As you walk along the West Kennet Avenue you may be unaware that you are walking over the remains of prehistoric settlement. The site, known as the West Kennet Avenue occupation site, was first discovered by Alexander Keiller’s team in 1934, and re-excavated by Professor Josh Pollard, and Avebury Papers project leader Professor Mark Gillings from 2013-15.
If you want to find the site today, stand at the end of West Kennet Avenue’s re-erected pairs of standing stones furthest from Avebury, turn towards the henge and count along 6 pairs of standing stones and you will be at the beginning of the occupation site. The “site” itself consists of a concentrated scatter of thousands of artefacts, predominantly worked flint and some prehistoric pottery, stretching along the Avenue for 140m. Accompanying this scatter are a small number of pits and post-holes.
The term ‘occupation site’ may seem rather grand for what is little more than a scatter of artefacts, but such is the ephemeral nature of Neolithic domestic architecture in southern Britain, that this is most often all that remains of prehistoric settlements.
In the absence of architectural remains, understanding prehistoric settlements can be difficult. In order to find out more about the character, timing and duration of occupation, Avebury Papers Project member Ben Chan conducted an analysis of the artefacts in the scatter. The analysis focused on a type of flint tool known as a microdenticulate. ‘Microdenticulate’ literally means ‘small teeth’ – and it is fitting, as these are flint tools with finely serrated edges, often having more than one denticulation every millimetre! Analysis of the wear traces on the edges of the tools shows that they were used to process plant fibres for making textiles and cordage.
The results of Ben’s analysis show that the bulk of the artefact scatter relates to a Middle Neolithic (c. 3400-2900 BC) settlement, but that the microdenticulates were used during a separate, later phase of occupation, probably during the clearance of vegetation from the abandoned settlement site. These insights provide us with crucial insight into the character of the inhabitation of the Avebury landscape in the period leading up to the construction of the henge and its avenues.
The analysis has recently been published. If you are interested in reading the article, it can be read and downloaded for free over on the Journal of Archaeological Science.