OXI 2EP4 City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Queen's Road, Bristol B S 8 I R L M3 THE PREHISTORIC SOCIETY to the excavation of further surviving parts of the complex: site i, a long D-shaped enclosure incorporated in the southern end of the cursus, and sites 2, 3 and 4.Both sets of sites are presented together, largely following the chronological scheme proposed for the complex by Bradley and Chambers (1988). Site VIII and site 1 are long enclosures of Earlier Neolithic date, with human remains. The latter site has a calibrated date of 3773-3378 BC. Site III is a cursus at least 1600 m long which cuts site VIII and incorporates site 1. A date of 3 3 60-3 040 BC was obtained from the primary fill of its ditch. Site XI is a three-phase ring ditch, perhaps successive enlargements of a barrow, but its innermost ditch is cut by a pit circle with cremations. There are Ebbsfleet sherds in the outermost ditch, and dates of 3037-2788 and 3024-2908 BC from the innermost, perhaps primary, ditch. Site XIV is a ring ditch succeeded by the Big Rings henge. Site 3 is a post circle between the ditches of the southern part of the cursus, with some secondary cremations. It has dates from the outer wood of its posts of 2890-2499, 2886-2491 and 2872-2470 BC; dates on charcoal associated with secondary cremations we're 2880-2470, 2870-2460 and 2123-1740 BC. Site 2 is a penannular ring ditch with a primary date of 2912-2705 BC, and secondary cremations. Site XII is a notable Beaker burial within a two-phase ring ditch. An adult man was laid crouched on a bier and was accompanied by a fine W/MR beaker, a stone bracer, a tanged copper knife and a small riveted knife with at least one rivet of tin bronze. Traces of a stretcher-like feature were found in an adjacent pit which cuts the inner ring ditch. Site XIII, the Big Rings, is a large double ditched enclosure with central bank and opposed entrances. There was Beaker pottery in the primary fill of the inner ditch, but very little material was found in either ditch, and there were minimal features in the interior, part of which was stripped. Site 4 consists of two conjoined ring ditches within the southern end of the cursus. It encloses cremation burials. One, accompanied by an awl and Collared Urn, has a date of 2290-1910 BC. Traces of a ditched field system (originally referred to as a droveway, site IX) of later Bronze Age date were found cutting sites III, VIII and XIII, and paired ditches on site 1 may be related.The complex is related to its local and regional context, and the sequence of development is discussed. A timescale measured in generations is advocated, with phases of continuity and episodes of little activity both represented. Several aspects of monuments are considered: their differing scales including the monumental, their ability to endure and create tradition, and finally the choice of designs, from the locally customary to the exotic. 157

It is a little surprising that in spite of the relatively high standard of excavation techniques current in Britain today so little attention has been paid by practical excavators to the processes of formation of the sites which they dig.All of us recognize, of course, that a site consists of a sequence of deposits, some formed deliberately and usually rapidly by man, and others more slowly by nature; and that some processes of formation, such as erosion and filling by the plough, are still continuing today. But there seems to be a widespread assumption (though it is difficult to be sure of this, since such things are seldom discussed) that once a constituent layer of a site has been formed, and sealed by another layer above it, it becomes immediately fossilized and remains unchanged until examined by the excavator, perhaps several millennia later. It is equally widely supposed that once an object, large or small, has come to rest in or upon a deposit it will remain in that position for all time. In short, the tacit assumption is that once formed the nexus of finds and deposits which constitutes a site is almost wholly static, and that change, if it occurs at all, occurs only at the surface.

The peat deposits of the Somerset Levels have yielded many prehistoric finds, including objects reported in Antiquity (Coles, 1968; Coles and Hibbert, 1971). Recent archaeological

The astronomical significance of Stone- henge has been the subject of intermittent debate and speculation ever since 1740, when Stukeley [I] first observed that the axis of the sarsen structure and of the Avenue pointed at least approximately to the sunrise at the summer solstice. Apart from Sir Norman Lockyer [z], however, few professional astronomers concerned themselves with this question, until the appearance in,Nature of the two articles by Gerald S. Hawkins, Professor of Astronomy at Boston University, in 1963 and 1964 [3]. The first of these claimed the discovery of a number of additional alignments of astronomical significance, marked by pairs of stones and other features of the site; and the second suggested that the Aubrey Holes had been used as a neolithic 'computer' for the prediction of movements of the moon and of eclipses. Subsequently these theories received much wider publicity, in Britain as well as in the United States, through a CBS television programme, The Mystery of Stonehenge, which provided a superb example of partiality and tendentiousness in the presentation of an academic controversy.Professor Hawkins has now elaborated his ideas in a book whose title, Stonehenge Decoded, leaves no doubt of his confidence in the rightness of his conclusions-a confidence explicity echoed in his text. 'There can be no doubt that Stonehenge was an observatory; the impartial mathematics of probability and the celestial sphere are on my side' (p. vii). 'I think I have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the monument was deliberately, accurately, skilfully oriented to the sun and the moon' (pp. 146-7). 'I think I have put forward the best theory to account for the otherwise unexplained holes' (p. 147). 'I think there is little else in these areas that can be discovered at Stonehenge'(p. 147).

The chambered long barrow known as Wayland's Smithy lies a little south of the crest of the Berkshire Downs, about a mile west of the Uffington White Horse, within an oval plantation of beech trees. The excavation here described was carried out during II weeks in 1962 and 1963 under the direction of Professor Stuart Piggott and the writer. The barrow has now been restored to its appearance in antiquity, so far as the surviving features allow.Before excavation, the site appeared as a long low mound, much flattened by cultivation and erosion, with a length of about 200ft. and a maximum height of about 4ft. above the surrounding surface. At the south end were the ruined remains of a cruciform burial-chamber constructed of large sarsen slabs, in front of which was a line of four large fallen stones, evidently parts of a massive fayade similar to that of the West Kennet long barrow. To the east, a row of four smaller sarsens, still upright, marked the line of the kerb of slabs which had once delimited the mound. A sketch made by John Aubrey in the mid-17th century shows that apart from the presence then of additional visible kerb-stones the appearance of the site has altered little in the last 300 years.