Archaeologists excitedly described the pits as the largest prehistoric structure ever found in Britain, but some colleagues dismissed them as natural features.
Scientific tests have shown that the gaping pits were made by humans almost 4,500 years ago.
The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area, because Durrington Walls, one of Britain's largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north- east of the famous stone circle.
Prof Gaffney, who was the leader of the team that made the discovery, said that science proved that the monument was a huge neolithic monument. He said that the debate about the discovery seemed crazy to him.
The pits were referred to as "blobs on the ground" by an archaeologist who doubted that they were linked to Stonehenge. Archaeologists who had previously looked at some of the pits had suggested they were natural hollows, and that they could be trusted to recognize one when they encounter one, according to another argument.
Gaffney recalled one archaeologist suggesting his team should have had a geologist on site to look for natural features. He said they had two.
The latest fieldwork involved scientific analysis of nine of the pits, and Gaffney said that part of the circle has not survived due to modern development. We have now looked at nearly half of them and they are all the same. This really says that this is an enormous structure. It may have evolved from a natural feature. It is the largest prehistoric structure found in Britain.
Science supports the theory that the neolithic people who built the monument also dug the pits.
The ring is 20 times larger than the one at Stonehenge. It adds to the evidence that early inhabitants of Britain had developed a way to count quickly. It gives a new perspective on the complexity of the structures. The boundary of pits may have had significance because of the position of Stonehenge.
Traditional archaeology could never detect ancient features in the landscape that are now investigated by specialists in remote sensing technology. They can see where the ground has been disturbed.
The last time that a piece of wood was exposed to daylight was when the OSL was stimulated.
The pits date to around 2400BC, according to the tests conducted by Dr Tim Kinnaird, of the school of earth and environmental sciences at the University of St Andrews.
He spoke of the exciting findings, including the consistency across the cores, the identification of multiple and distinct fills, and the suggestion that the pits were infilled at a similar time. Analytical work in the laboratory confirmed that these were not natural features.
It has been confirmed that the pits are very similar. If they were natural features, they would be different sizes.
There is a real revolution in dating technology happening with OSL. You know when the sediments were. Traditional dating requires us to find a bit of bone or charcoal and then we date that. The soil is not dated. OSL does that.
He said that the pits were left to silt after the bronze age. These things are being maintained beyond the monumental phases of the monument.
Channel 5 will be airing a documentary on the discovery on December 9.
