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138-543: Avebury ( / ˈ eɪ v b ər i / ) is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles , around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire , in south-west England. One of the best-known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans . Constructed over several hundred years in

276-492: A grassland environment from damp, heavy soils and expanses of dense forest was mostly brought about by farmers, probably through the use of slash and burn techniques. Environmental factors may also have made a contribution. The long grassland area formed a dense vegetational mat which eventually led to the decalcification of the soil profile. In the Mesolithic period, woodland was dominated by alder, lime, elm and oak. There

414-465: A "religious revival" at the time, which led to huge amounts of resources being expended on the construction of ceremonial monuments. Archaeologist Aaron Watson highlighted the possibility that by digging up earth and using it to construct the large banks, those Neolithic labourers constructing the Avebury monument symbolically saw themselves as turning the land "inside out", thereby creating a space that

552-624: A broad spatial scale. Because plant productivity is limited by grassland precipitation, carbon stocks are highest in regions where precipitation is heaviest, such as the high grass prairie in the humid temperate region of the United States. Similarly, as annual temperatures rise, grassland carbon stocks decrease due to increased evapotranspiration . Grasslands have suffered large losses of organic carbon due to soil disturbances, vegetation degradation, fires, erosion, nutrient deficiencies, and water shortages. The type, frequency and intensity of

690-429: A common theory to explain the positioning of the stones at Avebury. The relationships between the causewayed enclosure, Avebury stone circles, and West Kennet Long Barrow to the south, has caused some to describe the area as a "ritual complex"—a site with many monuments of interlocking religious function. Based on the scale of the site and wealth of archaeological material found in its ditches, particularly animal bone, it

828-758: A continental climate favourable to the evolution of grasslands. Around 5 million years ago during the Late Miocene in the New World and the Pliocene in the Old World, the first true grasslands occurred. Existing forest biomes declined, and grasslands became much more widespread. It is known that grasslands have existed in Europe throughout the Pleistocene (the last 1.8 million years). Following

966-419: A diameter of 331.6 metres (1,088 ft), this is one of Europe's largest stone circles, and Britain's largest. It was either contemporary with, or built around four or five centuries after, the earthworks. It is thought that there were originally 98 sarsen standing stones , some weighing in excess of 40 tons. The stones varied in height from 3.6 metres (12 ft) to 4.2 metres (14 ft), as exemplified at

1104-428: A discount in biodiversity as faster-growing plants outcompete others. A study of a California grassland found that global change may speed reductions in diversity and forb species are most prone to this process. Misguided afforestation efforts, for example as part of the global effort to increase carbon sequestration, can harm grasslands and their core ecosystem services. Forest centric restoration efforts can create

1242-424: A huge scale could have been one of the purposes of the monument and would not necessarily have been mutually exclusive with any male/female ritual role. The henge, although clearly forming an imposing boundary to the circle, could have had a purpose that was not defensive as the ditch is on the inside (this is the defining characteristic of a henge ). Being a henge and stone circle site, astronomical alignments are

1380-576: A larger prehistoric landscape containing several older monuments nearby, including West Kennet Long Barrow , Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill . By the Iron Age , the site had been effectively abandoned, with some evidence of human activity on the site during the Roman period . During the Early Middle Ages, a village first began to be built around the monument, eventually extending into it. In

1518-407: A number of options. Groups of pioneers could have set off from the continent in one-off small-scale invasions. Or people might have arrived after a long-term and eclectic mixture of contacts down the continental coast from Denmark to France. Or gatherer-hunters might have traveled by boat to the continent and brought back the animals and plants as the result of slowly developing exchange contacts. There

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1656-522: A range of marketed and non-marketed ecosystem services that are fundamental to the livelihoods of an estimated one billion people globally. Grasslands hold about twenty percent of global soil carbon stocks. Herbaceous (non-wooded) vegetation dominates grasslands and carbon is stored in the roots and soil underground. Above-ground biomass carbon is relatively short-lived due to grazing, fire, and senescence . Grassland species have an extensive fibrous root system, with grasses often accounting for 60-80% of

1794-597: A relatively short space of time, lasting in total only about 2000 years – in human terms little more than 80–100 generations." Between 10,000 BC to 8,000 BC the Neolithic Revolution in the Near East gradually transformed hunter-gathering societies into settled agricultural societies. Similar developments later occurred independently in Mesoamerica , Southeast Asia , Africa , China and India . It

1932-489: A result of human activity. Hunting cultures around the world often set regular fires to maintain and extend grasslands and prevent fire-intolerant trees and shrubs from taking hold. The tallgrass prairies in the U.S. Midwest may have been extended eastward into Illinois , Indiana , and Ohio by human agency. Much grassland in northwest Europe developed after the Neolithic Period when people gradually cleared

2070-424: A trend that would continue into the following Bronze Age . Those constructions are taken to reflect ideological changes, with new ideas about religion, ritual and social hierarchy. The Neolithic people in Europe were not literate and so they left behind no written record that modern historians can study. All that is known about this time period in Europe comes from archaeological investigations. These were begun by

2208-495: A week directing excavations in fourteen places, including around the Cove; they found no human bones. In 1894 Sir Henry Meux sponsored excavations which put a trench through the bank of the south-east sector, which gave the first indication that the earthwork was built in two phases. The site was surveyed and excavated intermittently between 1908 and 1922 by a team of workmen under the direction of Harold St George Gray , on behalf of

2346-508: Is a lack of agreement on the amount of carbon that can be stored in grassland ecosystem. This is partly caused by different methodologies applied to measure soil organic carbon and limited respective datasets. Further, carbon accumulation in soils changes significantly over time and point in time measurements produce an insufficient evidence base. Grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems. Global losses from grassland degradation are estimated to be over $ 7 billion per year. According to

2484-404: Is a major decline in pollen around 4500 BC, but an increase in grasses from 4500 BC to 3200 BC and the first occurrence of cereal pollen. Pollen is poorly preserved in the chalky soils found around Avebury, so the best evidence for the state of local environment at any time in the past comes from the study of the deposition of snail shells. Different species of snail live in specific habitats, so

2622-540: Is a much more labour-intensive way of life than that of hunter-gatherers. It would have involved deforesting an area, digging and tilling the soil, storing seeds, and then guarding the growing crops from other animal species before eventually harvesting them. In the cases of grains, the crop produced then has to be processed to make it edible, including grinding, milling and cooking. All of that involves far more preparation and work than either hunting or gathering. The Neolithic agriculturalists deforested areas of woodland in

2760-468: Is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae ). However, sedge ( Cyperaceae ) and rush ( Juncaceae ) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes , like clover , and other herbs . Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica and are found in most ecoregions of the Earth . Furthermore, grasslands are one of the largest biomes on Earth and dominate

2898-560: Is evidenced by flint, animal bones, and pottery such as Peterborough ware dating from the early 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Five distinct areas of Neolithic activity have been identified within 500 m (1,600 ft) of Avebury; they include a scatter of flints along the line of the West Kennet Avenue —an avenue that connects Avebury with the Neolithic site of The Sanctuary . Pollard suggests that areas of activity in

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3036-555: Is no answer to this puzzle, which is all the more intriguing since the earliest evidence for farming in the British Isles comes from Ireland and probably the Isle of Man, and not from southern Britain. The reason for switching from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural lifestyle has been widely debated by archaeologists and anthropologists. Ethnographic studies of farming societies who use basic stone tools and crops have shown that it

3174-627: Is often a plagioclimax ; it remains dominant in a particular area usually due to grazing , cutting, or natural or man-made fires, all discouraging colonization by and survival of tree and shrub seedlings . Some of the world's largest expanses of grassland are found in the African savanna, and these are maintained by wild herbivores as well as by nomadic pastoralists and their cattle , sheep or goats. Grasslands have an impact on climate change by slower decomposition rates of litter compared to forest environments. Grasslands may occur naturally or as

3312-486: Is one of remarkable changes in landscapes, societies and technologies, which changed a wild, forested world, to one of orderly agricultural production and settled communities on the brink of socially complex 'civilization'. It was a period that saw the arrival of new ideas and domesticated plants and animals, perhaps new communities, and the transformation of the native peoples of Britain. The Neolithic opened an entirely new episode in human history. It took place in Britain over

3450-553: Is still controversial. A study in Brazilian Subtropical Highland Grasslands found that grasslands without traditional land management—which uses fire every two years and extensive cattle grazing—can disappear within 30 years. This study showed that grasslands inside protected areas , in which fire is not allowed and cattle grazing is banned, grasslands were quickly replaced by shrubs ( shrub encroachment ). Land cover has always changed during

3588-577: Is still debated, with some evidence placing the development of agriculture as early as 12,500 BC. The idea of agriculture subsequently spread from the Levant into Europe and was adopted by hunter-gathering societies in what is now Turkey, Greece, the Balkans and across the Mediterranean and eventually reached north-western Europe and the British Isles. Until recently, archaeologists debated whether

3726-501: Is theorised that the enclosure on Windmill Hill was a major, extra-regional focus for gatherings and feasting events. In 1829, the foot of the Cove stone was dug to a 'yard' in depth, and in 1833 Henry Browne claimed to find evidence for 'burnt human sacrifices' also at the Cove in the north-east sector. in 1865, the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society supported A. C. Smith and W. Cunnington to spend

3864-454: The Barber surgeon of Avebury . Coins dating from the 1320s were found with the skeleton, and the evidence suggests that the man was fatally injured when the stone fell on him whilst he was digging the hole in which it was to be buried in a mediaeval "rite of destruction". As well as the coins, Keiller's team found a pair of scissors and a lancet , the tools of a barber-surgeon at that time, hence

4002-918: The Everglades of Florida , the Pantanal of Brazil , Bolivia and Paraguay or the Esteros del Ibera in Argentina , are classified with flooded savannas as the flooded grasslands and savannas biome and occur mostly in the tropics and subtropics. The species that live in these grasslands are well adapted to the hydrologic regimes and soil conditions. The Everglades—the world's largest rain-fed flooded grassland—is rich in 11,000 species of seed-bearing plants, 25 species of orchids , 300 bird species, and 150 fish species. Water-meadows are grasslands that are deliberately flooded for short periods. High-altitude grasslands located on high mountain ranges around

4140-596: The Indo-European family, it is not known what language the early farming people spoke. The Neolithic also saw the construction of a wide variety of monuments in the landscape, many of which were megalithic in nature. The earliest of them are the chambered tombs of the Early Neolithic, but in the Late Neolithic, this form of monumentalization was replaced by the construction of stone circles ,

4278-666: The Mesolithic . During the early part of that period, Britain was still attached by the landmass of Doggerland to the rest of Continental Europe. The archaeologist and prehistorian Caroline Malone noted that during the Late Mesolithic, the British Isles were something of a "technological backwater" in European terms and were still living as a hunter-gatherer society though most of Southern Europe had already taken up agriculture and sedentary living. "The Neolithic period

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4416-660: The Middle East . Until then, during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, the island's inhabitants had been hunter-gatherers , and the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural one did not occur all at once. There is also some evidence of different agricultural and hunter-gatherer groups within the British Isles meeting and trading with one another in the early part of the Neolithic, with some hunter-gatherer sites showing evidence of more complex, Neolithic technologies. Archaeologists disagree about whether

4554-463: The Pleistocene ice ages (with their glacials and interglacials ), grasslands expanded in the hotter, drier climates, and began to become the dominant land feature worldwide. Since the grasslands have existed for over 1.8 million years, there is high variability. For example steppe-tundra dominated in Northern and Central Europe whereas a higher amount of xerothermic grasslands occurred in

4692-587: The Polden Hills with Westhay Mears, a length which ran for over a kilometre. Being agriculturalists, the Neolithic peoples of the British Isles grew cereal grains such as wheat and barley , which therefore played a part in their diet. Nonetheless, they were supplemented at times with wild undomesticated plant foods such as hazelnuts . There is also evidence that grapes had been consumed in Neolithic Wessex, based upon charred pips found at

4830-613: The Upper Kennet Valley that forms the catchment for the River Kennet and supports local springs and seasonal watercourses. The monument stands slightly above the local landscape, sitting on a low chalk ridge 160 m (520 ft) above sea level; to the east are the Marlborough Downs , an area of lowland hills. The site lies at the centre of a collection of Neolithic and early Bronze Age monuments and

4968-407: The antiquarians of the 18th century and intensified in the 19th century during which John Lubbock coined the term "Neolithic". In the 20th and the 21st centuries, further excavation and synthesis went ahead, dominated by figures like V. Gordon Childe , Stuart Piggott , Julian Thomas and Richard Bradley . The period that preceded the Neolithic in the British Isles is known by archaeologists as

5106-480: The encroachment of woody species . Species richness is particularly high in grasslands of low soil fertility such as serpentine barrens and calcareous grasslands, where woody encroachment is prevented as low nutrient levels in the soil may inhibit the growth of forest and shrub species. Another common predicament often experienced by the ill-fated grassland creatures is the constant burning of plants, fueled by oxygen and many expired photosynthesizing organisms, with

5244-871: The prairie and Pacific grasslands of North America , the Pampas of Argentina , Brazil and Uruguay , calcareous downland , and the steppes of Europe . They are classified with temperate savannas and shrublands as the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome . Temperate grasslands are the home to many large herbivores , such as bison , gazelles , zebras , rhinoceroses , and wild horses . Carnivores like lions , wolves , cheetahs and leopards are also found in temperate grasslands. Other animals of this region include deer , prairie dogs , mice , jack rabbits , skunks , coyotes , snakes , foxes , owls , badgers , blackbirds, grasshoppers , meadowlarks , sparrows , quails , hawks and hyenas . Grasslands that are flooded seasonally or year-round, like

5382-509: The tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome . The rainfall level for that grassland type is between 90 and 150 centimeters per year. Grasses and scattered trees are common for that ecoregion, as well as large mammals , such as wildebeest ( Connochaetes taurinus ) and zebra ( Equus zebra ). Notable tropical and subtropical grasslands include the Llanos grasslands of South America . Mid-latitude grasslands, including

5520-479: The 18th century. The remaining sections of its arc now lie beneath the village buildings. A single large monolith, 5.5 metres (18 ft) high, stood in the centre along with an alignment of smaller stones. In 2017, a geophysical survey by archaeologists from the Universities of Leicester and Southampton indicated 'an apparently unique square megalithic monument within the Avebury circles' which may be one of

5658-566: The 20th century, with Harold St George Gray leading an excavation of the bank and ditch, and Alexander Keiller overseeing a project to reconstruct much of the monument. Avebury is owned and managed by the National Trust . It has been designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument , as well as a World Heritage Site , in the latter capacity being seen as a part of the wider prehistoric landscape of Wiltshire known as Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites . About 480 people live in 235 homes in

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5796-778: The African savannas or the Iberian deheza. As flowering plants and trees, grasses grow in great concentrations in climates where annual rainfall ranges between 500 and 900 mm (20 and 35 in). The root systems of perennial grasses and forbs form complex mats that hold the soil in place. Grasslands support the greatest aggregations of large animals on Earth, including jaguars, African wild dogs, pronghorn , black-footed ferret , plains bison , mountain plover , African elephant, Sunda tiger, black rhino, white rhino, savanna elephant, greater one-horned rhino, Indian elephant and swift fox . Grazing animals, herd animals, and predators in grasslands, like lions and cheetahs live in

5934-510: The American West—and introduction of invasive species , like cane toads in northern Australia, have disrupted the balance in these ecosystems and damaged a number of other species. Grasslands are home to a number of the foremost magnificent animals on the planet—elephants, bison, lions—and hunters have found them to be enticing prey. But when hunting is not controlled or is conducted illegally, species can become extinct. Grasslands provide

6072-495: The Balkans along the Mediterranean coast. The arrival of farming populations led to the almost-complete replacement of the native Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of the British Isles, who did not experience a genetic resurgence in the succeeding centuries. The 2003 discovery of the Ness of Brodgar site has presented an example of a highly-sophisticated and possibly-religious complex in the British Isles dating from around 3500 BC, before

6210-584: The British Association. The discovery of over 40 antler picks on or near the bottom of the ditch enabled Gray to demonstrate that the Avebury builders had dug down 11 metres (36 ft) into the natural chalk using red deer antlers as their primary digging tool, producing a henge ditch with a 9-metre (30 ft) high bank around its perimeter. Gray recorded the base of the ditch as being 4 metres (13 ft) wide and flat, but later archaeologists have questioned his use of untrained labour to excavate

6348-536: The British Isles along with or roughly concurrent to the introduction of farming. A widely-held theory amongst archaeologists is that those megalithic tombs were intentionally made to resemble the long timber houses, which had been constructed by Neolithic farming peoples in the Danube basin from circa 4800 BC. As the historian Ronald Hutton related, "There is no doubt that these great tombs, far more impressive than would be required of mere repositories for bones, were

6486-520: The British Isles appear to have been built between 4000 and 3200 BC, a time period that the archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson notes means that tomb building was "a relatively short-lived fashion in archaeological terms". Amongst the most notable of these chambered tombs are those clustered around the Brú na Bóinne complex in County Meath , eastern Ireland: they include Newgrange , Knowth and Dowth ,

6624-591: The British Isles to use the cleared land for farming. Notable examples of forest clearance occurred around 5000 BCE in Broome Heath in East Anglia , on the North Yorkshire Moors and also on Dartmoor . Such clearances were performed not only with the use of stone axes but also through ring barking and burning, with the last two likely having been more effective. Nonetheless, in many areas,

6762-517: The British Neolithic, the term "Neolithic" had been broadened to "include sedentary village life, cereal agriculture, stock rearing, and ceramics, all assumed characteristic of immigrant agriculturalists". In the 1960s, a number of British and American archaeologists began taking a new approach to their discipline by emphasising their belief that through the rigorous use of the scientific method , they could obtain objective knowledge about

6900-607: The Britons already settled there. Aubrey Burl suggested the possibility that a small group of British warriors may have used Avebury as a fortified site to defend themselves from Anglo-Saxon attack. He gained this idea from etymological evidence, suggesting that the site may have been called weala-dic , meaning "moat of the Britons", in Old English , the language of the Anglo-Saxons. Neolithic British Isles During

7038-539: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the most significant threat to grasslands is human land use, especially agriculture and mining. The vulnerability of grasslands stems from a range of factors, such as misclassification, poor protection and cultivation. Grasslands have an extensive history of human activity and disturbance . To feed a growing human population, most of

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7176-612: The Lower Rhine area. Beakers arrived in Britain around 2500 BC, with migrations of Yamnaya -related people, resulting in a nearly-total turnover of the British population. The study argues that more than 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool was replaced with the coming of the Beaker people. The Neolithic is largely categorised by the introduction of farming to Britain from Continental Europe from where it had originally come from

7314-493: The Mediterranean area. Within temperate Europe, the range of types is quite wide and also became unique due to the exchange of species and genetic material between different biomes. The semi-natural grasslands first appeared when humans started farming. So for the use of agriculture, forests got cleared in Europe. Ancient meadows and pastures were the parts that were suitable for cultivation. The semi-natural grasslands were formed from these areas. However, there's also evidence for

7452-534: The Mesolithic Natufian culture of the Levant, which showed signs that would later lead to the actual domestication and farming of crops. Archaeologists believe that the Levantine peoples subsequently developed agriculture in response to a rise in their population levels that could not be fed by the finite food resources that hunting and gathering could provide. The time period in which this happened

7590-498: The Mesolithic period, the inhabitants of the British Isles had been hunter-gatherers. Around 4000 BC, migrants began arriving from Central Europe . These migrants brought new ideas, leading to a radical transformation of society and landscape that has been called the Neolithic Revolution . The Neolithic period in the British Isles was characterised by the adoption of agriculture and sedentary living . To make room for

7728-488: The Neolithic Revolution was brought to the British Isles through adoption by natives or by migrating groups of Continental Europeans who settled there. A 2019 study found that the Neolithic farmers of the British Isles had entered the region through a mass migration c. 4100 BC. They were closely related to Neolithic peoples of Iberia, which implies that they were descended from agriculturalists who had moved westwards from

7866-595: The Neolithic became important markers in the landscape. "After over a thousand years of early farming, a way of life based on ancestral tombs, forest clearance and settlement expansion came to an end. This was a time of important social changes." Archaeologist and prehistorian Mike Parker Pearson on the Late Neolithic in Britain (2005) During the Late Neolithic, British society underwent another series of major changes. Between 3500 and 3300 BC, these prehistoric Britons ceased their continual expansion and cultivation of wilderness and instead focused on settling and farming

8004-533: The Neolithic. Its monuments comprise the henge and associated long barrows , stone circles, avenues and a causewayed enclosure . These monument types are not exclusive to the Avebury area. For example, Stonehenge features the same kinds of monuments, and in Dorset there is a henge on the edge of Dorchester and a causewayed enclosure at nearby Maiden Castle . According to archaeologist Caroline Malone , who worked for English Heritage as an inspector of monuments and

8142-639: The North West sector of Avebury in 1937; the South West sector in 1938, and the South East sector in 1939. It can reasonably be said that "Avebury today is largely Keiller's creation", as Keiller directed his team to find and re-erect fallen or buried stones, and to build concrete ' pylons ' in the place of missing stones. Stuart Piggott co-directed excavations; local archaeologist William E. V. Young served as Foreman; Doris Emerson Chapman illustrated

8280-616: The Sanctuary, Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow had been intentional, commenting that "the Avenue carefully orchestrated passage through the landscape which influenced how people could move and what they could see, emphasising connections between places and maximising the spectacle of moving between these monuments." The purpose which Neolithic people had for the Avebury monument has remained elusive, although many archaeologists have postulated about its meaning and usage. Many suggest that

8418-680: The archaeological record although they are rare and have usually been uncovered only when they were in the vicinity of the more substantial Neolithic stone monuments. The Early and the Middle Neolithic also saw the construction of large megalithic tombs across the British Isles. Because they housed the bodies of the dead, those tombs have typically been considered by archaeologists to be a possible indication of ancestor veneration by those who constructed them. Such Neolithic tombs are common across much of Western Europe , from Iberia to Scandinavia , and they were therefore likely brought to

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8556-407: The area. The most important of these discoveries is a densely scattered collection of worked flints found 300 m (980 ft) to the west of Avebury, which has led archaeologists to believe that that spot was a flint working site occupied over a period of several weeks by a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers who had set up camp there. The archaeologists Mark Gillings and Joshua Pollard suggested

8694-572: The atmosphere). It can have severe negative consequences on key ecosystem services, like land productivity and groundwater recharge. Despite growing recognition of the importance of grasslands, understanding of restoration options remains limited. Cost of grassland restoration is highly variable and respective data is scarce. Successful grassland restoration has several dimensions, including recognition in policy, standardisation of indicators of degradation, scientific innovation, knowledge transfer and data sharing. Restoration methods and measures include

8832-400: The bank is irregular, something Caroline Malone suggested was because of the irregular nature of the work undertaken by excavators working on the adjacent sectors of the ditch. Later archaeologists such as Aaron Watson, Mark Gillings and Joshua Pollard have, however, suggested that this was an original Neolithic feature of the henge's architecture. Within the henge is a great outer circle. With

8970-478: The biomass carbon in this ecosystem. This underground biomass can extend several meters below the surface and store abundant carbon into the soil, resulting in deep, fertile soils with high organic matter content. For this reason, soil carbon accounts for about 81% of the total ecosystem carbon in grasslands. The close link between soil carbon and underground biomass leads to similar responses of these carbon pools to fluctuations in annual precipitation and temperature on

9108-474: The centres of ritual activity in the early Neolithic: they were shrines as well as mausoleums. For some reason, the success of farming and the veneration of ancestral and more recent bones had become bound up together in the minds of the people". Although there are disputed radiocarbon dates indicating that the chambered tomb at Carrowmore in Ireland dates to circa 5000 BCE, the majority of such monuments in

9246-649: The circle. During the British Iron Age , it appears that the Avebury monument had ceased to be used for its original purpose, and was instead largely ignored, with little archaeological evidence that many people visited the site at this time. Archaeologist Aubrey Burl believed that the Iron Age Britons living in the region would not have known when, why or by whom the monument had been constructed, perhaps having some vague understanding that it had been built by an earlier society or considering it to be

9384-416: The construction of large wooden or stone circles, with many hundreds being built across Britain and Ireland over a period of a thousand years. The chronology of Avebury's construction is unclear. It was not designed as a single monument, but is the result of various projects that were undertaken at different times during late prehistory. Aubrey Burl suggests dates of 3000 BC for the central cove, 2900 BC for

9522-417: The disturbance can play a key role in the soil organic carbon ( SOC ) balance of grasslands. Bedrock , irrigation practices, soil acidification , liming , and pasture management can all have potential impacts on grassland organic carbon stocks. Good grassland management can reverse historical soil carbon losses. The relationship of improved biodiversity with carbon storage is subject of research. There

9660-411: The ditch and suggested that its form may have been different. Gray found few artefacts in the ditch-fill but he did recover scattered human bones, amongst which jawbones were particularly well represented. At a depth of about 2 metres (7 ft), Gray found the complete skeleton of a 1.5-metre (5 ft) tall woman. Alexander Keiller financed and led excavations on West Kennet Avenue in 1934 and 1935;

9798-590: The dwelling of a supernatural entity. In 43 AD, the Roman Empire invaded southern Britain, making alliances with certain local monarchs and subsuming the Britons under their own political control. Southern and central Britain would remain a part of the Empire until the early 5th century, in a period now known as Roman Britain or the Roman Iron Age. It was during this Roman period that tourists came from

9936-481: The earliest structures on this site. The West Kennet Avenue , an avenue of paired stones, leads from the southeastern entrance of the henge; and traces of a second, the Beckhampton Avenue , lead out from the western entrance. The archaeologist Aaron Watson, taking a phenomenological viewpoint to the monument, believed that the way in which the Avenue had been constructed in juxtaposition to Avebury,

10074-501: The economics that the world's grasslands have to offer, from producing grazing animals, tourism, ecosystems services such as clean water and air, and energy extraction. Vast areas of grassland are affected by woody encroachment , which is the expansion of woody plants at the expense of the herbaceous layer. Woody encroachment is caused by a combination of human impact (e.g. fire exclusion, overstocking and resulting overgrazing ) and environmental factors (i.e. increased CO 2 levels in

10212-459: The elm leaves to use as animal fodder during the winter and that the trees died after being debarked by domesticated cattle . Nonetheless, as Pearson highlighted, the decline in elm might be due to the elm bark beetle , a parasitic insect that carries with it Dutch elm disease , and evidence for which has been found at West Heath Spa in Hampshire . It is possible that the spread of those beetles

10350-494: The environment of lowland Britain changed around 4250–4000 BC. During the Neolithic period, argillic (clayey) brownearths reigned in the landscape formed by the acidifying conditions of a closed woodland, becoming more chalky as a result of clearance and anthropogenic (human-made) interference. The area was originally a mix of deep argillic brownearths on clay-rich areas along with calcareous (chalky) brownearths that were "predisposed" to transforming into grassland. The change to

10488-459: The expression of a single, underlying cultural idea". It was in the 17th century AD that scholarly investigation into the surviving Neolithic monuments first began in the British Isles, but at the time, these antiquarian scholars had relatively little understanding of prehistory and were Biblical literalists , who believed that the Earth itself was only around 5000 years old. The first to do so

10626-485: The final stage of the Stone Age and defined this period purely on the technology of the time, when humans had begun using polished stone tools but not yet started making metal tools. Lubbock's terminology was adopted by other archaeologists, but as they gained a greater understanding of later prehistory, it came to cover a wider set of characteristics. By the 20th century, when figures like V. Gordon Childe were working on

10764-607: The first pyramids and contemporary with the city of Uruk . The site is still in early stages of excavation but is expected to yield major contributions to knowledge of the period. "After over a thousand years of early farming, a way of life based on ancestral tombs, forest clearance and settlement expansion came to an end. This was a time of important social changes." From the Beaker culture period onwards, all British individuals had high proportions of Steppe ancestry and were genetically more similar to Beaker-associated people from

10902-466: The first monuments to be seen in the local landscape, an activity interpreted as evidence of a change in the way people viewed their place in the world. Based on anthropological studies of recent and contemporary societies, Gillings and Pollard suggest that forests, clearings, and stones were important in Neolithic culture, not only as resources but as symbols; the site of Avebury occupied a convergence of these three elements. Neolithic activity at Avebury

11040-628: The first of which was built between 3100 and 2900 BCE. The Late Neolithic also saw the construction of megalithic stone circles. The stone or "lithic" technology of the British Neolithic differed from that of Mesolithic and Palaeolithic Britain. Whereas Mesolithic hunter-gatherer tools were microliths (small, sharp shards of flint), Neolithic agriculturalists used larger lithic tools. Typically, they included axes , made out of either flint or hard igneous rock hafted on to wooden handles. While some of them were evidently used for chopping wood and other practical purposes, there are some axe heads from

11178-804: The following: For the period 2021–2030 the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the UN Decade on Restoration, involving a joint resolution by over 70 countries. It is led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization . Grassland types by Schimper (1898, 1903): Grassland types by Ellenberg and Mueller-Dombois (1967): Formation-class V. Terrestrial herbaceous communities Grassland types by Laycock (1979): These grasslands can be classified as

11316-463: The forest to create areas for raising their livestock. Grasslands often occur in areas with annual precipitation is between 600 mm (24 in) and 1,500 mm (59 in) and average mean annual temperatures ranges from −5 and 20 °C. However, some grasslands occur in colder (−20 °C) and hotter (30 °C) climatic conditions. Grassland can exist in habitats that are frequently disturbed by grazing or fire, as such disturbance prevents

11454-518: The forests had regrown within a few centuries, including at Ballysculion, Ballynagilly, Beaghmore and the Somerset Levels . Between 4300 and 3250 BCE, there was a widespread decline in the number of elm trees across Britain, with millions of them disappearing from the archaeological record, and archaeologists have in some cases attributed that to the arrival of Neolithic farmers. For instance, it has been suggested that farmers collected all

11592-440: The full report. Smith completed the publication in 1965, reorganised the stone numbering system for the landscape, and put Windmill Hill, Avebury and West Kennet Avenue into context. When a new village school was built in 1969 there was a further opportunity to examine the site, and in 1982 an excavation to produce carbon dating material and environmental data was undertaken. In April 2003, during preparations to straighten some of

11730-759: The grassland areas have been turned to arable fields and disappeared again. The grasslands permanently became arable cropping fields due to the steady decrease in organic matter. Nowadays, semi-natural grasslands are rather located in areas that are unsuitable for agricultural farming. Grasslands dominated by unsown wild-plant communities ("unimproved grasslands") can be called either natural or "semi-natural" habitat. Although their plant communities are natural, their maintenance depends upon anthropogenic activities such as grazing and cutting regimes. The semi-natural grasslands contain many species of wild plants, including grasses, sedges, rushes, and herbs; 25 plant-species per 100 square centimeters can be found. A European record that

11868-612: The grassland type and on how strong it is affected by human impact. Dominant trees for the semi-natural grassland are Quercus robur , Betula pendula , Corylus avellana , Crataegus and many kinds of herbs. In chalk grassland , the plants can vary from very tall to very short. Quite tall grasses can be found in North American tallgrass prairie , South American grasslands, and African savanna . Woody plants, shrubs or trees may occur on some grasslands—forming savannas, scrubby grassland or semi-wooded grassland, such as

12006-443: The grasslands of the African savanna. Mites , insect larvae , nematodes , and earthworms inhabit deep soil, which can reach 6 metres (20 feet) underground in undisturbed grasslands on the richest soils of the world. These invertebrates, along with symbiotic fungi , extend the root systems, break apart hard soil, enrich it with urea and other natural fertilizers, trap minerals and water and promote growth. Some types of fungi make

12144-478: The henge could have been a meeting place for the citizens of the area for seasonal fairs or festivals. During that time the people would have been watching ceremonies or standing on the earthen banks. A lack of pottery and animal bone from excavations at Avebury suggest that the entrance to the henge was prohibited. The lack of "mess" and archaeological finds indicates "sanctity". Many of the stones had former uses before being transported to Avebury. For instance, many of

12282-399: The henge is uncertain, because little datable evidence has emerged from modern archaeological excavations . Evidence of activity in the region before the 4th millennium BC is limited, suggesting that there was little human occupation. What is now termed the Mesolithic period in Britain lasted from circa 11,600 to 7,800 BP , at a time when the island was heavily forested and when there

12420-441: The human past. In doing so, they forged the theoretical school of processual archaeology . The processual archaeologists took a particular interest in the ecological impact on human society, and in doing so, the definition of "Neolithic" was "narrowed again to refer just to the agricultural mode of subsistence". In the late 1980s, processualism began to come under increasing criticism by a new wave of archaeologists, who believed in

12558-483: The importance of gender in Neolithic Britain with the taller stones considered "male" and the shorter ones "female". The stones were not dressed in any way and may have been chosen for their pleasing natural forms. The human bones found by Gray point to some form of funerary purpose and have parallels in the disarticulated human bones often found at earlier causewayed enclosure sites. Ancestor worship on

12696-633: The innate subjectivity of the discipline. The figures forged the new theoretical school of post-processual archaeology , and a number of post-processualists turned their attention to the Neolithic British Isles. They interpreted the Neolithic as an ideological phenomenon that was adopted by British, Irish and Manx society and led to them creating new forms of material-culture, such as the megalithic funerary and ceremonial monuments. [REDACTED] Media related to Neolithic British Isles at Wikimedia Commons Grassland A grassland

12834-446: The inner stone circle, 2600 BC for the outer circle and henge, and around 2400 BC for the avenues. The construction of large monuments such as those at Avebury indicates that a stable agrarian economy had developed in Britain by around 4000–3500 BC. The people who built them had to be secure enough to spend time on such non-essential activities. Avebury was one of a group of monumental sites that were established in this region during

12972-840: The lack of rain pushing this problem to further heights. When not limited by other factors, increasing CO 2 concentration in the air increases plant growth, similarly as water use efficiency, which is very important in drier regions. However, the advantages of elevated CO 2 are limited by factors including water availability and available nutrients , particularly nitrogen. Thus effects of elevated CO 2 on plant growth will vary with local climate patterns, species adaptations to water limitations, and nitrogen availability. Studies indicate that nutrient depletion may happen faster in drier regions, and with factors like plant community composition and grazing. Nitrogen deposition from air pollutants and increased mineralization from higher temperatures can increase plant productivity, but increases are often among

13110-448: The land is also important, as it is then easier to fertilize, for example. For instance, if it is located near a road. With the development of technology, it is becoming increasingly easy to cultivate land with a steeper gradient, to the detriment of grasslands. The management of grasslands is also changing permanently. There is increased use of mineral fertilizers, furthermore borders and field edges are removed to enlarge fields and leveling

13248-437: The land, 49.7%, was covered with forest and there was also more semi-natural grassland (18.8%) than arable land (15.8%). In 2015 this has changed drastically. The forest cover has increased (50.8%) and arable land has also increased (20.4%), but the semi-natural grassland cover has decreased. Although it still covers a large area of the earth (10.6%). A quarter of semi-natural grassland was lost through intensification, i.e. it

13386-545: The landscape change due to agriculture of the last century. The original wild-plant communities having been replaced by sown monocultures of cultivated varieties of grasses and clovers, such as perennial ryegrass and white clover . In many parts of the world, "unimproved" grasslands are one of the most threatened types of habitat, and a target for acquisition by wildlife conservation groups or for special grants to landowners who are encouraged to manage them appropriately. Grassland vegetation can vary considerably depending on

13524-517: The landscape worldwide. There are different types of grasslands: natural grasslands, semi-natural grasslands, and agricultural grasslands. They cover 31–69% of the Earth's land area. Included among the variety of definitions for grasslands are: Semi-natural grasslands are a very common subcategory of the grasslands biome. These can be defined as: They can also be described as the following: There are many different types of semi-natural grasslands, e.g. hay meadows . The graminoids are among

13662-400: The late medieval and early modern periods, local people destroyed many of the standing stones around the henge, both for religious and practical reasons. The antiquarians John Aubrey and William Stukeley took an interest in Avebury during the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively, and recorded much of the site between various phases of destruction. Archaeological investigation followed in

13800-408: The local persistence of natural grasslands in Europe, originally maintained by wild herbivores, throughout the pre-Neolithic Holocene. The removal of the plants by the grazing animals and later the mowing farmers led to co-existence of other plant species around. In the following, the biodiversity of the plants evolve. Also, the species that already lived there adapted to the new conditions. Most of

13938-487: The middle, its entrance facing northeast. Taking experiments undertaken at the megalithic Ring of Brodgar in Orkney as a basis, the archaeologists Joshua Pollard , Mark Gillings and Aaron Watson believed that any sounds produced inside Avebury's Inner Circles would have created an echo as sound waves reflected off the standing stones. The southern inner ring was 108 metres (354 ft) in diameter before its destruction in

14076-460: The most agriculturally productive areas of the island: Orkney, eastern Scotland, Anglesey, the upper Thames, Wessex, Essex, Yorkshire and the river valleys of the Wash. Late Neolithic Britons also appeared to have changed their religious beliefs, ceasing to construct the large chambered tombs that are widely thought by archaeologists to have been connected with ancestor veneration . Instead, they began

14214-546: The most productive areas, where the soils were more fertile, namely around the Boyne , Orkney , eastern Scotland, Anglesey , the upper Thames , Wessex , Essex , Yorkshire and the river valleys of The Wash . Those areas saw an intensification of agricultural production and larger settlements. The Neolithic houses of the British Isles were typically rectangular and made out of wood and so none had survived to this day. Nonetheless, foundations of such buildings have been found in

14352-544: The most versatile life forms . They became widespread toward the end of the Cretaceous period, and coprolites of fossilized dinosaur feces have been found containing phytoliths of a variety of grasses that include grasses that are related to modern rice and bamboo . The appearance of mountains in the western United States during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, a period of some 25 million years, created

14490-447: The name given to the stone. Alexander Keiller and Stuart Piggott published short reports from the excavations, however the outbreak of World War II, Keiller's failing health and dwindling finances, and Piggott's career which took him abroad during the war and into new archaeological projects post war, meant that they did not publish a full report. The archeologist Isobel Smith was commissioned by Gabrielle Keiller to synthesise and complete

14628-604: The nearby towns of Cunetio , Durocornovium and the villas and farms around Devizes and visited Avebury and its surrounding prehistoric monuments via a newly constructed road. Evidence of visitors at the monument during this period has been found in the form of Roman-era pottery sherds uncovered from the ditch. In the Early Middle Ages , which began in the 5th century following the collapse of Roman rule, Anglo-Saxon tribes from continental Europe migrated to southern Britain , where they may have come into conflict with

14766-464: The new farmland, the early agricultural communities undertook mass deforestation across the islands, which dramatically and permanently transformed the landscape. At the same time, new types of stone tools requiring more skill began to be produced, and new technologies included polishing. Although the earliest indisputably-acknowledged languages spoken in the British Isles belonged to the Celtic branch of

14904-559: The north and south entrances. Radiocarbon dating of some stone settings indicate a construction date of around 2870–2200 BC. The two large stones at the Southern Entrance had an unusually smooth surface, likely due to having stone axes polished on them. Nearer the middle of the monument are two additional, separate stone circles. The northern inner ring is 98 metres (322 ft) in diameter, but only two of its four standing stones remain upright. A cove of three stones stood in

15042-614: The original diversity of plants having been destroyed by cultivation and by the use of fertilizers. Almost 90% of the European semi-natural grasslands do not exist anymore due to political and economic reasons. This loss took place during the 20th century. The ones in Western and Central Europe have almost disappeared completely. There are a few left in Northern Europe. Unfortunately, a large amount of red-listed species are specialists of semi-natural grasslands and are affected by

15180-410: The period that appear never to have been used, some being too fragile to have been used in any case. The latter axes most likely had a decorative or ceremonial function. Neolithic Britons were capable of building a variety of different wooden constructions. For instance, in the marshland of the Somerset Levels in south-western Britain, a wooden trackway was built in the winter of 3807 BC and connected

15318-445: The plants more resistant to insect and microbial attacks. Grassland in all its form supports a vast variety of mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects. Typical large mammals include the blue wildebeest , American bison , giant anteater , and Przewalski's horse . The plants and animals that live in grasslands are connected through an unlimited web of interactions. But the removal of key species—such as buffalo and prairie dogs within

15456-474: The possibility that Avebury first gained some sort of ceremonial significance during the Late Mesolithic period. As evidence, they highlighted the existence of a posthole near the monument's southern entrance that would have once supported a large wooden post. Although this posthole was never dated when it was excavated in the early 20th century, and so cannot definitely be ascribed to the Mesolithic, Gillings and Pollard noted that its positioning had no relation to

15594-401: The presence of a certain species indicates what the area was like at a particular time. The available evidence suggests that in the early Neolithic, Avebury and the surrounding hills were covered in dense oak woodland, and as the Neolithic progressed, the woodland around Avebury and the nearby monuments receded and was replaced by grassland. The history of the site before the construction of

15732-419: The rest of the henge, and that it may therefore have been erected centuries or even millennia before the henge was actually built. They compared this with similar wooden posts that had been erected in southern Britain during the Mesolithic at Stonehenge and Hambledon Hill , both of which were sites that like Avebury saw the construction of large monuments in the Neolithic. In the 4th millennium BC, around

15870-824: The risk of misreading and misclassifying of landscapes. A map created by the World Resources Institute in collaboration with the IUCN identifies 2 billion hectares for potential forest restoration . It is criticised for including 900 million hectares of grasslands. It is expected that non-native grasses will continue to outperform native species under warmer and drier conditions that occur in many grasslands due to climate change. The type of land management used in grasslands can also lead to grassland loss/degradation. Many grasslands and other open ecosystems depend on disturbances such as wildfires , controlled burns and/or grazing to persist, although this subject

16008-466: The sarsens had been used to polish stone axes, while others had been "heavily worked". Archaeologist Aubrey Burl believed that rituals would have been performed at Avebury by Neolithic peoples in order "to appease the malevolent powers of nature" that threatened their existence, such as the winter cold, death and disease. In his study of those examples found at Orkney , Colin Richards suggested that

16146-418: The site of Hambledon Hill. They may have been imported from Continental Europe , or they might have been grown on British soil, as the climate was warmer than that of the early 21st century. As the archaeologist John C. Barrett noted, "There never was a single body of beliefs which characterise 'neolithic religion'... The variety of practices attested by [the various Neolithic] monuments cannot be explained as

16284-404: The start of the Neolithic period in Britain, British society underwent radical changes. These coincided with the introduction of domesticated species of animals and plants, as well as a changing material culture that included pottery. These developments allowed hunter-gatherers to settle down and produce their own food. As agriculture spread, people cleared land. At the same time, they also erected

16422-514: The stone and wooden circles built in Neolithic Britain might have represented the centre of the world, or axis mundi , for those who constructed them, something Aaron Watson adopted as a possibility in his discussion of Avebury. A great deal of interest surrounds the morphology of the stones, which are usually described as being in one of two categories; tall and slender, or short and squat. This has led to numerous theories relating to

16560-472: The stones and facial reconstructions for the human remains found across the landscape; and Denis Grant King created illustrations, plans and section drawings. Upwards of 50 men from across Wiltshire served as 'hands' during the excavations over the 6 year period, doing the hard work of digging and re-erecting stones. During excavations in 1938, Keiller's team excavated the skeleton of a man from beneath Stone 38 (Stone 9 using Isobel Smith's system), now known as

16698-558: The stones, one was found to extend at least 2.1 metres (7 ft) below ground. It was estimated to weigh more than 100 tons, making it one of the largest found in the UK. Later that year, a geophysical survey of the southeast and northeast quadrants of the circle by the National Trust revealed at least 15 of the megaliths lying buried. The survey identified their sizes, the direction in which they are lying, and where they fitted in

16836-413: The terrain to facilitate the use of agricultural machinery. The professional study of dry grasslands falls under the category of rangeland management , which focuses on ecosystem services associated with the grass-dominated arid and semi-arid rangelands of the world. Rangelands account for an estimated 70% of the earth's landmass; thus, many cultures including those of the United States are indebted to

16974-404: The third millennium BC, during the Neolithic , or New Stone Age, the monument comprises a large henge (a bank and a ditch) with a large outer stone circle and two separate smaller stone circles situated inside the centre of the monument. Its original purpose is unknown, although archaeologists believe that it was most likely used for some form of ritual or ceremony. The Avebury monument is a part of

17112-425: The transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society was gradual, over a period of centuries, or rapid, accomplished within a century or two. The process of the introduction of agriculture is still not fully understood, and as the archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson noted: There is no doubt that domesticated animals and plants had to be carried by boat from the continent of Europe to the British Isles. There are

17250-525: The village of Avebury and its associated settlement of Avebury Trusloe, and in the nearby hamlets of Beckhampton and West Kennett. At grid reference SU10266996 , Avebury is respectively about 6 and 7 miles (10 and 11 km) from the modern towns of Marlborough and Calne . The monuments at the Avebury World Heritage Site cover about 8 + 3 ⁄ 4 square miles (23 square kilometres). Avebury lies in an area of chalkland in

17388-593: The wild-plant diversity of the "unimproved" grasslands is usually a rich invertebrate fauna; there are also many species of birds that are grassland "specialists", such as the snipe and the little bustard . Owing to semi-natural grasslands being referred to as one of the most-species rich ecosystems in the world and essential habitat for many specialists, also including pollinators, there are many approaches to conservation activities lately. Agriculturally improved grasslands, which dominate modern intensive agricultural landscapes, are usually poor in wild plant species due to

17526-467: The world's grasslands are converted from natural landscapes to fields of corn, wheat or other crops. Grasslands that have remained largely intact thus far, such as the East African savannas , are in danger of being lost to agriculture. Grasslands are very sensitive to disturbances, such as people hunting and killing key species, or plowing the land to make more space for farms. Grassland vegetation

17664-483: The years. The following relates to the changes between 1960 and 2015. There has been a decrease in semi-natural grasslands and an increase in areas with arable land , forest and land used for infrastructure and buildings. The line style and relative thickness of the lines indicates the percentage of the total area that changed. Changes less than 1% and land-cover classes with all changes less than 1% (i.e. semi-natural wetlands and water) are not included. In 1960 most of

17802-435: Was "on a frontier between worlds above and beneath the ground." The Avebury monument is a henge , a type of monument consisting of a large circular bank with an internal ditch. The henge is not perfectly circular and measures 347.4 metres (380 yd) in diameter and over 1,000 metres (1,090 yd) in circumference. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the henge was made by the middle of the third millennium BC. The top of

17940-490: Was coincidental although the hypothesis has also been suggested that farmers intentionally spread the beetles so that they destroyed the elm forests to provide more deforested land for farming. Meanwhile, from around 3500 to 3300 BCE, many of those deforested areas began to see reforestation and mass tree regrowth, indicating that human activity had retreated from those areas. Around the period between 3500 and 3300 BC, agricultural communities had begun centring themselves upon

18078-412: Was converted into arable or pasture land and forests. It is more likely that intensification will occur in flat semi-natural grasslands, especially if the soil is fertile. On the other hand, grasslands, where the land is drought-prone or less productive, are more likely to persist as semi-natural grasslands than grasslands with fertile soil and low gradient of the terrain. Furthermore, the accessibility of

18216-579: Was found on a meadow in Estonia described 76 species of plants in one square meter. Chalk downlands in England can support over 40 species per square meter. In many parts of the world, few examples have escaped agricultural improvement (fertilizing, weed killing, plowing, or re-seeding). For example, original North American prairie grasslands or lowland wildflower meadows in the UK are now rare and their associated wild flora equally threatened. Associated with

18354-766: Was in the Near East that the "most important developments in early farming" occurred in the Levant and the Fertile Crescent , which stretched through what are now parts of Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Jordan , Turkey , Iran and Iraq , areas that already had rich ecological variation, which was being exploited by hunter-gatherers in the Late Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic periods. Early signs of these hunter-gatherers beginning to harvest, manipulate and grow various food plants have been identified in

18492-565: Was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in a co-listing with the monuments at Stonehenge, 17 miles (27 km) to the south, in 1986. It is now listed as part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites World Heritage Site . The monuments are preserved as part of a Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape for the information they provide regarding prehistoric people's relationship with the landscape. Radiocarbon dating and analysis of pollen and occasionally insects in buried soils have shown that

18630-429: Was picked up by another antiquarian in the following century, William Stukeley (1687–1765), who had studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge before he became a professional doctor. The term "Neolithic" was first coined by the archaeologist John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury , in his 1865 book Pre-historic times, as illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and customs of modern savages . He used it to refer to

18768-500: Was still a land mass, called Doggerland , which connected Britain to continental Europe. During this era, those humans living in Britain were hunter-gatherers , often moving around the landscape in small familial or tribal groups in search of food and other resources. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that there were some of these hunter-gatherers active around Avebury during the Late Mesolithic, with stray finds of flint tools , dated between 7000 and 4000 BC, having been found in

18906-570: Was the antiquary and writer John Aubrey (1626–1697), who had been born into a wealthy gentry family before he went on to study at Trinity College, Oxford , until his education was disrupted by the outbreak of the English Civil War between Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. He recorded his accounts of the megalithic monuments in a book, the Monumenta Britannica , but it remained unpublished. Nonetheless, Aubrey's work

19044-471: Was the curator of Avebury's Alexander Keiller Museum, it is possible that the monuments associated with Neolithic sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge constituted ritual or ceremonial centres. Archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson noted that the addition of the stones to the henge occurred at a similar date to the construction of Silbury Hill and the major building projects at Stonehenge and Durrington Walls . For this reason, he speculated that there may have been

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