AVE FINAL

The Avery Henge Monument is an ancient ring of standing stones in Britain, built 5,000 years ago. It is the largest stone circle in Britain and was a remarkable feat of engineering. Much of it was destroyed in the Middle Ages. The monument's construction and purpose are still debated by archaeologists. The experience of visiting Avery would have involved physical and emotional responses, with a sense of awe and belonging. The stones were chosen with specific meanings and associations, reflecting the personalities of ancestors. Avery was designed to create a sense of drama and intrigue for visitors, with curated pathways and restricted sightlines. The monument's purpose was to comfort and honor the ancestors. Today I am going to discuss an extraordinary ring of ancient standing stones known as the Avery Henge Monument. A visitor's first impression would be of its sheer size. Each stone comfortably dwarfs the human body and Avery is the biggest stone circle in Britain. Avery was built nearly 5,000 years ago in a chalkland valley in Wiltshire at a time when a once densely forested landscape gave way to cultivated grasslands and pasture. Neolithic societies had, by this stage, established an agrarian lifestyle and, freed from the urgency of survival, now had the time to reflect on their place and purpose in the world. Avery Monument was a remarkable feat of engineering. It would be even today, with the largest stone weighing in at over 100 tonnes. Many attempts have been made to estimate just how many man-hours it must have required to build, and the figures vary, but since construction spanned nearly 600 years, cycling through numerous successive generations of Neolithic people, perhaps we ought to just say the number is incalculable. For all those involved, their lives and thoughts will have been shaped inextricably by this huge endeavour. As with any big topic, there are many routes this podcast could take. I could address the site or the context, the construction or the stones themselves, all of which have received the focus of many studies over the years, but in this podcast I choose to focus mainly on the esoteric and experiential aspects of this sacred landscape, encompassing Avery and similar monuments nestled nearby, like West Kennet Long Barrow, The Sanctuary, Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill. I will start by saying that, inevitably, there is more that we do not know about Avery than we do know. Much of it was destroyed during the late Middle Ages, at a time when the stones were deemed by Christians to be the work of the devil. They were thought to harbour dangerous spirits, and only a small fraction of what survived this onslaught has actually been excavated, around 6% or so. Our understanding of Avery and its connection to the neighbouring monuments derives largely from drawings and observations of the 17th century antiquarian William Stuckley. Perhaps then it is unsurprising that archaeologists are still debating every aspect of its construction and use, what took place there during the centuries of building and beyond. There are no clear answers, in prehistory there seldom are, yet by looking at different components of experience at Avery, hopefully we can get closer to understanding some of these mysteries. I should start now at the beginning. What is the monument? I must first paint a broad picture so we can visualise it. Avery sits at the heart of the valley. It was made not from one, but three stone circles. The biggest used roughly 100 sarsen sandstones, each set 11 metres apart. There are then two smaller but still massive circles contained within, comprised of even bigger stones. At the centre stood some of the least understood yet most intriguing stone features, notably the cove made from three enormous stones formed together like a shelter, and then the obelisk. Around the outside, encircling everything, is an earthwork bank and ditch establishing a 420 metre perimeter. Sprouting from its four entrances are two avenues, Kennet and Beckhampton, extending at least two and a half kilometres out towards other monuments. Previously these were lined with smaller pairs of standing stones that helped to frame and guide ritual processions. These avenues, now sited within the open grassland, are thought to have followed former ancient pathways which would have had symbolic significance from a time when the landscape was densely forested, still today preserving their memory. Now that we have some conception of the monument's features, I want to move on and consider the experience it engendered, both for the Neolithic and the modern visitor. For it is here that the power of Avery resides, even now. Firstly, let's think about what gives value and substance to experience. It is enacted through the body, and certainly the physical act of seeing and walking through the monument would have played a crucial role, but there would also have been a significant emotional response of awe, fear, trepidation perhaps, or more importantly of belonging or maybe even exclusion. Stories and ideas woven around the stones and passed down through time will have influenced successive generations, shaping their thoughts and then later their recollections. More than anything, it is the esoteric that was the likely force behind Avery's potency, with deeply held beliefs and meanings binding certain communities together, or conversely, for those uninitiated newcomers and strangers like us, it might remain a mysterious or perhaps frightening force. Let's focus on the very beginning of Avery's experience, the monument's conception and construction. The process of building it will inevitably have been hugely significant, and for those involved possibly more so than having the monument itself. Everything would have been very difficult to do. Breaking the ground for the ditch, evidently this was done using deer antlers, moving the sarsen stones, shaping the sockets, and hauling the stones upright, it all must have been highly communal, enlisting thousands of people across hundreds of years. It was surely a spectacle. Alongside this, everyone, including women and children, will have made their contributions through basket making, feeding the workforce, chalk carrying, timber and rope preparation, and perhaps through continually persuading more and more helpers to stay the course by providing powerful speeches. Through successive generations, Neolithic communities will have forged important relationships with the Avery ring, but also with its particular stones and with one another. Avery will have been filled at times of sounds and perhaps even teemed with ritual and ceremonial activity. So how was Avery constructed? Favoured sarsens were first specifically selected and then moved to Avery from neighbouring areas. They were placed on wooden sledges atop rollers and then they were pushed along the ground, which would have been a considerable effort. Many early civilisations imbued stones with specific personal meanings from past encounters or believed that stones held spirits of their ancestors. There are many ethnographic parallels for such ancestor worship and stone animism. For instance, in Melanesian populations where the stones were believed to enclose spirits and were given names, full lives and even personalities. In Avery's case, the stones were taken from the landscape, along with their myriad associations and placed within a condensed world. This process has also been reimagined as a gathering together or nurturing of beloved, perhaps recently deceased members of the community. In essence, the monument was not made for the ancestors, but of them. Many of Avery's stones were chosen having previously been recognisable landmarks, others for their distinctive surface markings from a history of sharpening and polishing axe heads, and yet more for displaying pleasing colours or shapes or even fossilisations that ran through the stones resembling roots and bones. The stones were therefore not chosen at random, but were in fact determinedly singular, reflecting perhaps the personalities of their resident ancestors. Avery's principal intention, rather than catering to the living, was comforting the ancestors it embodied, so it would have been a reverential place. Recreating a landscape in which the remembered dead could reside, echoing the undulations of its surrounding chalk downlands and riverbeds, could establish a sense of familiarity, of calm and of permanence, possibly intended to reduce any feeling of disturbance for the ancestors from the stone's relocation. Avery notably lacks animal bone and pottery fragments, suggesting a sanctity was preserved within the monument itself. It is only at Kennet Hill that such archaeological material in the form of thousands of these animal bones and pottery shards is found, suggesting that this may instead have been where feasting and living activities were concentrated. But if Avery was primarily intended as an ancestral home, it is clear that it was also created with a sense of drama in mind for when ancient visitors came across it, as we shall now explore. Let us start with the physical experience of visiting Avery. From any one vantage, walking around the perimeter of Avery, a large part of the monument would have been obscured, so much so that it can be difficult at times to distinguish what is monument and what is landscape. The ridges of the downland so closely follow the profile of the bank. It seems that the Avery rings and avenues were designed to curate procession through the space, mainly using restricted pathways and sightlines. It was at Kennet Avenue, for example, a well-trodden path, which starts well before entering a monument, that the optical illusions begin. The avenue first gives the impression that it would deliver visitors to another monument instead, but unexpectedly it changes course and leads back towards Avery. The limestones also increase in height as you move along them, in line with the rising landscape in a visual game of sorts that induces a sense of impending urgency. Visitors can't actually see into the monument until they are nearly through the entrance, which heightens their curiosity about what mysteries may lie ahead. Even within the monument, views are curated and restricted. Only within the inner circle do you get extensive views, revealing the impression of Avery's circularity and centrality, and the granting of clear sight for both Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill. It may also have been designed to enhance sensory experience. The embankment could have established a sound shadow, isolating the calm interior from its chaotic surroundings, creating a sense of spiritual immersion. Different areas within the monument may have been associated with particular rituals, some spaces designed to be more spiritually intense than others. For example, the cove is structured in just such a way that it focuses sound, thus drumming or singing could reverberate and echo through the interior whilst only muffled, partial noises penetrated into the spaces behind. But was this esoteric experience, which even modern visitors can get a glimpse of, its main role in Neolithic communities? Surely not. This may have been intended only for the most important or sacred members of the community, or perhaps entrance was only encouraged during those rare ritual events. But all the community was surely made richer by its presence, both within and around the stones, tethering the monument to its makers and its makers to the monument. So here is my take-home message. Avery is a monument that we cannot hope to understand. It has a long and complex life history. Over thousands of years it has championed process before completion, imbued with the spiritual and material significance of shifting civilizations across time. Most visitors today are unlikely to fully grasp the power of the ring once held. Whilst prehistoric visitors built lifelong relationships, and perhaps similar to Madagascan examples of ancestral worship, they may have entreated the ancestral stones to provide blessings or protection before important community ceremonies. But today's visitors can only reimagine this experience. They might project their own cultural and world views onto the stones, or they might engage with its physical presence as a sculptural or architectural piece. But perhaps we should look at Avery in a different light today. Its evolution was organic, both physically and conceptually. Its form has now survived the pillage and reformation of successive societies far removed from the original. Yet each bring new interpretation to the fabric, and all within a landscape of other evolving monuments and events. Perhaps it was never meant to be finished, or, indeed, understood. It may be more meaningful for us to experience Avery as a monument of perpetual becoming, rather than a completed thing now diminished. In that way, we can maintain the sense of mystery and possibilities that surround it.