Seahenge, Norfolk: The ancient Bronze Age circle that lay hidden for 4,000 years

[Judi Lynn]

4. From 01-07-21: RISE OF THE MEGA-HENGES

January 7, 2021

Unpicking the evolution of Mount Pleasant’s monuments



Unlike southern England’s other ‘mega-henges’, which have all undergone recent archaeological
investigation, Mount Pleasant was only excavated in 1970-1971. This photograph shows one of the
monument’s more enigmatic elements, Site IV, under excavation in 1971. CREDIT: Peter Sandiford

It was long thought that huge and complex monuments like Mount Pleasant in Dorset had developed over many centuries – but new dating evidence suggests that the diverse elements of this site came together much faster than previously imagined, with intriguing implications for our understanding of these late Neolithic enclosures. Carly Hilts reports.

Close to the Dorset town of Dorchester, the rivers Frome and South Winterborne form a V-shape whose arms embrace a diverse scatter of Neolithic monuments. From the early Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Maiden Castle and middle Neolithic sites like the Alington Avenue long barrow and the 100m-wide early henge known as Flagstones, to late Neolithic constructions like the Maumbury Rings henge monument and Greyhound Yard’s 380m-wide palisaded enclosure, these sites form a rich and wide-ranging ceremonial landscape spanning hundreds of years. The largest and most complex feature of this enigmatic environment, though, is Mount Pleasant.

This impressive array is made up of multiple monumental elements, but the site is dominated by a huge henge enclosure – a circuit of bank and inner ditch – which forms a rough oval measuring c.370m east–west and c.320m north–south. The scale of this construction has led to Mount Pleasant being dubbed a ‘mega-henge’, one of a select group of broadly contemporary monuments in southern England whose other members are Knowlton, also in Dorset, and a Wiltshire trio represented by Avebury, Durrington Walls (see CA 5 and CA 334), and Marden (CA 17 and CA 316). These four enclosures have all seen extensive recent investigations, but the only major excavation at Mount Pleasant was Geoff Wainwright’s campaign in the 1970s (CA 23), whose findings have long shaped interpretations of the site.

Wainwright’s work documented not only the henge itself, but the fact that the monument had also once comprised a tall wooden palisade, a huge round mound, and a mysterious structure formed from concentric arrangements of timber and stone (all of which we will explore in greater detail below). Until recently, it was thought that these disparate elements had evolved over a long period of time stretching from the Neolithic into the Bronze Age – but now a new study headed by Susan Greaney at Cardiff University and recently published in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society has proposed a new timeline that dramatically compresses their construction into the space of little more than a century.

More:
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/rise-of-the-mega-henges.htm