Monument record MDO18089 - Maumbury Rings henge monument, Dorchester

A neolithic henge monument comprising a roughly circular bank with internal ditch and a single entrance to the northeast. A number of shafts were dug through the bottom of the ditch and contained a number of deliberate deposits, sealed beneath layers of sterile material. A standing stone may have once stood at the entrance. Most of the interior and the entrance of the monument was destroyed when the Roman amphitheatre was constructed on top. Two radiocarbon dates suggest this monument was constructed in the third millennium BC.

Substantial Neolithic monument discovered during the excavations directed by H St George Gray between 1908-1913. <1>. The monument was fully described and interpreted by Richard Bradley in 1976 <12>. Radiocarbon samples were taken from antler from the museum archive <14> and revised corrected dates subsequently published <16>. The monument comprised a probably circular bank with internal ditch and one entrance to the northeast. A number of deep shafts spaced about three metres apart were dug through the bottom of the ditch. Eight shafts were excavated in full and a further ten were recognised but not fully investigate. Bradley estimates there may have originally been a total of 45 shafts forming a ring of about 52m in diameter <12>. A standing stone may have also been associated with the entrance of this monument <1> though its original location remains in some doubt <12>. The Neolithic bank was not recognised during the excavation, though a number of Neolithic artefacts were recovered, but the photographs clearly show the profile of an earlier bank about three metres high and about 14 m wide within the later Roman amphitheatre earthworks.The bank appears to have comprised alternating layers of fine and coarse chalk rubble with the inner edge retained by a low kerb of turves. This bank sealed a buried land surface and a number of earlier features. The ditch was severely truncated and disturbed by the later construction of the Roman amphitheatre and nowhere did enough survive to indicate its size and profile. Bradley estimated the size of the ditch to be about 3.7m deep and at least 5.7m wide and to have a berm of about 6m between it and the bank (1). A single very truncated ditch terminal was found on the western side of the entrance and all Neolithic levels across the whole of the area of the entrance had been removed during the construction of the Roman amphitheatre. The chalk-cut shafts were about 10m deep and about 3.7m wide at the top tapering down to only about 0.6m at the base. They could be quite irregularly cut with steps and overhangs and all had large weathering cones at the top. The shafts all appeared to have been deliberately filled in with deposits on the base of the shafts, sealed by clean chalk rubble and further deposits higher up the shafts also sealed by clean chalk rubble in most instances. The material recovered from the shafts included antler tools, animal bone and antler, pottery, flint , human bone and carved chalk objects. There appears to be some patterning in these deposits with antler tools, flints and and animal bones consistently found together and the human bone and pottery were found in isolation. The unused antler fragments were associated with carved chalk objects and not deposited with the antler tools or other animal bones. The antler tools, animal bone, chalk objects and pottery were distributed throughout the fillings of the shafts. The flints, human bone and unused antler pieces were confined to the upper part of the fillings. The antler picks, flint, and animal bone were mainly distributed in the western side of the enclosure. Two radiocarbon dates were obtained from antler, one from the base of shaft 1 and the other from the highest undisturbed Neolithic level in shaft 3, giving a date range of between 2880-2042 cal. BC. <16> Excavated by H St George Gray 1908-1913. The present structure is essentially of one prehistoric period, but was adapted by the Romans as an amphitheatre and used as a Parliamentary fort in the Civil War when a gun emplacement in the SW and the internal terrace were built. It was a uniform circular structure with an original height of 15 ft, but the Romans destroyed internal features by levelling it down by 11.75 ft. Only the bottom of the quarry ditch, which consisted of several contiguous funnel-shaped holes dug to an original depth of 35 ft, remained. Ditch and exterior bank had enclosed an area of 280 ft in diameter, bank crest to bank crest, with a single entrance in the North East. A large stone appears to have existed on the west side of the entrance until 1846 when it was buried but no trace of it was found in the excavations of 1879 and 1908-13. The cordoned ware found falls into the grooved ware category. Flint types are EBA. <2-7> <9> Several used antler picks, some cordoned pottery and a chalk phallic symbol were found in the pits. Other finds from the excavations include an uninscribed British coin, Roman pottery, fibulae, coins and an RB burial. There was no indication of seat tiers. This grass-covered earthwork is in a good state of preservation though the summit of the bank, average width 4.0m, has been mutilated in several places. The sides are steep and in the interior have been mutilated on the East and West sides by a narrow terrace which gives the broken-slope effect as shown on OS plans. In the East the average vertical drop is internally 5.6m and externally 4.0m. From the centre of the interior the land slopes gradually up to the only entrance which is in the North East, and fairly steeply up to the top of the bank where the civil war gun platform and ramp has slightly lowered the height of the bank and has made its ascent in the SW more gradual than elsewhere. There is no trace of the internal nor of an external ditch. The finds were seen in the Dorset County Museum. <10> Long recognised as the amphitheatre of Durnovaria, modified during the Civil War. Its original construction as a Neolithic Henge monument incorporating unique features was revealed by the excavations of 1908-13. There is little evidence for the dating of the Roman work, although an inhumation of the 2nd century is certainly later than the construction; the objects on the arena floor and elsewhere suggest use in the 4th century. <10> Re-surveyed at 1:2500 incorporating R.C.H.M. plan. <13> Maumbury Rings. Listed by Harding and Lee as a classic henge monument with evidence for pre-henge pits and gullies. <15>

Record last edited

Mar 14 2024 3:38PM