[in-enaction] tourist attractions: Neolithic settlement at Stonehenge

British archaeologists have uncovered an extensive Neolithic settlement 
not two miles away that was possibly once home to hundreds of people. 
They have also unearthed a physical link between that settlement and 
Stonehenge: a 4,500-year-old stone avenue runs between the settlement at 
Durrington Walls and the nearby River Avon. Since a similar avenue was 
unearthed in the 1960s linking the river to Stonehenge, researchers 
believe ancient Brits almost certainly traveled between the two sites, 
both carbon-dated to 2,600-2,500 B.C. "We knew these were from broadly 
the same period, but the idea that it forms a single integrated complex 
is quite new," says Julian Thomas, a director of the project and an 
archaeologist at the University of Manchester. "It completely changes 
our understanding of Stonehenge."

The path is, therefore, not an umbilical cord but a kind of existential 
passage between twin parts of the cosmos: a world of the living, as 
represented by the remains of the settlement, and the world of the dead, 
signified by the great stone circle. Researchers now believe the 
monument contains the remains of about 250 cremated people. The roads 
that link Stonehenge, through the river Avon to Durrington Walls — which 
is right next to the site of a timber structure intriguingly known as 
Woodhenge — suggest a society with elaborate ceremonies that Stonehenge 
alone only hints at. "For the very first time," says Mike Pitts, editor 
of British Archaeology and a Stonehenge expert, "it's creating a social 
world into which we can place Stonehenge."


cont'd....
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1583689,00.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070130-stonehenge.html