Windmill Hill is a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

causewayed enclosure A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. It is an enclosure marked out by ditches and banks, with a number of causeways crossing the ditches. More than 100 examples are recorded i ...

in the English county of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, part of the Avebury World Heritage Site, about 1 mile (2 km) northwest of Avebury. Enclosing an area of , it is the largest known causewayed enclosure in Britain. The site was first occupied around 3800 BC, although the only evidence is a series of pits apparently dug by an agrarian society using

Hembury Hembury is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and Iron Age hill fort near Honiton in Devon. Its history stretches from the late fifth and early fourth millennia BC to the Roman invasion. The fort is situated on a south facing promontory at the en ...

pottery. During a later phase, c. 3700 BC, three concentric segmented ditches were placed around the hilltop site, the outermost with a diameter of 365 metres. The causeways interrupting the ditches vary in width from a few centimetres to 7 m. Material from the ditches was piled up to create internal banks; the deepest ditches and largest banks are on the outer circuit. In the same period there was also a rectangular

mortuary enclosure A mortuary enclosure is a term given in archaeology and anthropology to an area, surrounded by a wood, stone or earthwork barrier, in which dead bodies are placed for excarnation and to await secondary and/or collective burial. There are some parall ...

. The site was designated as a scheduled monument in 1925. It came into the ownership of the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

in 1942 and is under the guardianship of

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

Archaeological investigations

The site was bought by Alexander Keiller in 1924 and excavated over several seasons from 1925 to 1929 by Keiller and

Harold St George Gray Harold St George Gray (15 January 1872 – 28 February 1963) was a British archaeologist. He was involved in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and later was the librarian-curator of the Museum for the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History So ...

, whose work established it as the

type site In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Age ...

for causewayed camps, as they were then called. There were further excavations in 1957–1958. Pottery from the bottom of the ditches was the type style for the

Windmill Hill culture The Windmill Hill culture was a name given to a people inhabiting southern Britain, in particular in the Salisbury Plain area close to Stonehenge, c. 3000 BC. They were an agrarian Neolithic people; their name comes from Windmill Hill, a causewa ...

. Later occupation layers contained early Peterborough ware, then the later Mortlake and Fengate varieties. Large quantities of bone, both human and animal, were also recovered from the ditch fill. The camp remained in use throughout the rest of the Neolithic with

Grooved ware Grooved ware is the name given to a pottery style of the British Neolithic. Its manufacturers are sometimes known as the Grooved ware people. Unlike the later Beaker ware, Grooved culture was not an import from the continent but seems to have dev ...

and Beaker potsherds having been found in later deposits. A Bronze Age

bell barrow A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an intern ...

was later built between the inner and middle rings. Michael Dames has proposed a composite theory of seasonal rituals in an attempt to explain Windmill Hill and its associated sites:

West Kennet Long Barrow The West Kennet Long Barrow, also known as South Long Barrow, is a chambered long barrow near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Probably constructed in the thirty-seventh century BC, during Britain's Earl ...

, the

Avebury henge Avebury () is a Neolithic British Isles, Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury (village), Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it conta ...

The Sanctuary The Sanctuary was a stone and timber circle near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Excavation has revealed the location of the 58 stone sockets and 62 post-holes. The ring was part of a tradition of stone ...

, and

Silbury Hill Silbury Hill is a prehistoric artificial chalk mound near Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire. It is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site. At high, it is the tallest prehistoric man-made mound ...

Archaeological investigations

References

Further reading