Stonehenge: a Mesolithic to Romano-British landscape

The course will examine the first phase of occupation in the Salisbury Plain area - the hunter gatherer period followed by studying the early Neolithic monumentalisation of the area – The Coneybury Anomaly, the Cursus, the long barrows and the first phases of Stonehenge. We will then examine the landscape in its Bronze and Iron Age phases, in particular the later buildings of Stonehenge, the round barrows, and examine the development of hillfort sites during the Iron Age. Romano-British responses to the Stonehenge landscape will also be explored.

We will discuss the ‘big questions’ about Stonehenge and its landscape: Why is it where it is? What was it for? And where did the people come from who first used the landscape in the Mesolithic and who later built and used the Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments?