What is Avebury famous for?
What is Avebury famous for?
Avebury (/ˈeɪvbəri/) is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world.
Are Avebury and Stonehenge connected?
Stonehenge and Avebury were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage Site List in 1986. The Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites World Heritage Site was one of the UK’s very first World Heritage Sites.
How did the Avebury stones get there?
These inner stones stand up to 4.8m high. The southern circle of 29 stones included a 6.4m high central stone known in recent times as the `Obelisk’. These stones all come from the sarsen `fields’ within 3km of the site, mostly on the Downs to the east.
When was Avebury made?
2850 BC
The Avebury complex is one of the principal ceremonial sites of Neolithic Britain that we can visit today. It was built and altered over many centuries from about 2850 BC until about 2200 BC and is one of the largest, and undoubtedly the most complex, of Britain’s surviving Neolithic henge monuments.
Where is Avebury in the UK?
The village is about 5.5 miles (9 km) west of Marlborough and 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Devizes. Much of the village is encircled by the prehistoric monument complex also known as Avebury. The parish also includes the small villages of Avebury Trusloe and Beckhampton, and the hamlet of West Kennett.
What is the Avebury henge?
Avebury Henge or Avebury Stone Circle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The village of Avebury is in the middle of the stone circles. From the right, stones 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. South-west quadrant. Stones 8, 7, 6 and 5, from left to right.
Was Avebury the centre of the world for Neolithic Britain?
In his study of those examples found at Orkney, Colin Richards suggested that the stone and wooden circles built in Neolithic Britain might have represented the centre of the world, or axis mundi, for those who constructed them, something Aaron Watson adopted as a possibility in his discussion of Avebury.
Where was the first settlement in Avebury?
The earliest occupied site in the area is on Windmill Hill in the north-west of the parish, where a causewayed enclosure with three concentric ditches was built c.3700 BC on an earlier field system. Two avenues of standing stones radiate from Avebury henge.
