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ONLINE LECTURE: The prehistoric chalkland landscape of Stonehenge, Avebury and Dorchester – tearing up the text books and starting again

NEW DATE – Thursday 11 February, 7.30 pm. To be presented online. All existing ticket holders have been contacted.

by Dr Mike Allen.

The comprehension that chalkland landscape of our best known monuments in Wessex (Stonehenge, Avebury, Dorchester and Cranborne Chase) was shown to mirror that of all others in NW Europe. In the 1960s and 70s John Evans proved that postglacial woodland showed these landscape as they did everywhere. Prehistoric communities then hew out clearing in which to settled allow their cattle to graze and build the monuments – monuments for the dead (long barrows C37th BC) and causewayed enclosures (C36 BC). These clearing were gradually expanded to enable grazing of domestic herds, and then agriculture – the later denuded the once thick (50cm-1m thick) soils the first prehistoric communities farmed, to the thin soils we have today and by the later Bronze Age creating the downlands we see today. And that narrative has been enshrined in our textbooks for 50 years and has defined our archaeological thinking and interpretation of monuments such as Avebury, Stonehenge, Maiden Castle, Mount Pleasant etc. But after 30 years of new research we can completely revise this, and open new doors onto the chalkland landscapes – and provide new ideas in interpreting these monumental and non monumental landscape we know (or thought we know) so well. The stage in which prehistoric communities acted their lives can now be redrawn, along with our interpretation of the monuments.

Thursday 11th February – 7.30pm. Pre-booking essential. Online lecture – the Zoom link has today (Thursday 11) been sent to ticket holders. If you have not received the link email hello@wiltshiremuseum.org.uk. Tickets purchased after noon and before 4pm (ticket sales close), will receive the link before the start of the lecture.

  • 11th February 2021
  • 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
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