Several Mysterious Human-Made Pits Have Been Revealed Near Stonehenge

It has been studied for hundreds of years. We are still discovering new things about the famous site.

A hidden network of large pits surrounds the stone structure.

The study has helped archaeologists uncover hundreds of large pits, each over 2 meters wide. Human hands made some of these thousands of years ago.

Researchers think that the large pits may have been related to the long-term ceremonial structuring of Stonehenge.

The ancient pits were found near the car park of the old Stonehenge visitor center and are associated with totem poles, props for hunting aurochs, and lunar observation.

It was built 5,000 years ago.

Archeologist Nick Snashall, who works for the Avebury World Heritage site, says that the team has revealed some of the earliest evidence of human activity yet unearthed in the Stonehenge landscape.

The discovery of the largest known Early Mesolithic pit in northwest Europe shows that this was a special place for hunter-gatherer communities thousands of years before the first stones were erected.

The United Kingdom and northwest Europe have a lot of prehistoric pit deposits, but they are usually not larger than a meter. Oval pits greater than 2.4 meters wide are very rare, but they seem to be concentrated around the nearby Durrington Walls Henge.

There were 415 large pits in a 2.5 km 2 area. Six of the nine pits excavated were found to be human-made, two were natural occurrences and one was a recent agricultural deposit.

The abundance of these structures is a type of prehistoric activity not previously seen in northwest European.

The round pits are located on higher ground to the east and west of the site.

The pits are more than 3 meters wide and 1.85 meters deep.

There is a large pit dug into the bedrock. The University of Birmingham.

It is not a snapshot of one moment in time. The seven-thousand-year period between the oldest and most recent prehistoric pits is when we see the traces in our data.

From early hunter-gatherers to later Bronze Age inhabitants of farms and field systems, the archaeology we're detecting is the result of complex and ever-changing occupation of the landscape.

The ability for sensor technology to reveal potential archaeological sites is giving us an unprecedented view of prehistoric landscapes.

There is more to come.

The study was published in a journal.