It is over one hundred years since the publication of the wide ranging archaeological field investigation undertaken on the Marlborough Downs by the Rev A C Smith. His work Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs in a Hundred Square Miles round Abury was originally published in two volumes in 1884 by the Marlborough College Natural History Society, then reprinted and bound into a single volume and published in 1885 by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society after half the original print run was destroyed in a fire. As in most works of inventory the volume has certainly stood the test of time and is still one of the basic reference texts for students of the area. Since then, apart from a few notable exceptions, archaeological literature about the area has been largely site-based and there has been little concerning the Marlborough Downs as a whole. In order to try and redress this imbalance, a day conference was organised in April 2002 at the University of Bath, Swindon, where it was possible to acknowledge and mark the ongoing validity of Smith's work and where a number of papers on various aspects of recent research on the Marlborough Downs were presented. The results of the conference are presented in this volume, together with a number of other commissioned contributions from individuals who have undertaken research in the area during the last decade or so. Each essay stands alone, but they are connected by a common theme, that of the land and how it has changed over millennia.
List of illustrations
List of Tables
List of contributors
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Some observations on change, consolidation and perception in the chalk landscape (David Field, Graham Brown and David McOmish)
Fieldwork in the Avebury area (David McOmish, Hazel Riley, David Field and Carenza Lewis)
Recent aerial survey work in the Marlborough Downs region (Simon Crutchley)
The investigation of sites on the Marlborough Downs using geophysical methods (Andrew David)
The geological history of the Marlborough Downs (Isobel Geddes and Helen Walkington)
The Palaeolithic of the Marlborough Downs and Avebury area (Julie Scott Jackson)
Some observations on perception, consolidation and change in a land of stones (David Field)
Considering prehistoric environmental changes on the Marlborough Downs (Michael J. Allen)
Mesolithic hunter-gatherer exploitation of the Marlborough Downs (Stephen Allen)
Memory, monuments and middens in the Neolithic landscape (Joshua Pollard)
Avebury, the Marlborough Downs and their local context in the Early Bronze Age (Ros Cleal)
Bronze Age land allotment on the Marlborough Downs (David McOmish)
"There wur a bit of ould brass": Bronze Age metalwork and the Marlborough Downs landscape (Martyn Barber)
Prehistoric linear ditches on the Marlborough Downs, Wiltshire: an initial view (Graeme Kirkham)
The middle Iron Age on the Marlborough Downs (Mark Bowden)
From pagus to parish: Territory and Settlement in the Avebury region from the Late Roman Period to the Domesday Survey (Andrew Reynolds)
The monastic settlement and land-use on the Marlborough Downs (Graham Brown)
Medieval and later sheep farming on the Marlborough Downs (Nicky Smith)
'New myths at Swallowhead: the past and the present in the landscape of the Marlborough Downs' (Jon Cannon)
As Archaeological Investigators for the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England and subsequently English Heritage, the authors spent well over 20 years working on the archaeological landscapes of southern England. During that time all the major monuments of the Neolithic period were investigated, Avebury, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill, and their particular brand of earthwork analysis and landscape investigation provides a unique large-scale interpretation of the period. They have prepared numerous reports and journal articles on the subject and written the definitive publication on ‘The field archaeology of Salisbury Plain Training Area’ as well as a companion volume ‘The Avebury Landscape’.
David McOmish is a Historic Environment Intelligence Officer with English Heritage
