An important archaeological discovery may shed new light on a key aspect of Stonehenge's origins.
The area around the world-famous prehistoric temple was almost certainly occupied or sometimes sacred for thousands of years before the great stone monument was erected 45 centuries ago.
Archaeological research conducted in the 1960s, 100 meters north of Stonehenge, revealed that giant wooden totem poles had been placed there about 5,500 years before the famous stone monument was built.
But only pits have been found where wooden obelisks likely once stood, so archaeologists have no idea what these "totem poles" might have looked like in the Stone Age.
However, research 28 miles northeast of Stonehenge has uncovered a large portion of an ornate wooden monument that may provide clues to the shape of pre-Stonehenge "totem poles".
The meter long piece (probably originally part of a large decorated wooden obelisk or other structure) was the last radiocarbon dated piece as the oldest decorative wooden piece found in Britain.
Discovered near the village of Boxford in Berkshire, it was built around 6,640 years ago and thus belongs to the same Mesolithic period (middle stone age) as the supposed 'totem pole' at the site of Stonehenge.
It is decorated with the parallel slits used in Britain's oldest prehistoric pottery.
The only other known example of an ornate British Mesolithic wooden "monument" is in South Wales and has a similar design.
Huge logs survive in Boxford and South Wales because they were (perhaps deliberately) placed in bogs in prehistoric times. The Boxford example was found at a depth of 1.5 meters in a bog pit, while the South Wales example was found in an ancient watercourse.
Both may at one time have stood erect as visible wooden monuments, but were eventually placed in final watery resting places as offerings to nature spirits or ancestors.
Very little British Mesolithic art has been found, but the few examples that have been found appear abstract or symbolic (consisting mainly of parallel lines and geometric patterns). This is in contrast to the mainland, where most Mesolithic art depicts humans.
Some British wooden obelisks were much larger.
Three of these in the Stonehenge area are three-quarters of a meter in diameter and maybe eight to ten metres.
The Boxford wood (of which half can survive) was much smaller, probably two to three meters high (and probably had a 'double horn' forked top), while the Welsh specimen was about two meters high.
However, the world's largest Mesolithic wooden monument, a colossal and highly stylized statue from central Russia, five meters high and 12,000 years old, is the world's oldest decorative wooden object.
The wood-covered wood was discovered by local landowner Derek Fawcett, a retired urological surgeon, when he was building the workshop.
“It was a rather unexpected find under a trench that had been dug under the foundations. It was clearly very old and well preserved in the pit.”
“This exciting discovery has helped shed new light on our distant past,” said Duncan Wilson, CEO of Historic England.
The Boxford Timber is one of only two decorative Mesolithic woodblocks ever found in Britain, and is currently preserved at the Historical Science Center of England at Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth.
Originally published
