Stonehenge on 'most threatened' world wonders list

Britain's failure to deal with road traffic around the prehistoric stone circle is condemned as 'a national disgrace'

The traffic-choked roads still roaring past Stonehenge in Wiltshire have earned the world's most famous prehistoric monument a place on a list of the world's most threatened sites.

The government's decision to abandon, on cost grounds, a plan to bury roads around Stonehenge in a tunnel underground and the consequent collapse of the plans for a new visitor centre, have put the site on the Threatened Wonders list of Wanderlust magazine, along with the 4x4-scarred Wadi Rum in Jordan, and the tourist-eroded paths and steps of the great Inca site at Machu Picchu in Peru.

Lyn Hughes, editor in chief of Wanderlust, said the A303 and A344 junctions near Stonehenge meant the site was "brutally divorced from its context". She said: "Seeing it without its surrounding landscape is to experience only a fraction of this historical wonder. The fact that the government and various planning bodies cannot agree on implementing a radical solution to this problem is a national disgrace."

The first great earth banks and ditches of the monument date back 5,000 years, and it was then repeatedly remodelled, with the addition of the circle of sarsen stones the size of doubledecker buses, and smaller bluestones brought from west Wales, and said to have healing powers.

Hughes was echoing the words 21 years ago of the parliamentary public accounts committee, which in 1989 damned the presentation of the site and the facilities for tourists as "a national disgrace".

Since then millions have been spent on alternative road plans and architectural designs for the visitor centre, on exhibitions, consultations and public inquiries, without a sod of earth being turned.

Argument about how to care for the site raged throughout the 20th century: the circle itself is in the guardianship of English Heritage, while the National Trust owns thousands of acres of surrounding countryside, studded with hundreds more henges, barrows and other prehistoric monuments.

At the moment the best hope is that a much simpler and cheaper visitor centre can still be created, two kilometres from the site, in time for London's hosting of the 2012 Olympics.

Exploring the feasting habits of Stonehenge builders

The team who worked on the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2009 are to return to their findings to explain the eating habits of the people who built and worshipped at the stone circle over four thousand years ago. Once again led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson from the University of Sheffield, the new 'Feeding Stonehenge' project will analyse a range of materials including cattle bones and plant residue.
At the time of the Winter Solstice experts believe people would have brought livestock with them to Stonehenge for a solstice feast. Initial research suggests the animals were brought considerable distances to the ceremonial site at this time of year. "One of the unforeseen outcomes (of the Stonehenge Riverside Project) is the vast quantity of new material - flint tools, animal bones, pottery, plant remains, survey data, and chemical samples - which now needs analysing," explained Professor Parker Pearson. "We are going to know so much about the lives of the people who built Stonehenge - how they lived, what they ate, where they came from."
A large collection of cattle jaws collected during the last few years' excavations will now undergo strontium and sulphur isotope analysis to establish where they originally came from and when they were culled. This will give experts a better idea of where people had travelled from to visit the site. The research will also offer a better understanding of the dressing of the famous sarsen stones of Stonehenge and insights into how the public and private spaces at Durrington Walls and Stonehenge differ from each other. Researchers will also try and ascertain whether Britain's Copper Age started 50 years earlier than first thought. Circumstantial evidence points to copper tools being in use at Durrington Walls earlier than originally thought. Cut-marks on animal bones should reveal whether they were made by copper daggers as opposed to flint tools.
"I've always thought when we admire monuments like Stonehenge, not enough attention has been given to who made the sandwiches and the cups of tea for the builders," said Parker Pearson. "The logistics of the operation were extraordinary. Not just food for hundreds of people but antler picks, hide ropes, all the infrastructure needed to supply the materials and supplies needed. Where did they get all this food from? This is what we hope to discover."
'Feeding Stonehenge', will take place over the next three years. Find out more about the Stonehenge Riverside Project at: www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/Stonehenge

Artefacts to go on display at Stonehenge visitor centre

THE new Stonehenge visitor centre will show off artefacts from Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum’s collection to a wider audience English Heritage is collaborating with the museum and Wiltshire Heritage Museum to present and interpret the story of the World Heritage Site in a dedicated exhibition space in the centre, at Airman’s Corner.

In returning for loaning items from their collections, the museums will get help from English Heritage with their own displays and with enhancing their archives.

Loraine Knowles, Stonehenge project director at English Heritage, said: “The exhibition will be part of an overall experience that will draw on all the senses and lead people to a greater understanding, not just of Stonehenge, but of the people who built it.”

Salisbury museum director Adrian Green said: “We look forward to supporting the development of the visitor centre, and also redisplaying our own nationally important collections from the World Heritage Site to complement the new exhibition at Stonehenge.”

David Dawson, director of the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, said “Together we can present the full story of Stonehenge and encourage visitors to explore Wiltshire.”