ards 1990: 24). East of Stonehenge
Bottom, on the King Barrow Ridge and around Durrington Walls, numerous
pits containing later Neolithic pottery and other artefacts have been
recorded, and these may include formal deposits of symbolic importance.
Early Bronze Age
There is clearly some overlap between formally 'Neolithic' and 'Early
Bronze Age' assemblages in the Stonehenge area. Later Neolithic Grooved
Ware was still seemingly in use at some sites when burials with Beaker
pottery were being deposited, and the sparse material assemblage which
is associated with the early sarsen settings at Stonehenge is of Beaker
affinity. This implies a continuing pattern of spatial variability within
the region, with different artefacts being used in different practices
at different sites. In the period after 2500 BC, single grave burials
began to be deposited in round barrows which started to form a number
of clusters or cemteries, some of them aligned upon earlier monuments.
Over time, locations around the edges of the visual envelope of Stonehenge
itself came to be favoured (Woodward and Woodward 1996: 287), and there
is a suggestion that the land immediately surrounding the monument was
deliberately avoided (Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina 1998). Many of these
round barrow graves had very rich material associations, and they include
many of the Wessex series graves, as defined by Piggott (1938).
Middle and Late Bronze Age
The eclipse of the monumental landscapes of the Neolithic took the form
of a reorganisation of land into 'Celtic' field systems, settlement enclosures
and boundary earthworks. A number of these have been identified in the
western part of the Stonehenge area, surrounding the western end of the
Great Cursus, around Winterbourne Stoke Crossroads, and on Rox Hill (Richards
1990: 277). These are associated with Deverel-Rimbury and later ceramics,
and there are indications of small round barrows which form the funerary
element of this reconstructed landscape.
Although artefactual evidence of the occupation of the Stonehenge area
is scant, there are continued indications of settlement in the form of
the hillfort of Vespasian's Camp, to the east of Stonehenge, and a later
Iron Age enclosed settlement immediately north of Durrington Walls (Richards
The prehistoric occupation of the Stonehenge landscape has left a palimpsest
of material traces. Throughout most of this period the region was in some
senses 'special', characterised by forms of activity which were unusual,
or internally differentiated, or which made use of elaborate material
assemblages. For this reason, it is to be anticipated that the evidence
which will be located in any archaeological intervention anywhere in this
landscape will be of particular value, and its destruction should not
be contemplated without good reason.
A brief history of the ownership and management of Stonehenge
From at least 1562 onward, Stonehenge began to be visited by tourists,
and was mentioned more and more frequently in diaries, journals and travelogues.
The site was surveyed by Inigo Jones in 1655, William Stukeley in 1723,
John Wood in 1760 and Flinders Petrie in 1877 (Bender 1998: 110-12; Chippindale
1983). Increasingly, the site became an object of intellectual attention.
But alongside this, it remained a part of a living landscape. Up until
the 17th century stones occasionally went missing to help build bridges
or houses; also in the 17th century Stonehenge was the location of an
annual fair. Nonetheless, it was eventually the status of the site as
a curiosity which became of greater importance. In 1824 the Amesbury estate,
including Stonehenge, was bought by the Antrobus family, and at this time
the draw that it exercised on the public was recognised for the first
time by the appointment of the antiquary Henry Browne as guardian of the
site. This situation, of minimal supervision under the Antrobus family,
continued until 1901. In the 1890s Pitt Rivers, as inspector of Monuments
and under the 1882 Ancient Monuments Act made plans to reconstruct the
site and protect it by havin