’largest’ prehistoric stone monument

The remains of a major new prehistoric stone monument have been discovered less than 3 kilometres from Stonehenge. Using cutting-edge, multi-sensor technologies, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project - involving University of Birmingham archaeologists - has revealed evidence for a large stone monument hidden beneath the bank of the later Durrington Walls 'super-henge'. The findings were announced on the first day of the British Science Festival, hosted this year at the University of Bradford. Durrington Walls is one of the largest known henge monuments, measuring 500 metres in diameter and thought to have been built around 4,500 years ago. Measuring more than 1.5 kilometres in circumference, it is surrounded by a ditch up to 17.6 metres wide and an outer bank around 40 metres wide that survives up to a height of 1 metre. The henge surrounds several smaller enclosures and timber circles and is associated with a recently excavated later Neolithic settlement. The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project team, using non-invasive geophysical prospection and remote sensing technologies, has now discovered evidence for a row of up to 90 standing stones, some of which may have originally measured up to 4.5 metres in height.