Imagine you are travelling along the ancient Ridgeway and your horse has lost a shoe. Nightfall is fast approaching. What do you do? Well, legend has it that if you come here, tether your horse and leave a coin, provided you do not watch, by morning the coin would be gone and your horse would magically be reshod by an invisible blacksmith. Wayland the Smith is this legendary blacksmith, a notable figure of Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Germanic mythology and is famously depicted on the Franks Casket. The Saxons who settled this area likely inscribed his name on this monument, Wayland’s Smithy. The name was first recorded in an early medieval land deed from 908 AD, documented in a charter from King Eadred in 955 AD. However, the Saxons were not the builders of this structure; for them, we have to go 4000 years earlier.

Long barrows are the first monuments ever built in Britain and often contain human remains in their chambers, meaning they have been interpreted as tombs. Over 300 have been discovered, and Wayland’s Smithy is one of the most famous examples. The barrow sits along the Ridgeway, a path frequently referred to as ‘Britain’s oldest road’, and shares the hills with the Uffington White Horse and Iron Age Hillfort. The Avebury landscape is also just 25km southeast. Wayland’s Smithy also belongs to a particular style, the Cotswold-Severn style; these are typically chambered and contain comparatively larger quantities of human bone, averaging 40-50 people in each. It features the distinctive trapezoidal mound made of chalk and earth, measuring just under 55 meters long. This material would have come from flanking side ditches. A continuous kerb of sarsen stones defines the perimeter of the mound, which would have originally likely been bright white from the chalk. Within the southern end of the mound is the chamber. It has a narrow and partially constricted passage, leading to a pair of small side chambers aligned east-west. At the entrance of the chamber is a megalithic façade where four sarsens remain, but originally there would have been six.

Excavations in 1919 and 1920 found that the chambers had been ransacked in previous centuries, but they still contained the, albeit jumbled, remains of several people, including men, women and children. However, later excavations in the 1960s revealed that the monument we see today had been built over an earlier oval barrow.

Wayland’s Smithy I

This first construction had a box-like mortuary structure made of wood and stone, featuring a rectangular paved area of sarsen slabs with two split tree trunks at either end, with human remains placed inside. A single crouched articulated burial was placed at one end, and in front were the mostly disarticulated remains of the other people. Articulated means bones found in their natural, connected anatomical position during an excavation. Meaning in an intact burial, an individual was placed when the soft tissue still connected their skeleton. Immediately to the south of the mortuary structure, a double row of small postholes was interpreted as a raised exposure platform for excarnation, where bodies may have been left to decompose before being placed in the chamber. In total, 14 people were laid to rest in this monument: eleven men, two women and a child. The first was placed in roughly ~3590-3555 BC, and the last in ~3580-3550 BC. This means the barrow was used for no more than 15 years, less than a single generation and potentially a single year.

What were the circumstances that led to a group of people being buried in such a short period of time? Maybe there was an outbreak of disease or these people died from injuries. However, I think the answer is likely violence. Three leaf-shaped arrowheads were discovered during excavation. These being votive offerings is unlikely, as crucially the tips were missing, usually meaning it has been fired and hit a hard target. Three individuals or more individuals likely suffered lethal arrowhead strikes. An embedded flint projectile tip in a hip bone of bone group 12 would have entered through the abdomen, and there is no evidence of bone healing. We can likely never know for sure; evidence of violence like arrowhead strikes leaving unequivocal evidence in the bone is unlikely, but we can still speculate. I have a video coming out in the next few months delving deeper into the function of long barrows.

I also wonder what the relationship between these people was? To my knowledge, there hasn’t been DNA testing, but at Hazleton North, another Cotswold-Severn long barrow, the oldest family tree was uncovered with 27 individuals revealed as biological relatives from five continuous generations of a single extended family. Could the people in Wayland’s Smithy I also have been a family of early farmers? Do we have a family killed in some violent event and quickly interred in a significant monument by their community?

After 40 to 100 years, the structure was covered by an oval mound of chalk and earth, derived from two flanking ditches. However, it wasn’t forgotten.

Wayland’s Smithy II

After another gap of just 1-35 years 1-35 years, in around 3460-3400 BC, the second phase of the monument, Wayland’s Smithy II, was constructed, burning the earlier structure. It was set out on the same alignment but at a much larger scale. The chamber only takes up a small section of the mound and consists of a narrow and partially constricted passage, leading to a pair of transepted chambers aligned east-west. Unfortunately, very little can be said about the people who were laid inside. At the entrance was an exceptional megalithic façade of large, upright sarsens; the only other monument to have this is West Kennet. However, dating of Wayland’s Smithy II puts it at 200 years younger than West Kennet, which lies just 25km southeast. Perhaps the builders wanted to echo the spiritual significance of long-established traditions, maybe linking themselves to this earlier group of people living in the Avebury landscape. The monuments’ use probably extended to the middle decades of the thirty-fourth century BC, and then it was later picked up by folklore.

• https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/waylands-smithy/

• Fowler, C. et al. (2022). A high-resolution picture of kinship practices in an Early Neolithic tomb. Nature, 601 (7894), Springer Science and Business Media LLC., pp.584–587.

• Schulting, R. J. and Wysocki, M. (2005). ‘in this chambered tumulus were found cleft skulls …’: An assessment of the evidence for cranial trauma in the British Neolithic. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 71, Cambridge University Press (CUP)., pp.107–138. [Accessed 4 August 2026].

• Whittle, A. et al. (1991). Wayland’s Smithy, Oxfordshire: Excavations at the Neolithic tomb in 1962–63 by R. j. c. atkinson and S. piggott. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 57 (2), Cambridge University Press (CUP)., pp.61–101.

• Whittle, A., Bayliss, A. and Wysocki, M. (2007). Once in a lifetime: The date of the Wayland’s Smithy long barrow. Cambridge archaeological journal, 17 (S1), Cambridge University Press (CUP)., pp.103–121.

You can watch the full vlog here:

Avebury

Avebury is the largest Stone Circle in the world. The site also has two smaller inner circles, and all of this is surrounded by a massive henge - the bank and ditch. The village of Avebury was built inside the monument centuries later, during the Anglo-Saxon period. It is unclear when the original earthwork was constructed, but estimates suggest between 3000 and 2600 BC. The bank and ditch visible today date to around 2500 BC. This ditch was monumental, stretching about a mile in circumference and originally over 9m deep. Before the famous stones were raised, timber monuments may have stood here, a pattern seen at other henge sites across Britain. The stone circles and the iconic stone avenues were probably built between 2600 and 2300 BC, plus other sites existed nearby, creating one of the most iconic prehistoric landscapes. I did my undergraduate dissertation on this site, so it has a special place in my heart.

Silbury Hill

A short drive from Avebury, you will find one of the most baffling monuments, Silbury Hill. Built in several stages between 2400 and 2300 BC, it’s the largest artificial prehistoric mound in Europe. In both size and date, it is comparable to the Egyptian pyramids. Standing around 30 metres high and 160 metres across, it contains roughly half a million tonnes of chalk and earth. Building it may have taken around four million hours of labour. However, despite centuries of exploration, we still don’t know why it was built. What we do know is that Silbury Hill was created during a period of enormous social and ceremonial change in Britain, with metalworking, new pottery styles and burial rites arriving. Maybe it will always remain a mystery.

West Kennet Long Barrow

West Kennet Long Barrow is Britain’s most famous ancient tomb, and you can still go inside. Built on a ridge over 5,500 years ago in around 3650 BC, it was used for at least a thousand years after that. It's the second-largest long barrow in the country. 100 metres long. 25 metres wide. Up to 3 metres high. Its neighbour, East Kennet Long Barrow, is the only one that beats it in scale. Constructing this would have required moving tons of earth and stone, with an estimated 15,700 hours of labour. To begin, you are greeted with a semicircular forecourt with a façade of huge sarsen stones. Then you can enter the central passage and see the five chambers that branch off. Inside, some cremations and the partial remains of at least forty-six individuals have been discovered. The main phase of burial may have only lasted 30 years. After a hiatus, the chambers were deliberately filled with deposits of pottery, worked flint, animal and further human bone, a process that took place over 1,500 years, until the barrow was closed by 2000 BC, with the large sarsens that form the impressive facade today.

Festival of Archaeology Launch at Westonbirt

Westonbirt was spectacular. The weather was boiling (over 30 degrees celcius) for the trip, so the canopy of trees providing their natural air con was very welcome. Disclaimer: I was paid to attend this event as an expert on the panel, but this content is not sponsored. The panel was a great experience discussing the theme of Archaeology and Nature. The Council for British Archaeology recorded it so I will let you know when the full thing is available to watch. I then got to lead an in-conversation session with author Jonathan Mullard about his book ‘Forgotten Forests’ that explores 12,000 years of humans’ history relating to trees. It was the perfect location for such an interesting and topical conversation.

Uffington White Horse and Castle

The next day rolled around, and I was feeling tired. So, naturally, it was the perfect time to ascend an Iron Age Hillfort and peculiar monument. The Uffington White Horse is the oldest surviving hill figure in Britain. It was made sometime between 1380 and 550 BC, during the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. Stretching 110 metres across the hillside, it was created by digging deep trenches and packing them with bright white chalk. Most archaeologists believe it is a horse, perhaps a tribal symbol connected with the nearby hillfort at Uffington Castle. It may have had a religious meaning. One theory suggests it represents a solar horse, with the midwinter sun appearing to pass over it in a way that reflects mythological beliefs that the sun was carried across the sky on a horse or in a chariot. Not everyone agrees it’s even a horse; some have suggested the minimalist design resembles a dog or even a sabre-toothed cat. However, people have been calling it a horse since at least the 11th century. Just a short wander across the hilltop is Uffington Castle, the hillfort. It is a remarkable surviving example with clearly defined ramparts and stunning panoramic views.

Wayland’s Smithy

Last, but certainly not least, Wayland’s Smithy is one of the most remarkable long barrows in the country. The first phase was an oval barrow with a sarsen and timber mortuary structure. Here, there were the remains of 14 people in various states of completeness. The first burials were placed here roughly 3590-3555 BCE, but the barrow was used for no more than 15 years, less than a single generation and potentially a single year. 40-100 years later, the first mound was constructed with chalk and earth, but not forgotten. After 1-35 years, in around 3460-3400 BC, the second phase of the monument was constructed. It was set out on the same alignment but at a much larger scale with an exceptional megalithic façade of large, upright sarsens. This phase remained in use for about 100 years. Wayland’s Smithy II is remarkably similar to another long barrow, West Kennet, but is 200 years younger; perhaps the builders wanted to echo the spiritual significance of long-established traditions. The name of Wayland’s Smithy has been linked to the long barrow since at least AD 955. There is a local legend that if you were to leave your horse tethered at the long barrow, together with a small coin, then Wayland, the master blacksmith from mythology, would magically reshoe your horse while you were away.

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What am I working on and up to outside of content?

Recently, I have been struggling with burnout, creative block and imposter syndrome. I hesitate to even share this, but I like to think that if anyone is reading this, it helps to know you aren’t alone. I think I am on the other side of it now and am really excited about some new project ideas. The trip over the weekend really helped.

Find me elsewhere

Stonehenge is the world’s most famous ceremonial monument and a work of technological genius that aligns with both the summer and the winter solstice. But how did they get this alignment perfect? Today, I have a brand new discovery to share: archaeologists might have discovered the prototype of Stonehenge. I’m Louise, an archaeologist and Wessex Archaeology invited me to the exciting press conference, so I have all the details of this once-in-a-lifetime discovery: where it was, where it fits in the story, how these people celebrated, and the incredible science behind it.

If you prefer to watch your long-form content, I have a YouTube video available on this discovery:

Just 5km from Stonehenge is the site of Bulford in Wiltshire. A team from Wessex Archaeology, led by Time Team’s Phil Harding, discovered two post holes, 1 meter deep and located 120 meters apart. These would have each held a wooden post about 3-4 meters high and up to 0.5 meters thick. A relatively simple but substantial monument.

However, what makes this extraordinary is that the posts were positioned to form a line pointing directly at the sun during the solstices. Groups of prehistoric people, not just the Wiltshire locals, gathered around the posts to watch the sun align with this impressive structure, 500 years before the sarsen stone structure at Stonehenge. This is the earliest known solstice alignment in the Stonehenge landscape.

This landscape’s proliferation of celestial alignments has captured the human imagination for millennia. In a few days, Stonehenge will be filled with people gathered to celebrate the Solstice in 2026. Nearby the entrance of Lark Hill, an early Neolithic enclosure dated to 3700 B.C., broadly faces northeast with the midsummer sun rising dead ahead over Sidbury Hill. Similarly, phase one of Stonehenge’s entrance (dated to 3000 B.C.) broadly faces towards the midsummer sunrise. These sites have no specific alignments, no structural settings, just facing with respect to the solstice. There was later an exponential increase with sites like Woodhenge, Durrington Walls, Stonehenge Avenue, and the Sarsens at Stonehenge, moving from generally looking at the solstice to specific complementary alignments.

Bulford is the first instance of facing both the summer and the winter solstices. It is the first actual proof that people were capable of measuring the alignment. This structural setting is an important part of the story of this human activity across millennia. These structures, which have no practical, utilitarian purpose, are the religion of the Stone Age, manifesting in earth, stone and wood. We don’t have a name for this sun worship, but this is how prehistoric people understood their place in the cosmos and how the universe works. The who, what and why of this religion are unknown and left to our speculation. However, the questions of where and how are becoming clearer…

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At Bulford, the posts were not just a structure, but a gathering point for a community to celebrate the solstices before more complex, permanent structures could be built. A large number of people gathered here for potentially a few decades worth of solstices, evidenced through the 48 pits discovered on site, which included a wealth of pottery, animal bone, worked flint and charcoal. Some of the animal bones found include aurochs bone, the giant, wild and extinct ancestor of the modern cow. While difficult and dangerous to hunt, the auroch rewarded them with enough meat to feed almost 300 people. We are invited into a scene of celebration and feasting through the auroch bone.

Lipid analysis showed the pottery fragments contain animal fats like pig fat and dairy fat. This specific pottery style is also unusual. The assemblage of Woodlands-style pottery from this site is one of the largest groups from southern Britain. However, the origin of this pottery is from Orkney and the rare motifs on these fragments are indistinguishable from Orcadian examples. Yet, they are made of local Wiltshire clays, perhaps suggesting the movement of people, maybe even potters.

This animation of the Winter solstice by Dr Fabio Silva provides a window into what the community gathered here would have seen in 2950 B.C. The people viewing from roughly 20 meters away, watching the sun alight the posts to one degree of accuracy. One pit may represent a viewing area, where an extremely rare disc-shaped knife was discovered, potentially placed here as a symbolic reference to the sun disc.

The original excavation took place between 2015 and 2017 as part of the Ministry of Defence’s Army Basing Programme, and the site is not visitable today. Archaeologists discovered the conical-shaped post holes that each would have taken two people a day’s work to create. One person would have been in the hole, and one outside to collect the chalk and rubble. Charcoal in one pit is from an ash tree, which is plentiful in the local chalk landscape, that grows in nice straight poles. Ash would be an ideal candidate for a construction like this. In modern paganism, ash has significance, so who knows if the origins of this extend deeper into time. Charcoal might mean charring the post to preserve it for more than a year. Backfill evidence suggests the site was dismantled, with the posts taken out, not rotting away on site. Phil was excavating one of these postholes and later in the excavation drew a line with his ruler connecting the two, noticing the alignment was 50 degrees off north, very excitedly recognising this might be on the line of the solstice.

Dr Fabio Silva, who is a leading skycape archaeologist, was called in to investigate. The first thing he did was reconstruct the landscape without any houses or vegetation to see what it would have looked like 5000 years ago, to make sure there was no hill blocking the view, which would have made the theory void. Next, he added the posts into the landscape, accounting for the range of height, 3-4 meters, and width, up to a maximum of 0.5m. Using hundreds of years of accurate astronomy data, the same as NASA uses to launch satellites, he added the sky. Within reason, this software can be used to recreate the sky at any time and place in the world. By looking at this location 5,000 years ago, it proved that this solstice alignment exists. He created these animations, which are similar to what will be seen at Stonehenge in a few days.

Could this be a coincidence? Only two post holes are at this site. They are contemporary, only around 100 meters apart, and within a degree of accuracy. The odds that this alignment happened by chance are 1 in 2000, and you are situated in a landscape that has these alignments, demonstrating that this isn’t a coincidence.

The people at Bulford likely could have been connected to Phase One of Stonehenge. There may have even been posts like this at Stonehenge that have been lost due to later activity. The stones of Stonehenge aren’t the beginning of a ceremony, but the upstanding remains of a deep tradition of prehistoric people. Phil called this ‘one of the greatest finds’ of his career. It is discoveries like this that are why I love archaeology, as the story is never complete, and people in the distant past lived lives full of culture and knowledge.

The findings are due to be published later this year, and this is apparently one of several amazing discoveries, so watch this space. Thank you to Wessex Archaeology for inviting me to the press conference and for the assets used in this post.

Content Update

Yesterday, Episode 2 of the Time Traveller’s Guide to Neanderthals series came out on how to survive in the Palaeolithic, with Neanderthals as your example. Currently, the stats are doing dreadfully (discouraging, but that is how YouTube often feels); I am hoping it improves over the day. If not, a thumbnail and title change are my evening plans. I don’t want to present an overly glamorous life of content creation in these updates; instead, the realities as a bit of a personal journal. On the upside, my Instagram hit 25k this week, which is unbelievable! I have lots of posts planned, just the lack of time to make them, as I have a methodology section to write and a house move coming up in 2 weeks.

In the pipeline is a vlog of the trip I am embarking on this weekend (more on that later, though) and at the start of this week (busy week for me), I was in Newcastle exploring the archaeology of the city. Hopefully, a mini doc will be out soon on this trip, but the highlights include: The Great North Museum, Segedunum Roman Fort and Newcastle Castle. I find editing more difficult when videos haven’t performed as I dream of (millions and millions of views, joking of course), but I do enjoy content creation, and I find I have to often remember that enjoyment is what it is all about, not stats and figures.

Digging Deeper

The UK’s oldest cave art was rediscovered, which was incredibly exciting to read about. Rediscovered is a choice of word that really piques my interest, but that is entirely what happened in this case. In 1912, William Sollas and Henri Breuil discovered a series of red horizontal bands in Bacon Hole, a cave in South Wales. They believed they had found the first example of Upper Palaeolithic cave art in Britain.

However, by 1928, it was dismissed as a natural phenomenon. The panel was mostly forgotten until it was rediscovered in September 2022. The lines run parallel to each other, which is unlikely to be due to a natural process and finger marks, dots, and small splashes of pigment add to the evidence of human activity.

The team, using technology that did not exist in the 1900s, dated the calcite deposits that formed on its surface. The original researchers were right; the results suggest the art is roughly 17,000 years old. These were created when Wales was emerging from one of the coldest phases of the last Ice Age and completely rewrite how we imagine the lives of early inhabitants of what is now Wales. The site is cared for by the National Trust, and more work is needed to further explore it. Prehistoric art could lie behind later graffiti in the cave. Read the full paper, open-access here.

R.E.P.O.R.T

In my quest to find a way to structure this section, let me introduce the R.E.P.O.R.T acronym style. I’ve seen this in a few different places, but it stands for reading, eating, playing, obsessing, recommending and treating.

Reading

Since finishing my assessments, I am determined to get back into reading, since University diminished my love for it. I have been reading a lot for videos, of course, but not just for fun. I have been reading ‘Things We Found in the Ground’ by Eleanor Bruce and Lucilla Gray (Roman Found) and really enjoying it so far.

Eating

I went to Fat Hippo, which is a burger place, during my trip to Newcastle. We have one in York, so I have been before, and it was delicious. I haven’t always been a burger person, but when they are extravagant, I can’t say no.

Playing

Games have seen an uptick recently. I have played Paralives a bit (need to get more time on this), Forza Horizon 6, Kingdom Come Deliverance and Tomodachi Life on the Switch. Nothing has completely captured my undivided attention yet.

Obsessing

Olivia Rodrigo’s new album dropped this morning, which has been the sole soundtrack for me 7 hours train journey, and it is just fantastic.

Recommending

I have watched some great YouTube videos this week. One on Newcastle in Maps which gave me so much information for my trip, and the style was amazing. I also watched this one about a theory that German Pirates reached America, which was fascinating.

Treating

I bought some furniture for my new apartment, and I have created a dedicated coffee bar.

That’s all for this week; thank you for reading and exploring the distant past with me.

*weekly is an aim, but I know what I am like.

Thank you for indulging me in a rather rambly introduction where I justify my choice for this particular day to start a newsletter that hardly anyone, but me, will read. If you are stumbling across this and have no idea who I am, let me introduce myself. I am Louise, and I @louisearchaeology post archaeology content exploring the distant past of Britain & beyond on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook. This newsletter aims just to provide some rambly archaeology updates.

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Content Update

This week I posted Episode 1 of my brand new series, The Time Traveller’s Guide to the Neanderthals. Releasing every other week on YouTube, this is a 10-part series on everything Neanderthal, preparing you for a trip to the Palaeolithic to visit our closest ancient human relatives. Episode 1 is your introduction: who Neanderthals were, what they looked like and where you might find them.

Over on socials, there will be some lovely supporting posts over the next 20 weeks, so what is not to love!

Digging Deeper

My favourite aspect I was researching about for this video was in the latter half, where I go through a range of Neanderthal destinations from west to east, demonstrating their almost 7,000 km range from the Iberian coast to the Altai Mountains in Southern Siberia. It is the Iberian coast I want to revisit for this week’s digging deeper.

Around 80,000 years ago, a man and two children were walking along the slopes of sandy dunes. 26 of their footprints across five trackways survived into modern days and provide a rare glimpse into a single moment in time for a Neanderthal family. The adult male Neanderthal stood at around 5ft6 to 5ft8 tall (1.69-1.73 m), slightly above the average height of 5ft5. One of the children he was walking with was between 7 and 9 years old, and the other was just a toddler, likely a little over a year old.

The dunes would have provided an opportunistic hunting environment, which these Neanderthals were certainly aware of. Several of their footprints cross with contemporary tracks of a red deer, suggesting they were hunting, stalking or ambushing prey in the dunes. The children were involved in this, perhaps learning about strategies, suggesting hunting was a part of their lives from early childhood.

Other Iberian sites reveal that coastal Neanderthals were incredibly adaptable. Their diet relied on deer, horses and hares, but they would incorporate local food sources too, suggesting a depth of knowledge of local nature. For a species that is frequently imagined as living in the cold in caves, sites like this reveal a different picture. Here we see a group raising children, living along the coast, and cleverly exploiting its resources with the Atlantic Ocean as the background.

The paper is open access on Nature: de Carvalho, C.N., Cunha, P.P., Belo, J. et al. Neanderthal coasteering and the first Portuguese hominin tracksites. Sci Rep 15, 23785 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-06089-4

Archaeology News

Here is where I discuss or list any archaeology news that caught my eye. I am still figuring out this section of the newsletter.

• A medieval well that was once a water source inside the walls of Sheffield Castle was surveyed by a drone!

  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g434x213wo

• In Northern China, researchers identified the ancient liquid in a Qin bronze vessel, dated to 475-221 BC. The liquid was a cereal-based alcoholic beverage made from broomcorn millet and Triticeae, which demonstrates sophisticated brewing knowledge!

  • https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X26001732?via%3Dihub

  • https://www.heritagedaily.com/2026/05/ancient-qin-era-alcohol-identified-in-remarkably-preserved-bronze-vessel/158195

Recommendations

I got Forza Horizon 6 (a driving game), and it has been great so far. I have loved ‘driving’ around Japan, so when I do a series on the Archaeology of Japan, you know why.

More video games (I promise I'll go outside), I just downloaded and have played about an hour of Paralives, a life sim game, that is looking like it might rival Sims.

Olivia Rodrigo’s new music and the Bleachers’ new album have been on repeat.

I got some more Sauce Shop sauces, and they have all been delightful.

Taskmaster Series 21 continues to be delightful, and I have been watching Veep because of it!

(Let me know if there is a more structured way to do this part :) )

Thank you for exploring the distant past with me. There is always more to uncover…