402 t^EPORfS ON THE StATE OF SCIENCE. 



again, the connection, if any, which Avebury had with Silbury Hill ' 

 remains yet to be determined. But the excavations recently conducted 

 at Avebury were carried out, not to attempt to prove the above- 

 mentioned points, but to endeavour to increase our knowledge with 

 regard to the probable date of construction of Avebury, and to test the 

 hypothesis put forward so often, that because the sarsens of Avebury 

 are entirely unwoi'ked, the monument must be of earlier construction than 

 Stonehenge with its dressed stones. 



The Avebury of to-day consists of a few enormous standing stones 

 and similar prostrate stones, scattered over an area which is usually 

 recorded as 28| acres and is suri'ounded by a stupendous fosse, now 

 to a large extent silted up ; this again is bounded by a vallum of 

 imposing height, of which more than three-quarters remain, many parts 

 being well preserved. The mutilation of the bank and ditch was caused 

 chietiy by the building of the village and the construction of roads which 

 approach the ancient monument from four directions. Walls and houses, 

 obviously built of the venerable stones cracked up for the purpose, meet 

 one's gaze at every turn. Indeed, as Lord Avebury has said in 

 ' Prehistoric Times,' ' the pretty little village of Avebury, like some 

 beautiful parasite, has grown up at the expense, and in the midst of the 

 ancient temple.' 



Aubrey,- Stukeley, and Hoare all agreed that a circle of stones 

 followed the course of the fosse on its inner side, and that there were 

 two smaller circles within the greater — one north and one south — each 

 of Avhich, according to Stukeley, contained a concentric circle ; that in 

 the centre of the N. ring there was the so-called ' Cove,' and in the 

 middle of the S. circle a central monolith (according to Stukeley only). 

 There is now no trace of concentric circles.^ Stukeley's and Crocker's 

 plans give the diameter of both circles as 410 feet, whereas Lukis 



' Silbury Hill is on the N. side of the main Bath road between Calne and 

 Marlborougb, at a distance of 4,750 feet from the centre of the Avebury large 

 circle, in a direction slightly W. of S. It is the largest artificial mound in 

 Britain, having an average perpendicular height of 125 feet; its diameter at base 

 is from 552 to 5C5 feet; circumference at base about 1,660 feet; angle of elevation, 



30°. 



Stukeley, in his work on 'Abury,' published in 1743, says: 'In the month of 

 March 1723, Mr. Halford ordered some trees to be planted on the top of Silbury 

 Hill, in the area of the plain 60 cubits in diameter. . . . The workmen dug up tho 

 body of the great king, there buried in the centre, very little below the surface.' 



In 1777, a shaft was sunk from the summit by the Dulse of Northumberland and 

 Col. Drax. It is to be regretted that no detailed account of these operations is 

 upon record ; all that is known was published by Douglas in his Nenia Britannica, 

 p. 161. In 18-19 the base of the mound was tunnelled from the western 'isthmus ' 

 on the S. side of the hill. Two pieces of red-deer antler were found, and on the 

 old surface fragments of a sort of string of two strands, each twisted. Vertebras 

 and ribs of oxen (? red-deer) and a large tooth were also discovered. It is recorded 

 that the Eoyal Archfeological Institute came across the shaft, 5 feet x 4| feet, 

 previously sunk from the summit of the hill, as before mentioned. {Proc. Ji. Arch. 

 Inst., Salisbury vol., 1849, see papers by Dean Merewether and C. Tucker, 73-81 

 and 297-303.) Excavations were conducted at Silbury Hill in 1867 to ascertain 

 the direction taken by, and the position of, the Roman Road with relation to Silbury 

 Hill. (See Preb, Wilkinson's paper, Wilts Arch. Mag., xi. 113-118.) 



- The stones of Avebury were first noticed by Aubrey in 1648-9. 



^ Of the N. inner circle. Sir R. C. Hoare's surveyor (Crocker) marked one stone 

 as remaining in 1812, and Dean Merewether testifies to the existence of two prostrate 

 stones in 1849. (A. L. Lewis in Joxirn, Anthrop. Inst., 1891.) 



