Giant Neolithic Pits Around Stonehenge Confirmed As Human-Made — New Research Reveals Purposeful Layout

Archaeologists have confirmed that a ring of enormous Neolithic pits encircling the Durrington area near Stonehenge was deliberately dug by people more than 4,000 years ago, according to new research published in the Internet Archaeology Journal.

The formation, known as the Durrington Circle, comprises roughly 20 huge hollows that together stretch for more than a mile around the Neolithic enclosures of Durrington Walls and Woodhenge. First identified in 2020, each pit measures about 10 metres across and exceeds 5 metres in depth.

Mapping Without Major Excavation

Because large-scale excavation would be costly and intrusive, the research team used a suite of non-invasive geophysical techniques to map the subsurface. Multiple survey methods revealed consistent, repeating soil signatures and structural patterns across different parts of the circuit, which the authors say could not be produced by natural processes.

"They can’t be occurring naturally. It just can’t happen," Professor Vince Gaffney, lead author and archaeology professor at the University of Bradford, told The Guardian. "We think we’ve nailed it."

Precision and Purpose

The scale and regularity of the circle suggest the builders used a repeatable measuring method while laying out the features. The team argues that maintaining such even spacing around a monument that large — too extensive to view from a single vantage point — implies practical surveying techniques such as pacing or a simple numerical system.

"The circle is pretty accurate. It suggests that people were pacing the distances out to make sure that the pits were aligned at the same distance all the way around," Gaffney told the BBC, noting similarities in spacing between the pits and the distance from the henge to an earlier enclosure.

Meaning and Context

While the precise purpose of the pits remains uncertain, the researchers propose they were dug as part of Neolithic ritual practice, possibly reflecting cosmological beliefs linked to the underworld. If correct, the Durrington Circle would be one of the most ambitious prehistoric landscape monuments in Britain.

Further targeted excavation and analysis of recovered materials, where appropriate, could refine the dating and clarify the pits' function, but for now the geophysical evidence strongly supports a late Neolithic, human-made origin for the feature.

Publication: Internet Archaeology Journal. Lead Researcher: Professor Vince Gaffney, University of Bradford. First Identified: 2020.