Buried landscapes of the Avon Riverside and the Mesolithic of the Stonehenge Area

最近对巨石阵世界遗产遗址(SHWS)的发掘和一项试点研究(2020)提供了一个意想不到的机会来揭示该地区在整个中石器时代和新石器时代之前的历史。这解决了关于新石器时代早期的起源和中石器时代晚期考古活动的性质的长期争论。这是一个有景观的时期-相互作用在很大程度上仍然基于其他地区的模型。在建立纪念碑之前，巨石阵地区是一个持久的地方吗？没有新的数据，这场争论是没有结果的；然而，在Amesbury(Blick Mead)、Bluestonehenge和沿着雅芳山谷西坡的测试坑的发掘揭示了隐藏的潜力，为纪念性建筑群提供了中新世环境背景。在Blick Mead发现的，沿着白垩岩的东部边缘，在铁器时代山堡下到西阿梅斯伯里，是一套半连续的黄土沉积物，原生的和重新加工的，夹层地表和古土壤，延伸到4米深。该项目的基础是利用这一资源调查SWHS东部的新石器时代前环境，从Durrington Wall到西Amesbury，向南延伸到Old Sarum，以及索尔兹伯里以南的唐顿的另一个较小的地区。这是及时的，原因有四：1)Blick Mead的基于沉积物的初步测年表明，黄土成分产生了准确的和可能相当精确的基于沉积物的(OSL)年龄，2)Blick Mead的初步工作已经能够恢复古代sedaDNA，因此为类似的中石器时代序列提供了机会，3)这些沉积物的位置与排干SWHS大部分的‘干山谷’沉积物集水相联系，以及4)以前的迹象表明，沿着山谷边缘到索尔兹伯里和唐顿周围的环境潜力。该项目有4个工作包：WP1--地球物理(GPR和ERT)、激光雷达、杜林顿墙和Countesweir环形交叉路口之间以及Blick Mead和West Amesbury之间的直推和取心横断面，一直到Old Sarum和Downton。向南延伸部分是为了测试SWHS地区不同甚至独特的条件的命题。测试坑(8-10米，2x2米)将在地层学最复杂或信息最丰富的位置挖掘。我们也希望收集尽可能多的现场数据，包括pXRF和pOSL/pIRSL。WP2-使用U形通道、X射线岩心扫描(ITRAX)、磁化率LOI sedaDNA和土壤微形态的亚采样。我们也有来自2020年采样的4个地点的样本(储存在南安普顿的4个OC)。WP3-sedaDNA提取、OSL测定、花粉处理和计数。将进行sedaDNA聚合酶链式反应和测序，并由PDRA1(Hudson)进行生物信息学处理。WP4-地层和沉积数据将使用假山工程和剖面以及链接到小岛屿世界其他项目分析数据补充文件的单位汇编成4D模型。虽然该项目主要是以田野考古为重点，但它确实嵌套了创新技术，特别是直接推进穿透法和sedaDNA元数据库编码。这些将得到从花粉分析到土壤微形态等更传统的技术的支持。虽然该项目以SWHS(有一个离群点的下谷)为基础，但它将对韦塞克斯、其他中石器时代遗址集中的地区，如肯内特山谷，以及其他不朽的新石器时代-青铜时代景观，如多塞特郡的克兰伯恩大通和诺森伯兰的米尔菲尔德平原，产生更广泛的影响。欧洲大陆也提出了类似的问题，尽管在一些地区较早，在另一些地区，新石器时代早期-青铜时代早期遗址的位置似乎有环境因素(如德国的PömMelte)。为了承担这一项目，我们组建了一支世界知名的巨石阵和环境考古专家团队。

Recent excavations in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SHWS) and a pilot study (2020) have provided an unexpected opportunity to reveal the history of the area throughout the Mesolithic and just prior to the Neolithic. This tackles a long-running debate about the antecedence of the early Neolithic, and the nature of the archaeological activity in the late Mesolithic. This is a period with landscape-interactions are still largely based on models from other areas. Was the Stonehenge area a persistent place prior to the erection of the monuments? Without new data this debate is sterile; however, the excavations at Amesbury (Blick Mead), Bluestonehenge and test pitting along the west slope of the Avon valley, have revealed a buried potential to provide the Meso-Neo environmental context for the monumental complexes. Revealed at Blick Mead, along the eastern edge of the chalk and under the Iron Age hillfort to West Amesbury, is a semi-continuous set of deposits of loess, primary and reworked, with intercalated land-surfaces and palaeosols, extending to 4m depth. The project is based on using this resource to investigate the pre-Neolithic environment of the eastern part of the SWHS from Durrington Walls to West Amesbury extending south to Old Sarum and another smaller area at Downton south of Salisbury. This is timely for four reasons: 1) preliminary sediment-based dating at Blick Mead suggests that the loess component yields accurate and potentially quite precise sediment-based (OSL) dates, 2) preliminary work at Blick Mead has been able to recover ancient sedaDNA and so offers opportunity for similar Mesolithic sequences, 3) the location of these deposits links with 'dry-valley' sediment catchments draining a large part of SWHS, and 4) previous indications of environmental potential down the valley edge to Salisbury and around Downton. The project has 4 workpackages; WP1 - geophysics (GPR and ERT), Lidar, direct-push and coring transects between Durrington Walls and the Countesweir Roundabout and between Blick Mead and West Amesbury, down to Old Sarum and at Downton. The extension south is partly to test the proposition of different, or even unique, conditions in the SWHS area. Test pits (8-10, 2x2m) will be excavated at the locations with the most complex or informative stratigraphy. We also hope to collect as much data in the field as possible, including pXRF and pOSL/pIRSL. WP2 - sub-sampling using U-channels, Xray core scanning (Itrax), magnetic susceptibility LOI sedaDNA and soil micromophology. We also have samples from the 4 sites that sampled in 2020 (stored at 4 oC at Southampton). WP3 - sedaDNA extraction, OSL determination, and processing pollen and counting. SedaDNA PCR and sequencing will be undertaken and PDRA1 (Hudson) will do the bioinformatics processing. WP4 - The stratigraphic and sedimentary data will be compiled into a 4D model using Rockworks and profiles and units linked to supplementary files of analytical data from other projects in the SWHS. Whilst the project is primarily field-archaeology focused it does have innovative techniques nested within it, particularly direct push penetrometry and sedaDNA metabarcoding. These will be supported by more traditional techniques from pollen analysis to soil micromorphology. Although based around the SWHS (with an outlier down-valley), the project will have wider implications to Wessex, other areas with concentrations of Mesolithic sites such as the Kennet Valley, and other monumental Neolithic-Bronze Age landscapes such as the Cranborne Chase, Dorset and Milfield Plain, Northumberland. Similar questions have also been raised in Continental Europe even if earlier in some areas and later in others where there appears to be an environmental factor in the location of early Neolithic-early Bronze Age sites (e.g. Pömmelte, Germany). To undertake this project we have assembled a world-renowned team of experts on Stonehenge and also environmental archaeology.