New tools at Avebury

Extract

Although significant to societies at a local, regionaland national level for up to 6000 years, the prehistoriclandscape of Avebury, Wiltshire, was formallyattributed the accolade of being 'globally important'in November 1986. At this time the United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation(UNESCO) inscribed Avebury onto the growing listof World Heritage Sites (http://www.unesco.orglwhc), and along with England's most notorious prehistoricmonument, 'Stonehenge, Avebury, and associatedsites' ((373) was created.The joint nomination ofboth Avebury and Stonehengeby the UK government was rational. At a timewhen no UK sites were on the list, seven UK applicationswere being presented to UNESCO and it wasconsidered that there would be a better chance ofboth landscapes being accepted if they were consideredas one site. Indeed, in comparison with thevariety of cultural and temporal variation in nominations,Stonehenge and Avebury are similar. It istrue that upon closer inspection there are both comparableand contrasting patterns of monument type,construction, use and disuse, but when comparingthese differences to those between here and DnrhamCastle or Ironbridge Gorge, for example, Stonehengeand Avebury certainly have an affinity