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<< Our Photo Pages >> Vespasian's Camp - Hillfort in England in Wiltshire

Submitted by SolarMegalith on Wednesday, 17 April 2013  Page Views: 33302

Iron Age and Later PrehistorySite Name: Vespasian's Camp Alternative Name: Vespasians Camp
Country: England County: Wiltshire Type: Hillfort
Nearest Town: Amesbury
Map Ref: SU14594173
Latitude: 51.174624N  Longitude: 1.792677W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
2 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by SolarMegalith : View from the rampart into the ditch in NW part of the Iron Age univallate hillfort (photo taken on November 2011). (Vote or comment on this photo)
This site fall into two areas, including those parts of an Iron Age univallate hillfort, known as Vespasian's Camp, which have not been subject to 20th century development and disturbance, and two bowl barrows and a ring ditch situated within its interior.

The hillfort occupies a strong defensive position on a prominent spur immediately above a meander of the River Avon west of Amesbury Park.

The hillfort is 730m in overall length from north-south and 374m wide at the southern end, narrowing to 100m wide at the northern end. An area of c.15ha is enclosed by a bank up to 40m wide and ditch up to 10m wide on the north and south east sides and on most of the west side. The bank is most substantial on the west side, standing up to 6.5m above the ditch bottom and there is a low counterscarp bank up to 18m wide on the outside of the ditch, giving a maximum overall width of 68m to the hillfort's defences. Where there is no bank and ditch, defence is provided by a scarp, either natural in origin or engineered.

There are two original entrances, one on the north and the other probably to the south east, just north of the point where Stonehenge Road cuts through the camp. Some landscaping in the 18th century has modified the natural defences along the southern half of the east side of the fort.

Note: BBC 'Flying Archaeologist' documentaries including one on Stonehenge / Amesbury, Friday 19th April BBC1 at 7.30pm, online and from 1st May on BBC4
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Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by AngieLake : Vespasian's Camp as shown in 'Stukeley Illustrated', compiled by Neil Mortimore, Green Magic publishing. (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by Bladup : Midsummer sunset from the bank of Vespasian's Camp. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by SolarMegalith : Minor excavations have been carried out on Vespasian's Camp in 1987, but major part of the fort remains unexcavated. In the foreground you can see the outer bank, in the background the rampart (photo taken on November 2011). (Vote or comment on this photo)

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by SolarMegalith : Northern corner of the earthworks - view from the SW (photo taken on November 2011). (Vote or comment on this photo)

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by SolarMegalith : Vespasian's Camp covers area of 15 ha. Rapart and ditch in western part of the fort - view from the north (photo taken on November 2011). (Vote or comment on this photo)

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by SolarMegalith : Internal part of the bank seen from interior of the hillfort - view from the east (photo taken on November 2011).

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by SolarMegalith : Well-preserved rapart in NE part of Vespasian's Camp (photo taken on November 2011).

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by SolarMegalith : Rampart in NE part of Vespasian's Camp (photo taken on November 2011).

Vespasian's Camp
Vespasian's Camp submitted by Andy B : North bank of Vespasian's Camp, April 5th 2008 Creative Commons image by Psychostevouk

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 399m NE 45° Blick Mead* Ancient Village or Settlement (SU1487242013)
 515m WNW 292° Amesbury 38 Bowl Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SU14114192)
 530m SW 227° Bluestonehenge* Stone Circle (SU14204137)
 727m ESE 112° Amesbury History Centre* Museum (SU1526841462)
 1.1km WNW 303° The King Barrows Ridge* Barrow Cemetery (SU137423)
 1.1km WSW 251° King Barrow (Amesbury)* Barrow Cemetery (SU13554137)
 1.2km W 264° Coneybury Henge* Henge (SU134416)
 1.2km WNW 293° New King Barrows* Barrow Cemetery (SU13454222)
 1.3km E 81° Ratfyn Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SU15834194)
 1.5km NW 317° Old King Barrows* Barrow Cemetery (SU13604280)
 1.5km WNW 282° Amesbury 39 Bowl Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SU13154204)
 1.6km S 191° Amesbury Down Bowl Barrows Barrow Cemetery (SU14314020)
 1.6km N 3° Cuckoo Stone (Wiltshire)* Standing Stone (Menhir) (SU1466443353)
 1.7km NNE 18° Durrington 68 Timber Circle (SU151433)
 1.7km NNE 16° Woodhenge (Wiltshire)* Henge (SU15054338)
 1.7km NNW 329° Amesbury Cursus (E)* Cursus (SU137432)
 2.0km NNE 16° Durrington Walls South Circle* Timber Circle (SU1515043641)
 2.1km NNE 12° Durrington Walls* Henge (SU15014375)
 2.1km WNW 295° The Avenue* Ancient Trackway (SU12694262)
 2.2km NE 53° Watergate Long Barrow* Long Barrow (SU1635643051)
 2.2km WNW 282° Stonehenge Bowl Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SU12424217)
 2.3km S 174° Amesbury Down Triple Bell Barrow Round Barrow(s) (SU14833944)
 2.3km WNW 283° Heel Stone* Standing Stone (Menhir) (SU1229142244)
 2.4km WNW 281° Stonehenge.* Stone Circle (SU1224742194)
 2.7km WNW 285° Stonehenge Car Park Postholes* Timber Circle (SU120424)
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"Vespasian's Camp" | Login/Create an Account | 23 News and Comments
  
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Amesbury to feature in BBC documentary, Friday 19th April and 1st May by Andy B on Wednesday, 17 April 2013
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A DOCUMENTARY uncovering Amesbury’s Mesolithic past will be shown on BBC1 on Friday.

Television crews filmed a dig on the outskirts of the town led by archaeologist David Jacques in October last year. More than 12,000 Mesolithic flint tools have been uncovered along with burnt flint, cooked aurochs bone and teeth.

The most exciting find so far was a boar’s tusk, which was found during filming, and it is hoped there will be increased interest in the site after the documentary is broadcast, enhancing Amesbury’s bid to become a tourist destination based on its historic significance.

The work Mr Jacques, Tom Lyons and Tom Philips have been undertaking to investigate Vespasian’s Camp with help from the local community has already created widespread interest.

Cllr Rhind-Tutt is currently working with English Heritage on mutual display material and itineraries for the new Stonehenge visitor centre and the new museum, focussing on giving visitors more to do in the area.

He is hoping that Wiltshire Council will agree to a lease for the Museum Trust so that Amesbury Museum can open at weekends and on other days. A large collection of the finds and the Story of Mesolithic Amesbury can be seen at the town’s museum at Melor Hall on Wednesdays from 11am to 3pm.

The documentary will be shown on BBC1 at 7.30pm on Friday. (SE only)

Read More at
http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/10359959.Amesbury_to_feature_in_BBC_documentary/
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    Stonehenge occupied 5,000 years earlier than thought by bat400 on Sunday, 26 January 2014
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    An excavation funded with redundancy money shows Stonehenge was a settlement 3,000 years before it was built. The archaeological dig, a mile from the stones, has revealed that people have occupied the area since 7,500BC.

    The findings, uncovered by volunteers on a shoestring budget, are 5,000 years earlier than previously thought.

    Dr Josh Pollard, from Southampton University, said the team had "found the community who put the first monument up at Stonehenge".

    The small-scale project has been led by Open University archaeologist David Jacques, who had to plough his redundancy money into it to make it happen.

    He first spotted the Amesbury site in aerial photographs as a student.
    The photographs, in an archive at Cambridge University, showed a site known as Vespasian's Camp just a mile from Stonehenge. Assumed to have been completely landscaped in the 18th Century, Mr Jacques realised the area had not been and decided to investigate.

    "The whole landscape is full of prehistoric monuments and it is extraordinary in a way that this has been such a blind spot for so long archaeologically," he said.

    "But in 1999 a group of student friends and myself started to survey this area of Amesbury."

    The site, which contains a natural spring, is the nearest source of fresh water to Stonehenge.

    And Mr Jacques, with the theory it may have been a water supply for early man, believed there could be pristine and ancient archaeology waiting to be discovered. "I suppose what my team did, which is a slightly fresher version, was look at natural places. Places in the landscape where you would imagine animals might have gone to, to have a drink," he said.

    Aims to show how our knowledge of some of our most famous landscapes, and those more hidden corners of the country, is being transformed by the aerial view.

    "My thinking was where you find wild animals, you tend to find people, certainly hunter gatherer groups coming afterwards."
    And he was right.
    Over the past seven years, the site has yielded the earliest semi-permanent settlement in the Stonehenge area from 7,500 to 4,700BC.

    And carbon dating of material found at the site show people were there during every millennium in between.

    "Here we are in this little nook at the bottom of a hill with a river running round it and it probably had more people coming to it in the Mesolithic period than it's had people coming ever since," he said.

    For a project that has had limited funding it is already generating excitement amongst other leading archaeologists.

    Professor Peter Rowley-Conwy, from Durham University, said: "The site has the potential to become one of the most important Mesolithic sites in north-western Europe."

    And Dr Pollard, from the Stonehenge Riverside Project, said "being able to demonstrate that there were repeated visits to this area from the 9th to the 5th millennia BC" was significant.

    "I suspect he's just hit the tip of the iceberg in terms of Mesolithic activity focussed on the Avon around present day Amesbury," he said.

    Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-22183130
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    Archaeologists say Stonehenge was Cosmopolitan Center - Amebury Investigations by bat400 on Sunday, 06 July 2014
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    Bones of cattle twice the size of bulls and pink flints which change colour have led the way to an archaeological breakthrough in Amesbury

    Giant bull, wild boar and red deer bones left at a settlement a mile from Stonehenge prove that Amesbury is the oldest settlement in Britain and has been continually occupied since 8820 BC, according to archaeologists who say the giant monuments were built by indigenous hunters and homemakers rather than Neolithic new builders.

    Carbon dating of aurochs – a breed twice the size of bulls – predates the settlers responsible for the massive pine posts at Stonehenge, suggesting that people had first lived in Wiltshire around 3,000 years before the site was created in 3000 BC. Experts had previously thought the stones had been the work of European immigrants.

    “The site blows the lid off the Neolithic Revolution in a number of ways,” said David Jacques, from the University of Buckingham, who led the dig at Vespasian’s Camp in the open basin of Blick Mead.

    “It provides evidence for people staying put, clearing land, building and, presumably, worshipping monuments.

    “The area was clearly a hub point for people to come to from many miles away, and in many ways was a forerunner for what later went on at Stonehenge itself.
    “The first monuments at Stonehenge were built by these people.
    "For years people have been asking 'why is Stonehenge where it is?' Now, at last, we have found the answers.”

    Land clearing had been considered part of the farming culture introduced by continental Neolithic immigrants during the 5th millennium. The finds date clearances around an area of the spring to between 7500 and 4600 BC, when Mesolithic culture had been seen as nomadic.

    “In effect, Blick Mead was the very first Stonehenge Visitor Centre, up and running in the 8th millennium BC,” said Jacques.

    “The River Avon would have been the ‘A’ Road – people would have come down on their log boats.

    “They would have had the equivalent of tour guides and there would have been feasting.

    "We have found remains of big game animals, such as aurochs and red deer, and an enormous amount of burnt flint from their feasting fires. There’s also evidence for a multi-cultural population at the site.”

    Around 31,000 Mesolithic worked flints were found in a 16-square metre during excavations lasting little more than a month.

    “Tool types suggest people were coming to it from far to the west of Stonehenge and from the east,” added Jacques. “Another possible reason why people were attracted to the area was the striking bright pink colouring of the flint, which isn’t that colour anywhere else in the country.

    “The colouring is caused by algae - Hildenbrandia rivularis - and it is due to a combination of dappled light and the unusually warm spring water in the area.

    “It’s unique to have people of that time come from so many different faraway places. The site and the Stonehenge areas were very well-known places to visit for a very long time – the London of the Mesolithic.”

    Professor David John, of the Natural History Museum, said that the constant spring water temperature at the site would have been between 10 and 14 degrees, giving the flint its pink tinge once it had been removed from the stream for several hours.

    “It is a rather magical effect now,” said Jacques. “It may well have been seen so back then.”

    Thanks to colrum for the link. For more and photos, see http://www.culture24.org.uk.
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    UK's OLDEST town revealed: Amesbury dates back more than 10 millenia by bat400 on Wednesday, 30 July 2014
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    Coldrum sends a similar article from: http://www.express.co.uk
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BBC Archaeology documentaries including one on Stonehenge/Amesbury, Friday 19th April by Andy B on Wednesday, 17 April 2013
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The BBC have confirmed a transmission date for four archaeology 4 films: Friday 19 April, BBC1 at 19:30. They will be shown in the relevant regions as follows:

Stonehenge/Amesbury - West and South; Bristol and Southampton.

The Norfolk Broads - East: Norfolk, Suffolk, parts of Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Bucks & Herts + Milton Keynes.

Hadrian’s Wall - North and East – Newcastle and Cumbria

The Thames (Hoo) - South East region; Tunbridge Wells.

Most importantly to the rest of us:

BBC Four will show each programme, one a week, starting with Stonehenge from Wednesday 1 May. Presumably they will be online on Iplayer as well

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s4nsk/episodes/guide

Archaeologist Ben Robinson flies over Wiltshire to uncover new discoveries in the stoneage landscape. Sites found from the air have led to exciting new evidence about Stonehenge. The discoveries help to explain why the monument is where it is, and reveal how long ago it was occupied by people.

Aerial archaeologist Ben Robinson’s says that it was a thrill to view Stonehenge from the same perspective as 2nd Lt Sharpe, the man credited with taking the first purposeful aerial photographs of an archaeological site in Britain.

Navigating the same airspace that Sharpe and his fellow ‘balloonists’ occupied in 1906 is quite challenging these days but it enabled Ben and the TV team to find some fresh perspectives on the landscape below.

Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape are perhaps one of most archaeologically scrutinised places anywhere in the world.

You could be forgiven for thinking that there is little else to discover after more than 100 years of research but aerial surveys are still revealing new archaeological features and prompting exciting theories about the origins of the region.

[The Stonehenge one includes a section on the recent Mesolithic excavations near Vespasian's Camp, which is why I've linked it to this page.]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s1ll4
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Re: Duck Figurines of Vespasian's Camp and another example in bronze by AngieLake on Friday, 07 October 2011
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Just out of interest, a perfect bronze model of a duck was found at Milber Down Camp at Newton Abbot and is presently kept at Torquay Museum.
See link:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=42019

(I still haven't been back to take a look at them.)
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Re: Report on Vespasian's Camp from The Epoch Times by AngieLake on Thursday, 06 October 2011
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http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/mesolithic-discovery-could-alter-our-understanding-of-stonehenge-62434.html
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Summary of AA309 students’ field work at Vespasian’s Camp, near Stonehenge, Wiltshire by Andy B on Wednesday, 05 October 2011
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Summary of AA309 students’ field work at Vespasian’s Camp, near Stonehenge, Wiltshire, 2005-2009

David Jacques, a tutor on Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire (AA309), describes the results of six small excavations carried out with some of his students at Amesbury, Wiltshire, just a quarter of a mile from Stonehenge, between 2005-2009. Over 90 students have attended these digs. The excavations were carried out with support made available through David’s Research Associate award (2005-7).

So far we have discovered that –

1. A feature thought to be a ‘man made’ 18th-century pond at the bottom of Vespasian’s Camp hillfort is in fact an ancient spring. Skilful work by geologist Dr. Peter Hoare, a key member of our team, revealed this. Subsequent research has shown that though other parts of the hillfort were subject to 18th-century landscaping, none was undertaken in the area of the spring for a variety of reasons, such as changing ownership, the death of the landscaper and the estate running out of money.

2. In terms of finds, we have found prehistoric flint tools and burned flints in and around the spring spanning from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. A copper alloy Bronze age dagger, which was refashioned from a Bronze Age sword called a rapier, was a notable find last year, and in 2008 the discovery of a likely Romano-British lead curse, which is currently being examined by the University of Manchester and ERSFC in Grenoble, Switzerland, adds to our sense that this site was seen as a special place for around seven and a half millennia. We have also found ancient medieval wood, carbon dated this year, which connects the site to the Amesbury Abbey period.

3. We have found an Iron Age pottery assemblage which pushes the occupation of the hillfort forward by around 300 years, close to the time of the Roman conquest. The ways the Romans reacted to the ancient monuments around Salisbury Plain is of interest to many historians and archaeologists.

4. Our site also has a likely significant Romano-British context. The find of a chalk and prefrogged brick ‘platform’ in the spring may well be a Roman feature, and perhaps relates to the lead curse and the Roman glass found nearby. Could this be the foundations of a Romano-British shrine?

5. Overall, it appears that the spring is an undiscovered part of the later Stonehenge ritual landscape, as well as being a potentially important place for ritual in the later Romano-British period. The find of the medieval wooden staves suggests that it was important from the Black Death through to Henry VIII’s period, but perhaps for more practical reasons. The site’s position, equidistant between Stonehenge and Durrington Walls and in the middle of a U bend on the River Avon places it in a pivotal position in the landscape during the prehistoric periods, and the discovery of the mid Bronze Age blade, and the curse, adds to our sense that the spring might have been a place associated with worship of some type for an extremely long time indeed.

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/classical-studies/amesbury/index.shtml

2009 update

We discovered a Bronze Age dagger of a type never discovered before in Britain and Ireland. It was orginally from a rapier sword (c. 1400BC), but at some point the end of that seems to have snapped off and refashioned into the dagger. At some point later the dagger was engraved (you can just about see the triangular shape on the picture). Later the dagger was ritually deposited in the spring - we can tell that because there are clear signs of it being bent and broken at the end. This find fits well with evidence for other mid Bronze Age weapons being deposited in watery contexts, but no such site has been found on Salisbury Plain before. Recent work at the spring by Tim Roberts and Mike Clarke has revealed that it may

Read the rest of this post...
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How two little ducks could transform our understanding of Stonehenge by Andy B on Wednesday, 05 October 2011
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Photos of the duck figurines and the flint tools at the Daily Mail, however they call it Vespers Camp so raspberry for that!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2045052/Two-duck-figurines-Mesolithic-flint-tools-Stonehenge-site-Open-University-team.html#ixzz1ZoxK5KKP

See also Salisbury Journal: Stone ducks uncovered at Stonehenge

http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/9286660.Stone_ducks_uncovered_at_Stonehenge/
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Evidence of Mesolithic feasting, duck figurines from 700BC and more from OU dig by Andy B on Wednesday, 05 October 2011
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Stonehenge holds many mysteries, but although there are plenty of competing theories about its purpose, experts agree that the site chosen for such a monumental construction project must have held a very special significance for our ancestors. Now evidence is emerging that the Stonehenge area could have been an important centre for prehistoric people several thousand years before the giant stone circle was actually built.

The revelation emerged from a small-scale excavation undertaken by Open University archaeology students, which has uncovered a huge cache of artefacts belonging to hunter-gatherers from the middle of the Stone Age, including the remains of a gargantuan Mesolithic-era feast, which took place close to Stonehenge.

The site has also yielded what are believed to be the oldest carved figurines yet found in the UK, indicating a continuity of human presence in what seems to have been a sacred spot for thousands of years.

The shoestring project has been led by David Jacques, a tutor at the Open University, since 2005. After getting permission from the landowners, Sir Edward and Lady Antrobus, to survey a site just north-east of a previously unexcavated Iron Age hill fort known as Vespasian’s Camp, he was awarded a research fellowship by the university’s classical studies department with a small three-year grant. Jacques chose to dig in a number of areas along the bed of a spring and recruited students from his Open University course on culture, identity and power in the Roman Empire, to do the excavation work.

“Last year, we dug a trench in the south-east area of the spring, and as we went down the trench we found a late Roman layer, then Iron Age, then early Bronze Age – then we found all these flint tools packed together in a 12cm layer,” says Jacques. “We thought it was probably a mixed cache of early prehistoric tools, and assumed some were contemporary with Stonehenge. When we took them back to Cambridge and a number of experts suggested they were all Mesolithic, we started to get very excited.”

With the tools were animal remains, including what Jacques and his team thought was a cow’s tooth, which they sent away for radiocarbon dating. The result was an astonishingly early date of around 6250BC, firmly in the Mesolithic period and more than 3,000 years before construction on Stonehenge began. Further excavations ensued and, by the end of September 2011, the team had uncovered a rare Mesolithic hoard of more than 5,500 worked flints and tools from just two small trenches 35m away from each other. As well as the tools and tool production debris, large quantities of burnt flint were found, indicating a fire, and more than 200 cooked animal bones, which came not from a cow, but from at least one aurochs – a gigantic creature resembling a buffalo that is now extinct. “An aurochs was something like a large minivan in size, to catch an animal this big would have been a major feat. It would have fed a lot of people. It’s likely there was a large gathering, possibly as many as 100 people, who cooked and feasted on the aurochs,” says Jacques.

More at the Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/open-eye-you-never-know-what-you-might-unearth-2365369.html

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Street View by coldrum on Friday, 26 March 2010
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View Larger Map
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Archaeology project in Amesbury examines Vespasian's Camp by Andy B on Saturday, 03 January 2009
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WHILE internationally-sponsored archaeological work at Stonehenge and Durrington Walls has seized the public interest, Amesbury’s very own project has unobtrusively continued just a short distance away.

For the last three years, a small and dedicated Open University-led team of professionals, undergraduate students and local residents has been evaluating a small natural basin surrounding a spring on the western edge of the town near the Iron Age fort known as Vespasian’s Camp.

The site has been given the informal title of Blick Mead after the field name found on nineteenth century estate and tithe maps.

Their work, on private land on the margin of Abbey Parkland, has revealed a human presence from as early as the Neolithic period, through the Middle Ages to the present day.

The site occupies an area about the size of two tennis courts, and overlooks the River Avon to the south. Its proximity to the ancient Harroway trackway and the Stonehenge Avenue suggests it was close to the centre of key transport links and human movement to the area.

Peter Goodhugh from The Amesbury Society, said: “Vespasian's Camp was probably outlined in bright white chalk in prehistory, and would have been visible for miles around, thus linking it with major barrow groups across Salisbury Plain.

“It is increasingly clear the fort would have been a most prominent marker until it was landscaped in the second half of the 18th century, when many of its ancient stories were also ‘covered over’.

More here:
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/headlines/4017555.Archaeology_project_in_Amesbury/
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Re: Vespasian's Camp by Anonymous on Wednesday, 05 September 2007
No reply. I'd be a lot happier with Dennis Price if he came out and said that despite all the publicity he is not a renowned archaeologist but someone with a classics degree who has read a lot and done some volunteer work with Wessex Archaeology and the Stonehenxge Riverisde Trust (not a lot it seems). And written a book on the supernatural. See also The Bad Archaeology website
[ Reply to This ]
    Re: Vespasian's Camp by Anonymous on Saturday, 08 September 2007
    Oh dear, do you actualy Know Dennis?
    He doesn't have a Classics degree and he did actualy work for Wessex Archaeology and was part of the team that dug up the Amesbury Archer.

    As for 'Bad Archaeology website', well do you trust a site that declares "We are the Good archaeologists!"? and seems to have no current backing from any other archaeologists.
    Come on.
    BTW 'stonehenxge?
    [ Reply to This ]
    Re: Vespasian's Camp by Anonymous on Sunday, 09 September 2007
    Er do you mean the Stonehenge Riverside Project?
    It's not a Trust but a collaboration between several UK universities.
    Students are working in 1 or 2 week blocks and the only people who workare there all the time are the project leaders.
    I know Dennis was there this week, were you?
    [ Reply to This ]
    Re: Vespasian's Camp by CharlieDavis on Monday, 10 September 2007
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    Dear Anonymous/aka Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews,

    In his description of Vespasian’s Camp, above, that comes before your poorly-spelt comments (see cetnturies, Stonehenxge, Riverisde, etc) Dennis makes it perfectly clear that it’s a city as described by Pytheas of Massilia in 350 BC, not a city as judged by the modern standards you’re deliberately and misleadingly using.

    If you read his detailed posts on Eternal Idol, you’ll see that he goes into the use of the Greek work “polis” in great depth, but as this city’s got priests, supervisors, kings and other inhabitants, then it certainly classifies as a city as far as Pytheas was concerned. If you can find a reputable published translation that speaks of a wonderful temple and small village of Apollo, then I’m sure we’d all be very interested indeed if you would share it with us, but I think we’ll be waiting a long time for a reply.

    Nowhere on his site or anywhere else does he claim to have a classics’ degree, from what I can see, so I don’t know where you got that from. As it happens, he doesn’t have one. As for Wessex Archaeology, he worked for them for four years working out on site, in the Finds Department, the Environmental Department, the Archives Department and the Communications Department, as well as working behind the scenes on Meet the Ancestors, Secrets of the Dead and Time Team.

    He patiently taught the whole work experience intake while he was at Wessex Archaeology, some of whom have gone on to far greater things as a result, and remember, these were young kids desperate to get started in archaeology. I’m sure they were far better off with him than with a sneering, anonymous contributor like yourself who relies on his limited imagination for the facts.

    Dennis was also involved with the Amesbury Archer post excavation and with the many international broadcasts that followed that discovery in May 2002. If you bother doing any homework at all, you’ll see a photograph of him on the Wessex website filming the entire Boscombe Bowmen excavation in May 2003.

    He also worked on the Stonehenge/A303 Test Pit survey in 2002 as well as advising on the Past Finders series in the same year and I know he put up all the World Heritage Site signs around Stonehenge while working for the Burnbake Trust in 2004. How do I know all this? Well, it’s not top secret, put it that way, while you could also take the simple step of contacting him at his site and asking him politely if you want to know something, like the rest of us do.

    As for the publicity that you’re intensely jealous of, I’m sure he’s no more capable of influencing what the press write about him than he can stop people like you posting up inane comments on serious sites like this and no – no one’s interested in your site, mate, least of all archaeologists. And I love the bit about “I’d be a lot happier with Dennis Price if…” I doubt he cares what you think and I don’t know anyone else that does, either.
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    Re: Vespasian's Camp by Anonymous on Monday, 10 September 2007
    I'm not Keith, I'm Doug. Glad to get more information.
    I'm not jealous of his publicity, but none of that makes him a renowned archaeologist. And I still think he should have clarified that on his web site. I'm glad to hear he has more experience than I thought. I know about his filming.

    Looking again, perhaps he doesn't have a classics degree, sorry. He is described as a classical scholar and says he had a classical education here:
    http://phoenicia.org/hannibal.html
    but I may well be wrong about the degree, I think I jumped to the conclusion that a classics scholar as he is described would have a classics degree -- which I shouldn't have done as he is now described as a renowned archaologist which of course he is not as you seem to agree.

    Tsk tsk, spelling flames. Do you really think those are spelling mistakes rather than typos? Or my keyboard, which I think is doing something very strange as at times it gets into repeat mode and repeats the same letter until I close the application. I don't think even a very poor speller would put an x in Stonehenge, do you?

    For most archaeologists, a city is something with public buildings, a society with a class structure, etc. So far I've never met a British archaeologist who claimed cities in pre-Roman Britain. And I don't think there was anything near Stonehenge or anywhere else that a Greek would consider to be a city.

    I appreciate the information, although not your attitude. I'll make sure I include it in any other comments I make about his background.

    A lot of people are interested in my site and it is used in a number of university classes as a reference site. It is:
    Doug's Archaeology Site
    You shouldn't sneer at things you haven't read, you know. :-)
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    Re: Vespasian's Camp by Andy B on Tuesday, 11 September 2007
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    Yes, please don't get into silly things like spelling mistakes as I have said in the forum we are a disability-friendly site and whether from dyslexia or just dodgy typing it's not appropriate to harp on about spelling in this context, we are not a school essay.

    Welcome Doug, perhaps Keith would like to comment too. I have to say I have some misgivings about the concept of a 'bad archaeology' web site.

    Dr Aubrey Burl, whilst being a highly regarded prehistorian (not least by myself), is at great pains to promote his theory about the bluestones having been carried to Stonehenge by glaciation. Many 'renowned archaeologists' regard this idea as just plain wrong and if put forward by, say, Dennis Price it would probably be rubbished. But is it 'bad archaeology?'

    And what about movement if archaeological ideas over time - some examples of movement I can think of -

    The concept of sacred landscapes was rubbished in the 1960s, now the majority in the mainstream would sign up to such things, apart perhaps from when they are working for a developer wanting to destroy one! Which is the 'bad archaeology'?

    The suggestion that pre-Neolithic people found natural places sacred in their own right in Mesolithic/Early Neolithic times before major monument building took place is another fairly wooly one - is this 'bad archaeology'?

    Then there are the Goddess ideas, based on evidence from Malta and elsewhere, and the many female figurines and so on that have been taken on quite widely as popular beliefs. In the late 1960 & 70s such things could be found in 'good' archaeology books. Now the mainstream has discarded these ideas and moved so I presume what is left behind become 'bad archaeology'?
    Whose fault was it that these ideas caught the imagination of people in wider society? Were the people who wrote those books 'bad archaeologists'. Has revisionism now made them so?

    Thanks,
    Andy
    Moderator
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Re: Vespasian's Camp by Anonymous on Sunday, 26 August 2007
A city? A real city? That would be unprecedented at that time and unique for several cetnturies afterwards. Proto-cities perhaps at the time of the Roman invasion, but still not what I'd call a real city.
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    Re: Vespasian's Camp by Anonymous on Saturday, 08 September 2007
    You wrote "but still not what I'd call a real city."

    Do tell, what would YOU call a Real city back then?
    [ Reply to This ]

Re: Vespasian's Camp by Anonymous on Saturday, 18 August 2007
Condition: Mostly overgrown with trees from what I can gather - as for the structures inside and the earthen walls, they're at least mostly recognisable for what they are.

Ambience: I couldn't say as I've not been inside.

Access: From what I understand from a contribution on my Eternal Idol site, it's private land owned by Lord Antrobus, but I'd love to hear from anyone who can add any further details at all about this overlooked site, so huge and so close to Stonehenge. If anyone can contribute further to the MP site then it'll add to our sum total of knowledge about the place.

I'm as certain as I can be that it's the City of Apollo and the Boreades as described by Pytheas of Massilia in 325 BC, so it's always possible that excavation could throw some further light on this one way or the other. As the Stonehenge Riverside Project are concentrating on the area, I suppose it's not out of the question that there might be an official excavation there in the future.

If I find out anything else, I'll let you know. I would have signed up/in and added my name to the box, but anything more complicated than putting my thumbprint on a form defeats me, I'm ashamed to say - Dennis.
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Re: Dennis Price and the lost city of Apollo at Vespasian's Camp? by Anonymous on Saturday, 11 August 2007
Excellent article Thankyou! Lyn
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Dennis Price and the lost city of Apollo at Vespasian's Camp? by Andy B on Saturday, 11 August 2007
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A devon archaeologist believes he has found the Lost City of Apollo.Dennis Price, who shot to prominence after finding a missing altar stone from Stonehenge, is the man behind what could be an amazing discovery.

Mr Price, a father-of-two who lives in Broadclyst, has undertaken years of research on the stone circle.

With the help of language experts from Exeter University, Mr Price has translated the early works of the Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia, who was one of the earliest visitors to Britain, in around 325BC, and who wrote of the City of Apollo.

Now, after dedicated work, Mr Price believes he has solved the ancient mystery of just where it is.

He said: "Just a mile or so to the east of Stonehenge is a gigantic prehistoric earthwork called Vespasian's Camp, named in later years by William Camden after the same Vespasian who subjugated the south west of England during the Roman invasion of Britain in 43AD.

"It is invariably described as an Iron Age hillfort, yet excavations there have shown the existence of far earlier Neolithic pits, while there still exist the remains of early Bronze Age funeral barrows, showing that the site was in use while nearby Stonehenge was being constructed.

"Aside from possessing the name of a man who later went on to become an emperor, Vespasian's Camp lies at the bottom of a slope occupied further up by what is known as the King's Barrow Ridge, overlooking Stonehenge, while this is further divided into the New King Barrows and Old King Barrows.

"Vespasian's Camp cannot be seen from Stonehenge, but it lies to the east of the ruins, or in the direction of the rising sun.

"As Apollo had largely become thought of as a Sun god by the time Pytheas was writing, it is another fairly obvious connection, while Vespasian's Camp lies slightly to the south east, or the direction of the midwinter sunrise when viewed from Stonehenge, something else that may have had a bearing on matters as far as the consideration of a god who visited Britain during the winter months was concerned.

"Given the huge scale of the earthworks at Vespasian's Camp, it is not unthinkable that Pytheas may have thought of Troy, another city sacred to or beloved of Apollo, as some later versions of the stories of this place speak of Apollo building the walls there along with Poseidon.

"We cannot know precisely how Pytheas came to equate the sanctuary, the temple and the city with Apollo."

Alexander Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology which operates just a stones throw from Stoneghenge, said he knew Mr Price but had not heard of his findings.

"Vespasian's Camp is not something we know a great deal about but it does date from around the time of Pytheas' writings and he does refer to the Lost City of Apollo.

"What Dennis would have to do is establish a link between Pytheas and the camp.

"I don't know how he could be sure there's a link between those two camps as opposed to others, such as Hembury at Honiton.

"I know Dennis is very interested in Stonehenge."

Source: This is Exeter
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