationships with the Avery ring and then also with its particular stones. Avery would have been filled with sounds and at times teamed with ritual and ceremonial activity. So how was Avery constructed? David sarsens were first identified and then moved to Avery from neighbouring areas. Placed on wooden sledges atop rollers, they were then pushed along the ground, which would have been a considerable effort. Many early civilisations have imbued stones with specific personal meanings from past encounters or believed that stones held the spirits of their ancestors. There are many ethnographic parallels for this ancestor worship and stone animism, for instance in Melanesian populations where the stones were thought to enclose spirits and were therefore given names, full lives and even personalities. In Avery s case, the stones were taken from the landscape, along with their myriad associations, and placed within a condensed world. This same process has been reimagined as a gathering together or a nurturing of beloved, perhaps recently deceased members of the community. In essence, the monument was not made for the ancestors, but of them. Many of Avery s stones were chosen having been recognisable landmarks, others for their distinctive surface markings from a history of sharpening and polishing axe heads, and yet more for simply displaying pleasing colours or shapes, or maybe even fossilisations that ran through them and resembled roots and bones. The stones were not chosen at random, they were determinedly singular, reflecting the personalities of their resident ancestors. Avery s principal intention, rather than catering to the living, was comforting these ancestors that it embodied, so it would have been a reverential place, recreating a landscape in which the remembered dead could reside, echoing the undulations of its surrounding chalked downlands and riverbeds, could establish a sense of familiarity, of calm and of permanence, possibly this reduced any feeling of disturbance that the ancestors may have felt when the stones were relocated. Avery notably lacks animal bone and pottery fragments, suggesting a sanctity was preserved within the monument itself. It is only at Kennet Hill that archaeological material in the form of thousands of animal bones and pottery shards are found, suggesting that this may have been where the feasting and living activities were concentrated. But if Avery was primarily intended as an ancestral home, it is clear that it was also created with a sense of drama in mind for when ancient visitors came across it, as we will now explore. Let's start with the physical experience of visiting Avery. From any one vantage, walking around the perimeter of Avery, a large part of the monument is obscured, so much so that it can be difficult to distinguish what is monument and what is landscape. The ridges of the downland so closely follow the profile of the bank. It seems that the Avery rings and avenues were designed to curate procession through the space, using restricted pathways and sightlines. It is at Kennet Avenue for example, a well-trodden path, which starts well before entering the monument, that the optical tricks begin. The avenue first gives the impression that it would deliver visitors to another monument, but then unexpectedly it changes course and leads back instead towards Avery. The limestones also increase in height as you move along them, in line with the rising of the landscape, and this forms a kind of visual game that induces a sense of impending urgency. Visitors can't actually see into the monument until they are nearly through the entrance, which heightens their curiosity about what mysteries might lie ahead. Even within the monument, views are equally curated and restricted. Only the inner circle finally provides extensive views, revealing the impression of Avery's circularity and centrality, and granting clear sight of both Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill. It may also have been designed to enhance the sensory experience. The embankment could have established a sound shadow isolating the calm interior from its chaotic surroundings, creating a sense of spiritual immersion. Different areas of the monument may have been associated with particular rituals, some spaces designed to be more spiritually intense than others. For example, the cove is structured in such a way that it focuses sound, thus drumming or singing could reverberate and echo through the interior whilst only muffled, partial noises penetrated into the spaces beyond. But was this esoteric experience, which even modern visitors can get a glimpse of, its main role in Neolithic communities? Probably not. This may have been intended only for the most important and sacred members of community, or perhaps entrance was only encouraged during certain rare ritual events. But all a community was surely made richer by its presence, both within and around the stones, tethering the monument to its makers and its makers to the monument. So, here is my take-home message. Avery is a monument that we can't hope to understand. It has a long and complex life history. Over thousands of years, it has championed process before completion, imbued with the spiritual and material significance of shifting civilisations across time. Most visitors today are unlikely to fully grasp the power that the ring once held. Whilst prehistoric visitors built lifetime relationships, and perhaps similar to Madagascan examples of ancestor worship, they may have entreated the ancestral stones to provide blessings or protection before important community ceremonies. Today's visitors can only reimagine the experience. They can project their own cultural and world views, or they can engage with its physical presence as a sculptural or architectural piece. But perhaps we should look at Avery in a slightly different light today. Its evolution was organic, both physically and conceptually. Its form now has survived the pillage and reformation of successive societies far removed from the original, yet each bring new interpretation to the fabric, and all within a landscape of other revolving monuments and events. Perhaps it was never meant to be finished, or indeed understood. It may be more meaningful for us to experience Avery as a monument of perpetual becoming rather than a completed thing now diminished. In that way, we can maintain the mystery and the possibilities that seem to surround it.