This is the archaeological dig that started me off.
Engineers have reopened a tunnel that goes deep inside the ancient monument of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire.
The tunnel, dug in 1968, was the last of many made over the centuries by archaeologists exploring the site.
Engineers are planning to stabilise the 5,000-year-old structure, which is believed to be the world's largest man-made prehistoric mound.
Archaeologists will also try to unlock the site's ancient secrets and find out how, why and when it was built.
Earlier this year, archaeologists found traces of a Roman settlement at the landmark.
English Heritage, which is conducting the stabilising work, believes there was a Roman community at Silbury Hill about 2,000 years ago. It says the site may have been a sacred place of pilgrimage.
"We don't know exactly what it was for but it was probably part of a ceremonial and sacred landscape which centered on the Avebury henge," said an English Heritage spokeswoman.
The world recreated: redating Silbury Hill in its monumental landscape:
Alex Bayliss
1, Fachtna McAvoy
2 and Alasdair Whittle
3
1English Heritage,
1 Waterhouse Square, 138-142 Holborn, London EC1N 2ST, UK
2English Heritage, Fort Cumberland, Fort Cumberland Road, Eastney, Portsmouth PO4 9LD, UK
3Cardiff School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University, Humanities Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
A classic exposition of the difficulties of dating a major monument and why it matters. Silbury Hill, one of the world's largest prehistoric earth mounds, is too valuable to take apart, so we are reliant on samples taken from tunnels and chance exposures. Presenting a new edition of thirty radiocarbon dates, the authors offer models of short- or long-term construction, and their implications for the ritual landscape of Silbury and Stonehenge. The sequence in which monuments, and bits of monuments, were built gives us the kind and history of societies doing the building. So nothing matters more than the dates.
Solomon
