Woodhenge is a Neolithic Class II henge and timber circle monument within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in Wiltshire, England. It is northeast of Stonehenge, in Durrington parish, just north of the town of Amesbury.
Discovery
Woodhenge was believed to be identified from an aerial photograph taken by pilot and World War I veteran Gilbert Insall, VC, in 1926, during the same period that an aerial archaeology survey of Wessex by Alexander Keiller and O. G. S. Crawford (Archaeology Officer for the Ordnance Survey) was being undertaken. Although some sources attribute the identification of the henge to Crawford, he credits the discovery
Date
Pottery from the excavation was identified as being consistent with the grooved ware style of the middle Neolithic, although later beaker sherds were also found. Thus, the structure was probably built during the period of cultural similarities commonly known as the Beaker. The Bell Beaker culture spans both the Late Neolithic and Britain's early Bronze Age and includes both the distinctive "bell beaker" type ceramic vessels for which the cultural grouping is known, and other local styles of pottery from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.
While construction of the timber monument was probably earlier, the ditch has been dated to between 2470 and 2000 BCE, which would be about the same time as, or slightly later than, construction of the stone circle at Stonehenge. Radiocarbon dating of artefacts shows that the site was still in use around 1800 BC.
Structure
left|thumb|An on-site plaque detailing the plan of the rings
The site consists of six concentric oval rings of postholes, the outermost being about wide. They are surrounded first by a single flat-bottomed ditch, deep and up to wide, and finally by an outer bank, about wide and high. Subsequent theories have indicated that the weight and pressure of the soil over the years could have caused the skull to fragment. After excavation, the remains were taken to London, where they were destroyed during The Blitz, making further examination impossible. Cunnington also found a crouched inhumation of a teenager within a grave dug in the eastern section of the ditch, opposite the entrance. possibly connecting them physically as well as spiritually.
One suggestion is that the use of wood rather than stone may have held a special significance in the beliefs and practices involving the transformation between life and death,