Shearman's Wath

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Shearman's Wath (also called West Ashby) is the location of a henges [ hɛndʒ ] (also called Henge monument ) north of Horncastle in Lincolnshire in England .

The remains of the Henges, discovered in 1970 through aerial photographs, are located 330 m north of the Thimbleby watermill on the glacial sands and gravel about 150 m east of the River Bain. The aerial photographs show a series of cutting marks (areas of distinguishable plant growth) that represent the trench and the holes in the outer ring of the posts.

The trench, which is up to 2.0 m wide, encloses an oval area around 25 m in diameter. It is interrupted by a wide dam in the northwest and a less pronounced second entrance in the southeast. Bridges in the trench at the southeastern entrance indicate a segmented trench construction.

So far, no traces of an outer rampart have been identified, but the trench is surrounded by a ring of at least 24 evenly spaced pits around 3.0 m away, which mark the location of posts or stones. The field inspections around the henge have led to the discovery of flint , which is typically associated with this group of monuments. It is believed that the henge originated in the late Neolithic and was still the focus of attention during the early Bronze Age .

Aerial photographs of the site show the remains of a river east of the bain. If this was the original course of the river, then the henge was closer to the bain than it is today. This could reinforce the argument that the site was connected to other northern locations associated with the Bain, such as Grim's Mound and Ludford Barrow.

literature

  • RJC Atkinson: The henge monuments of Great Britain . In: RJC Atkinson CM Piggott, NK Sandars: Excavations at Dorchester Oxon . First report. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 1951, pp. 81-107.
  • Rodney Castleden: The Stonehenge people. An exploration of life in Neolithic Britain 4700-2000 BC. Routledge, London et al. 1987, ISBN 0-7102-0968-1 (also: ibid. 2002, ISBN 0-415-04065-5 ).
  • Ian Harding: The Henge Monuments of the British Isles: Myth and Archeology 2004, ISBN 0-7524-2508-0 .

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 13 '38.6 "  N , 0 ° 7' 25.9"  W.