Solstice-aligned 5,000-year-old monument ‘once in a lifetime find’, say archaeologists

Phil Harding (left) and Matt Leivers, seen here at Stonehenge, have hailed their discovery as further evidence of religious worship at the site. Photograph: Wessex Archaeology/PA View image in fullscreen Phil Harding (left) and Matt Leivers, seen here at Stonehenge, have hailed their discovery as further evidence of religious worship at the site. Photograph: Wessex Archaeology/PA Solstice-aligned 5,000-year-old monument ‘once in a lifetime find’, say archaeologists Wessex Archaeology suspect they have uncovered a prototype for world-famous Stonehenge site in Wiltshire A 5,000-year-old monument that was aligned with the summer and winter solstices and may have served as a prototype for the later solar alignment at Stonehenge has been discovered close to the famous neolithic site, in what archaeologists have described as a “once in a lifetime” find. The structure at Bulford, 5km (3 miles) from the world heritage site in Wiltshire, has been carbon dated to around 3000BC, the same time as the earliest phase of construction at Stonehenge and 500 years before its huge trilithon stones were carefully placed to line up with the midsummer and midwinter sun. It is the earliest solstice-aligned structure in the Wiltshire landscape and one of the very first in Britain, according to experts. The archaeologist Phil Harding, who led the dig on behalf of Wessex Archaeology before the construction of new Ministry of Defence housing, said the discovery was “one of the greatest finds of my career”. Harding nearly didn’t spot it at all, however. Unlike Stonehenge, whose immense solstice-aligned sarsen boulders are still standing 4,500 years later, the Bulford monument consisted of two wooden poles 120 metres apart, which had left only two large post pits in the ground surrounded by a jumble of smaller rubbish pits. Harding, a former presenter on Channel 4’s Time Team, said at first, he and his colleagues had not recognised their discovery. It was only in later analysis of the site plan, when he drew a line with pencil and ruler between the anomalous pair of larger postholes, that he recognised the solstice alignment. “The thing that struck me as soon as I saw that was that [the line was] about 50 degrees off the direct north, which was pretty much the line of the midsummer sunrise. And so I got really, really excited about that.” View image in fullscreen Wessex Archaeology’s illustration of what summer solstice celebrations at Bulford may have looked like 5,000 years ago. Photograph: Wessex Archaeology/PA Further work by Fabio Silva, a “skyscape archaeologist” and expert in ancient astronomical mapping, confirmed that the two wooden poles very accurately lined up with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset in 2950BC, the date of the structure according to extensive radiocarbon analysis. Based on the 1-metre depth of the post pits, the team believe the wooden poles stood 3-4 metres high and would have aligned in a “gunsight” with the solstice sunrise and sunset.