Woodhenge

Large wood circle, a sacred monument just northeast of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, and adjacent to Durrington Walls. It consists of a henge-type earthwork with a wooden structure inside. A central grave was surrounded in turn by six egg-shaped concentric rings of postholes, a ditch, and a bank with a single entrance. The long axis of the oval pointed to the midsummer sunrise; on this axis in the center of the shrine was found buried the skeleton of a three-year-old child, a ritual sacrifice. The pottery was a variant of the grooved ware style and Beaker sherds were also found. The monument has a radiocarbon date of c 2230-1800 BC.

A henge monument next door to Durrington Walls in Wiltshire, southern England. Woodhenge is a small Class I henge with a single entrance. Inside were six concentric rings of wooden posts, not in a circular formation, but in an ‘egg-shaped ring’ (see stone circle) representing either a wooden building or free-standing timber posts. At the centre of the monument was a small cairn covering the burial of an infant with a cleft skull — one of the few clear indications of human sacrifice in British prehistory. The monument has a radiocarbon date of cl800 be (c2230 bc).