CONEYBURY HENGE


Description:  A henge, surviving as a cropmark and initially recorded as a ploughed-out disc barrow. The monument was subject to surface collection, geophysical survey and excavation in 1980 as part of the Stonehenge Environs Project. The whole site slopes gently to the south, and the interior of the enclosure appears to have been cut back into the hillside in order to create a level interior platform. Excavation confirmed that the enclosing ditch, with a single entrance to the north east, had been accompanied by an external bank. Various internal features were excavated, comprising a few pits and postholes, numerous stakeholes, and an arc of postholes concentric to the inner edge of the enclosure ditch which may have represented a post-circle. Some of the internal features probably pre-dated enclosure construction, and pottery from the site suggests that activity spanned the Early Neolithic through to the Middle Bronze Age. At the entrance, the one ditch terminal to be excavated contained a large, apparently cumulative deposit, including a substantial quantity of cattle bones and lithic material indicative of carcase preparation and cooking associated with Beaker pottery. Bones of a white-tailed sea eagle were found elsehwere in the ditch. An Early Neolithic pit containing a considerable quantity of deposited material was also found just outside the henge (see SU 14 SW 292).

Country:  ENGLAND

County:  WILTSHIRE

District:  SALISBURY

Parish:  AMESBURY

Grid Reference:   SU13424160

Map Reference:  [EPSG:27700] 413420, 141600

Period:  EARLY BRONZE AGE, EARLY MEDIEVAL, EARLY NEOLITHIC, LATE BRONZE AGE, LATE NEOLITHIC, MIDDLE BRONZE AGE, NEOLITHIC, ROMAN, 410 - 1066, 43 - 410

Subject:  SCRAPER (TOOL), STAKE HOLE, SUB SURFACE DEPOSIT, TIMBER CIRCLE, TRANSVERSE ARROWHEAD, VESSEL, ANIMAL REMAINS, AXEHEAD, BARBED AND TANGED ARROWHEAD, CROPMARK, DEBITAGE, DISC, EARTHWORK, FIND, FINDSPOT, HENGE, HUMAN REMAINS, KNIFE, PIN, PIT, POST HOLE

Identifiers: 
[ADS] Depositor Id: SU 14 SW 14
[ADS] Import RCN: NMR_NATINV-219462

People Involved: 
[Publisher] Historic England