Last time I talked to Vince Gaffney was at an SAA conference late at night hours before his flight when I gave him some Melatonin to try to fight the jet lag on his was back across the pond. Always an energetic bloke it is great to see him and his team continuing to push the boundaries of knowledge with their mad remote sensing skills.
For fun you can watch Ylvis sing Stonehenge!
Vince is part of the collective team completing a four year investigation by Birmingham, Bradford, St. Andrews and Nottingham in the UK and Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in Austria and the University of Ghent. into what lies beneath the greater Stonehenge’s landscape as far out as Durrington Walls. Their combined efforts have resulted in one of the most intense surveys of an 11.7 km^2 area ever conducted by archaeologists. The survey has resulted in the discovery of what is being called a "Super Henge" (I think we all might want to help them come up with a better name ;-) that is a 300x400 meter C-Shaped enclosure, as well as new burial mounds, chapels, and more 3km NE of Stonehenge (now to be called "Mini Henge"?).
The Independent reports (and uses "Spiritual" "Ritual" and "deep" all within a few words of each other!):
The c-shaped enclosure – more than 330 metres wide and over 400 metres long – faced directly towards the River Avon. The monument was later converted from a c-shaped to a roughly circular enclosure, now known as Durrington Walls – Britain's largest pre-historic henge, roughly 12 times the size of Stonehenge itself.
As a religious complex, it would almost certainly have had a deeply spiritual and ritual connection with the river. But precisely why is a complete mystery, although it is possible that that particular stretch of water was regarded as a deity.
I had to laugh when I was reading up on this at the Independent when this ad popped up over a picture of a tractor dragging a remote sensing rig. I think their AI knows their target audience!
You can read more here:
Archaeologists Have Made An Incredible Discovery At Stonehenge
Stonehenge had huge 'stone religious sibling' just two miles away