Thousands of years before Stonehenge arose, hunters and gatherers were already active in the surrounding area, which must have had a fairly open character at the time. That’s what researchers say.

We all know Stonehenge; the monument from the Neolithic, or the Young Stone Age, still appeals to the imagination. No wonder there is also a lot of research being done on it. And that has also led to new insights in recent years, for example when it comes to the origin of the stones from which Stonehenge is built. And little by little we have gained a better picture of the period in which this monument was erected. However, much less is known about the period far before that, researchers say in the magazine PLoS ONE† “We know little about the scale of pre-Neolithic activity and about the extent to which the later monument complex filled up an otherwise ’empty’ landscape. There has been much debate about whether the monument arose in an uninhabited, wooded landscape or whether it was built in a partly open landscape that was already used by hunters and gatherers in the late Mesolithic (preceding the Neolithic, ed.) had been important.”

open forest

A new study may now help settle that debate somewhat. Research near Stonehenge shows that the area in the time of the hunters and gatherers can best be described as ‘open forest’, with trees at a considerable distance from each other, with grassland in between. In addition, researchers show that the area – long before Stonehenge was built – must have already exerted an attraction for hunters and gatherers.

Blick Mead

Scientists come to that conclusion after researching an area on the fringes of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, which is also referred to as Blick Mead. Archaeological finds indicate that hunters and gatherers lived here long before Stonehenge, researcher Sam Hudson points out. Scientias.nl† “The archaeological evidence – mainly in the form of a large and diverse collection of stones and bones, including carved bones – suggests that it was more than a camp where Mesolithic hunters and gatherers briefly resided. In fact, carbon dating indicates repeated human activity over a 4,000-year period, suggesting it was a persistent site in the pre-Neolithic landscape.”

special

It’s what makes Blick Mead special. “With the exception of Blick Mead, there isn’t much evidence that hunters and gatherers were active in the landscape where Stonehenge is now, but that may be because research in this area has mostly focused on Neolithic and Bronze Age activities. .” Still, tentative indications have been found that the area was also important to hunters and gatherers who lived thousands of years before the builders of Stonehenge, Hudson emphasizes. He cites, for example, the three former wells that today form part of the car park near Stonehenge and may be up to two times older than the megalithic monument. “It is suspected that these pits once contained tall wooden piles, another strong indication that the area also had some significance for hunter-gatherers.”

Approach

What the area looked like at the time of those hunters and gatherers was, as mentioned, for a long time unclear. But thanks to the work of Hudson and colleagues at Blick Mead, we now have a better idea of ​​this. The scientists analyzed pollen, spores, animal remains and DNA that was stored in soil layers from the Mesolithic. “That gives us a picture of the flora and fauna in and around Blick Mead,” says Hudson.

open forest

And together these old natural remains paint the picture of an open forest. “That was not very surprising,” says Hudson. “A number of previous studies had suggested that there must have been open forest where Stonehenge rose. At the same time, during that period (prior to the construction of Stonehenge, ed.) the conditions in most areas were much more favorable for dense forestation. It is therefore possible that a combination of thin, brown chalky soils, grazing ungulates and anthropogenic activity underlie the much more open conditions we see in Blick Mead.”

Such an open landscape, used and maintained by humans and large grazers for thousands of years, must have been a lot more attractive to the farmers who created Stonehenge much later. “Practically speaking, it’s easier to farm and build monuments in areas that are already relatively empty,” Hudson admits. “That is simply easier than if you first have to clear an area before you can grow crops, keep animals or perform ritual activities. So in that sense the area was already somewhat ready for the construction of a monument.” But whether that was also the reason why the later farmers and monument builders built Stonehenge here is doubtful. “There is no indication that practical considerations had anything to do with the construction of a monument like Stonehenge, for which stones were sometimes brought all the way from Wales. So at the moment we cannot say that the area in which Stonehenge rose was attractive to the Neolithic and Bronze Age people, because there were open spaces.” At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that the presence of hunters and gatherers in, for example, Blick Mead has nothing to do with the location of Stonehenge. “Areas like Blick Mead can be part of the puzzle, especially if the long history of hunters and gatherers who resided here was known to later populations.”