Back in July we posted news about a new discovery at Stonehenge, a wooden ‘twin’ to the megalithic structure. A breaking story today about ‘Woodhenge’ (confusingly named, as there is already a Woodhenge near Stonehenge) quotes Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, as saying Woodhenge (#2) may in fact just be the remnants of an enclosure built in the last century, possibly to protect the ancient barrows within its perimeter. According to the story in the Daily Mail:
In the spot where Prof Gaffney had claimed to have uncovered his post holes, Mr Pitts said he and colleagues examined a Seventies Ordnance Survey map – and saw a fence marked out.
He thought it probably was an early 20th Century construction, erected by the then Government’s Office of Works or a local farmer to protect what was thought to have been the most important site in a cluster of burial mounds that were ancient but later than Stonehenge.
Mr Pitts said: ‘Vince Gaffney says his discovery encircles a burial mound within its circumference, but unless he has some unpublished material to substantiate his discovery, I am in no doubt that this was a modern fence line.
‘If I’m right then the post holes contained modern fencing stakes and they are actually in a hexagonal shape, not a circle.’
However, after a quick bit of digging (no pun intended) I found that Pitts has posted a clarification about the story on his blog, saying…
I did not, as the Mail on Sunday puts it, say “I am in no doubt that this was a modern fence line”. The truth is I really don’t know. Clearly Vince Gaffney thinks it prehistoric, and he, after all, has the full data on the site, which the rest of us don’t. If it turns out he is right, and that the post ring is set out in straight segments, then the interest of the survey is yet greater, as that in itself is a significant new discovery. If it is a not-so-old fence, most of what the geophys survey shows is likely still to be prehistoric, and is of great interest. This remains, as I wrote in June, “an important discovery whose significance will be fully realised only with excavation”.
For his part, Professor Gafney is holding firm to his Neolithic dating of Woodhenge, responding that the large size of the post holes (3ft across, and 3ft deep) were not typical of a fence, and that no contemporary metal objects (such as old nails) had been found during the excavation. As such, he said, “we would still suggest this is a ritual monument of the late Neolithic period.”
