Mankind’s message to planetary onlookers
Blood-red poppies and purple loosestrife grew thickly in the hedgerows. A solitary sparrow hawk circled slowly above in a sky that was an almost cloudless blue.
The birthday picnic was to take place on Windmill Hill, a favourite family destination deep in the Wiltshire countryside, high above the plethora of prehistoric sites around the Avebury complex.
It’s a park and walk situation, up a narrow unmade track which also doubles as a bridle path for the many horse owners in this area. Duly loaded up with backpacks, picnic baskets, blankets and more, we set off on the half mile walk, the dogs racing eagerly ahead.
This is an expedition we’ve made many times over the years and we’ve never met anyone else on this path, apart from a solitary rider one winter’s afternoon. This might be because Windmill Hill’s charms are not as immediately obvious as those of the giant megaliths at Avebury, only a mile away and the much-visited Stonehenge.
But Windmill Hill has a special quality that is as hard to describe, as it is to capture in photograph. And it has earned its place in the history books.
It is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, part of the Avebury World Heritage Site and is the largest known causewayed enclosure in Britain, providing a unique insight into daily life a very long time ago. The site was first occupied 3,800 years ago when flints were used and later, a series of mysterious pits and ditches were dug. Later excavations revealed a complex pattern of irregular habitation, bones that were discovered suggesting that this occurred mainly at two pivotal points of the agricultural year — spring and autumn.
But all that was waiting to be discovered here was very nearly lost to posterity when in the 1920s, plans were afoot to build a Marconi wireless station on the hill. Alexander Keiller, son and very wealthy heir of the marmalade family who had an interest in archaeology, heard about Marconi’s plans and promptly bought Windmill Hill, thereby saving one of the very few known Neolithic open sites from destruction.
Keiller began excavations and obviously became increasingly fascinated with the area and its sites because he later purchased the Avebury complex and village too.
Keiller, a well-known eccentric, moved in to the medieval Avebury Manor House, built on the sire of an earlier monastery where he set to work documenting and saving sites and indulging in some off-the-wall-carryings on that seriously alarmed the locals.
But whatever about his personal life, without him, so much that is invaluable would have been lost forever.
Three rings of concentric ditches on Windmill Hill are interrupted by small chalk causeways between each section, covering an area of 21 acres. What always amazes me about these monumental efforts is that they did all this with antler picks and rakes, ox shoulder blade shovels.
English Heritage, who have charge of the site, have estimated that the work was probably done by small groups of people, and that their labour amounted to some 62 to 64,000 hours of work, which probably took place over many years. So what, exactly was it that happened here which necessitated such continuous labour?
Remains of flimsy structures were discovered and a more substantial rectangular building which may have been used for holding cattle or then again, for exposing the bodies of the dead prior to ritual burial.
In any event, we can be sure that this significant site came into its own at this time of year — early autumn when the equinox and harvest required a celebration of nature’s abundance. Equally important were the rites to ensure that in spring the cycle would begin again.
It was a time for long-term planning on the land. And on Windmill Hill, where it is believed that many hundreds of people gathered, it was also a time for feasting, fires, exchanging corn seed and making matches between the different clans, some of whom may have travelled many miles for the occasions.
Cattle were traded and slaughtered and the furs of fox and wildcat prized for clothing in the coming winter months traded. At such times, Windmill Hill must have been a hive of noise and activity.
Less understandable were what appears to be the discovery of ritual depositions of rubbish, animal bones and complete skeletons along the bottom of the ditches.
The general picture archaeologists have compiled is of a farming community living a prosperous and relatively peaceful life, and, at certain times of the year, enjoying large social gatherings.
In the later Bronze Age, round barrows were constructed on Windmill Hill and domestic use of the site seems to have ceased although the remains of a Roman villa was found on the western slop of the hill. It was to one of the Bronze Age barrows that we were headed.
And we, too, feasted, talked, exchanged family news and tried to imagine the bellows of animals, laughter of children and all the scents, sounds and smells that must have permeated this busy site now windswept and so utterly silent apart from the lark startled by one of the dogs that spiralled skywards above us, leaving a cascade of notes in its wake.
Windmill Hill was also a favourite location for the now famous crop circle. According to one study nearly half of all circles found in the UK were located within a 15km radius of Avebury.
Indeed, we’d seen one ourselves on the way up here — a flurry of eager croppies with cameras, a hovering helicopter and by the looks of it, a not too happy farmer.
