Exploring Durrington Walls Pit Ring

Part One:  Joining up the Dots

For pandemic reasons, the 2020 summer solstice sunrise gathering at Stonehenge was cancelled . The awesome sight of the rising sun over the Heel stone in line with the monument’s axis and the ‘avenue’ was replaced by an important discovery: A  huge ring of very deep and very wide pits had been discovered in the chalky subsoil around Durrington Walls, just two miles northeast of Stonehenge and a little north of Woodhenge.

The discovery of these pits is of great significance, and came in the form of a report of an on-going investigation report, the result of years of work by large team of archaeologists from many universities, and other specialists.

Due to the site’s proximity to Stonehenge – which is just under three miles to the southwest of Durrington Walls, the PR guys clearly thought it a good time to announce the launch at the summer solstice. The Guardian clearly thought so, coming on strong with this catchy title,

” Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge : prehistoric structure spanning 1.2 miles in diameter is masterpiece of engineering, say archaeologists.”

Continue reading “Exploring Durrington Walls Pit Ring”

Avebury: Review of the recent OS-style map

The new ‘White Edition’ map of Avebury (megalithicmaps.com, 2019) should capture both hearts and minds, suggests Robin Heath.

Designer and collator Thomas Melrose has done what has been needed for many years – produced a superb graphical map of Avebury where all the stones are listed, all the recent archaeological evidence derived from LIDAR and aerial photography is included and, where applicable, shown on the plan. For the tourist or visitor it now becomes the must-have source material to have tucked away in a rucksack or large pocket during a walk around the Avebury Henge site.

But this new presentational format goes far further than this necessary accessory. Its accuracy is without doubt the best yet available to researchers, be they academic archaeologists or enthusiastic amateurs.

Continue reading “Avebury: Review of the recent OS-style map”

Finding Atlantis

A fully illustrated presentation beginning at 3pm GMT on Sunday, October 27 2019, at Small World Theatre, Cardigan. Robin Heath will be discussing his latest research which answers some of the trickier questions that get asked about the abilities of early prehistoric cultures. Includes Q&A session. Poster gives main details, here’s some more to whet your appetite…

Into Earth Mysteries? Ancient Landscapes? Alignments? Ley-Lines? (what are they, then?) megalithic and other prehistoric and ancient monuments? Atlantis – where was (is) it to be found and what was Plato’s myth all about?
Here’s an afternoon of time travel…going back in time and looking seriously at human origins as the clocks also go back in time . Booking recommended.

A NEW LANDSCAPE TEMPLE AT AVEBURY

An earlier shortened version of this article can be found on The Henge Shop website

StoneAgeSurveys

presents

For the Spring Brexinox, 2019

A Newly Revealed Temple at Avebury

The Avebury henge site was very nearly lost to us. We owe its existence to Alexander Keiller, the ‘Marmalade Millionaire’ who, during the 1930s, poured his family inheritance into restoring the site. Before Keiller, there were only eight original stones left standing at Avebury.

Avebury henge in the snow. The Henge Shop is at the centre, the Church just to its left.

During the early eighteenth century, the inhabitants of Avebury village became engaged in the wholesale toppling of Avebury’s huge stones and their subsequent reduction to building stone. If that great antiquarian and chronicler William Stukely had not publicly intervened, all of Avebury’s stones would have been removed and the site totally destroyed. A single generation would have demolished Avebury.

During Avebury’s darkest days, Stukely wrote,

‘And this stupendous fabric, which for some thousands of years, had brav’d the continual assaults of weather, and by the nature of it, when left to itself, like the pyramids of Egypt, would have lasted as long as the globe, hath fallen a sacrifice to the wretched ignorance and avarice of a little village unluckily plac’d within it.’  Continue reading “A NEW LANDSCAPE TEMPLE AT AVEBURY”

The Henge Shop launch their new E-magazine!

A copy of the first edition front cover is now available [see graphic below and try the link over the next day or two].  Within the covers of this first (and FREE) edition, due on-line on The spring equinox, (March 21st), I was commissioned by its editor, Naz Ahsun, to write an illustrated article on my latest research findings.  For those who are interested and/or attended my talk and mini-tour at the henge shop and within Avebury during the summer solstice of 2018,  you may now find the details I promised then.. which is… The identification and description of a previously unrecognised integrated temple monumental structure based on research undertaken during the past several years.  


Unless one takes account of the astronomy, geometry and measurements of a complex megalithic site like Avebury, one will never understand the integrated nature of these magnificent sites nor how they ‘talk’ to their neighbouring sites. There will shortly be more to follow on this website concerning this new material about Avebury…

The Art of Designing Temples – Presentation at Small World Theatre

This is my fourth annual presentation at Small World Theatre, Cardigan. If this looks like your kind of thing, then you’d be most welcome. Based on past presentations, it would probably be better to book well in advance.

Continue reading “The Art of Designing Temples – Presentation at Small World Theatre”

A Gig at Castell Henllys – A Dark Age Mystery Solved

To all the attendees who have made this one of my favourite venues over the years, (well, it is held in an Iron Age fort after all!), I hope to see you there again this year for some more interaction and to share some of my recent work with you.   Robin.

Booking Essential – all enquiries phone Castell Henllys 01239 891319 or visit their website        [try websearching: Castell Henllys events].

This lecture presentation introduces a new theme into the prehistory and proto-history of South and West Wales. It combines my own recent work with that of earlier work, now much neglected, undertaken by the renowned Aberystwyth archaeologist Prof E G Bowen.

Continue reading “A Gig at Castell Henllys – A Dark Age Mystery Solved”

A Sideways Glance at the recent ‘Breakthrough at Stonehenge’ news story.

For almost a century an often heated debate has rumbled on, following Dr H H Thomas’ discovery suggesting that many of the bluestones found at Stonehenge had originated in the Preseli Hills of West Wales. Various geologists and even some archaeologists (e.g. Burl) have suggested that these stones were not fetched to Stonehenge at ‘vast expense of toil’, but instead were transported by glacial action. They would tell you that the jury is still out on the matter of how the bluestones arrived at Stonehenge.

Some years ago, the quarry at Craig Rhos y Felin became the focus of work led by professor Mike Parker Pearson. The claim was made that some stones from this quarry petrologically matched a number of stones at Stonehenge. This work was duly written up in Antiquity, Volume 89 Issue 348 – contributors listed were Mike Parker Pearson, Richard Bevins, Rob Ixer, Joshua Pollard, Colin Richards, Kate Welham, Ben Chan, Kevan Edinborough, Derek Hamilton, Richard Macphail, Duncan Schlee, Jean-Luc Schwenninger, Ellen Simmons and Martin Smith. Continue reading “A Sideways Glance at the recent ‘Breakthrough at Stonehenge’ news story.”

Stonehenge – Woodhenge (Part Three)

THE PRESELI CONNECTION

PART THREE of the STONEHENGE – WOODHENGE tryptych

INTRODUCTION

Part One and Two of this tryptych revealed an unexpected geometrical relationship between the location of Stonehenge and that of its sister henge monument, Woodhenge. Part Three now expands this new evidence. By comparing data from the megalithic landscape around Stonehenge/ Woodhenge with that from the megalithic landscape in and around the Preseli Hills of West Wales a new type of connection emerges, one that links the ‘bluestone’ culture of the Preseli Hills of West Wales with that of the Wessex culture, specifically the Stonehenge landscape shown above (but perhaps even Avebury and elsewhere). Continue reading “Stonehenge – Woodhenge (Part Three)”