Archaeologists say they now have strong evidence that a vast ring of huge pits near Stonehenge was deliberately dug by Neolithic people over 4,000 years ago.
The structure, known as the Durrington pit circle, is thought to be more than a mile wide and made up of around 20 enormous pits, some measuring up to 10 metres wide and 5 metres deep, centred around the ancient sites of Durrington Walls and Woodhenge.
Although the feature was first identified in 2020, some experts suggested the pits could be natural. New research, published in Internet Archaeology, used a combination of advanced techniques to settle the debate.
The team led by Prof Vincent Gaffney of the University of Bradford used electrical resistance tomography to measure depth, along with radar and magnetometry to analyse shape. They also extracted sediment cores and applied optically stimulated luminescence dating and environmental DNA (sedDNA) analysis.
The findings revealed repeated, structured patterns in soils from different pits, which researchers say could not have formed naturally. “They can’t be occurring naturally. It just can’t happen,” Gaffney said.
The team believes the pits were dug during the late Neolithic period. While their exact purpose remains unknown, archaeologists suggest they may have been linked to ancient beliefs about an “underworld”, representing a monumental expression of prehistoric cosmology carved into the landscape.
