Britain’s First Road – Stonehenge Avenue

January 11, 2026 Trebor2510

Contents

1 Introduction
2 2026 – Update Freshwater Shells, Alluvium, and the End of the “Dry Stonehenge” Myth
3 Podcast
4 Author’s Biography
5 Exploring Prehistoric Britain: A Journey Through Time
6 Further Reading
7 Other Blogs

Introduction

Traditional archaeology has long struggled to explain the function of the Stonehenge Avenue. As a result, it has been variously described as ceremonial, symbolic, or a natural feature later adopted by monument builders. None of these explanations withstands close scrutiny once the physical evidence is examined in full.

The Avenue is not symbolic.
It is not accidental.
And it is not ceremonial by default.

It is an engineered roadway.

The Failure of the “Preglacial Stripe” Hypothesis

Traditional archaeologists argue that the Avenue pre-dates Stonehenge as a natural feature. Excavations revealed what were described as “preglacial stripes”, interpreted as frost-thaw features formed during tundra conditions at the end of the last Ice Age. According to this view, Stonehenge was placed here because of these stripes.

This explanation collapses immediately under spatial logic.

Britain's First Road - Stonehenge Avenue — Britain’s First Road – Stonehenge Avenue

The so-called stripes appear only within a narrow corridor approximately twenty feet wide, following the exact line of the Avenue. They do not occur across the surrounding landscape, despite identical geology. The chalk bedrock in this area is uniform and widespread. If these stripes were natural periglacial features, they would appear everywhere — not confined to a single linear path.

Their confinement to the Avenue is decisive.
They are not geological.
They are anthropogenic.

LiDAR Evidence: A Road with Edged Ditches

LiDAR removes vegetation and modern disturbance, revealing the Avenue with clarity. What appears is unmistakable:

• a raised linear surface
• flanked by parallel ditches
• consistent width
• controlled gradient

This is not erosion.
This is not chance.

It is a constructed roadway with drainage.

Changing colour palettes on the LiDAR further enhances internal detail, showing wear patterns within the Avenue itself. Excavation confirms what the remote sensing suggests.

Cart Tracks: The Critical Empirical Evidence

Within the Avenue, excavations have revealed wheel ruts — the most overlooked and most important evidence associated with the site.

Some of these ruts are shallow and relatively light. These are consistent with later historic traffic: carts and carriages weighing approximately 1,500 to 1,800 pounds, around 0.8 tonnes. These tracks align with use recorded in historic drawings, including those made by William Stukeley in the eighteenth century.

But beneath them are far deeper cuts.

These cannot be produced by light vehicles. They require extreme axle loads and slow movement — exactly what would be expected from heavy wheeled transport used to move 25-tonne sarsen stones during the Neolithic.

These deep ruts were misidentified as natural stripes only because their true mechanical origin was never considered.

They are not frost scars.
They are load scars.

Once recognised as such, the Avenue’s function becomes unavoidable.

The Avenue Does Not “Wander” to the River

Conventional interpretations claim that the Avenue takes a long, ceremonial walk down to the present course of the River Avon, passing the so-called King Barrows on the opposite ridge.

This idea is based on modern footpaths and later OS mapping, not archaeology.

Early Ordnance Survey maps do not show this route.
Nor does the physical ground support it.

At the end of the Avenue, the valley floor opens and appears to split — exactly as shown in Stukeley’s eighteenth-century drawings. However, the shallow later tracks here are insignificant when compared to the deeply engineered cut of the original Avenue.

The Avenue originally terminated at the Neolithic shoreline, not the modern river course.

Transport Phases: Bluestones First, Sarsens Last

The Avenue was used over thousands of years, adapting to a retreating shoreline.

In its earliest phase, during the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, it functioned as a water-edge access route, bringing bluestones inland from the west. The angled post holes along the Avenue cannot serve any practical purpose other than mooring posts, aligned deliberately to changing shorelines — a pattern also seen in the former Stonehenge car park excavations.

Later, as water levels dropped, the Avenue was extended and reinforced to support heavy overland transport, culminating in the movement of the sarsen stones from the valley floor up to the monument.

The deepest cart ruts belong to this final phase.

The Avenue Mounds: Unloading Platforms

Within the Avenue are two artificial flint mounds.

One is known as Newall’s Mount.
The other remains unnamed.

These mounds have no defensive, ceremonial, or symbolic explanation. They are too low, too functional, and too precisely located.

Their purpose is obvious: raised unloading platforms for boats operating on the Neolithic River Avon. Identical features exist at Avebury and Silbury, forming a repeated architectural solution to the same logistical problem.

Ditches, Water, and Engineering Logic

The Avenue incorporates deliberate water management.

The southern ditch is shallower because the river lies on that side and water access is immediate.
The northern ditch is approximately 10% deeper, compensating for distance from the water source.

This exact asymmetry is repeated at Stonehenge itself, where the north-western sector of the main ditch is also deeper.

This is not ritual.
It is hydraulic calibration.

Conclusion: Britain’s First Engineered Road

The Stonehenge Avenue is not ceremonial by default.
It is not natural.
And it is not symbolic guesswork.

It is Britain’s earliest engineered road — designed first for boats, then for carts, and finally for the heaviest loads ever moved in prehistoric Britain.

The cart tracks prove it.
The LiDAR confirms it.
The hydrology explains it.

Everything else is narrative, built to avoid confronting what the ground itself is saying.

2026 – Update Freshwater Shells, Alluvium, and the End of the “Dry Stonehenge” Myth

In our previous article, Stonehenge Was Flooded: What the Boreholes Actually Show, we demonstrated that subsurface data beneath and immediately around Stonehenge is incompatible with a dry chalk environment throughout the Holocene.

That article focused on borehole stratigraphy: gravels, sands, voids, reworked flint, and repeated water-sorted horizons occurring well below topsoil.

This follow-up adds what can only be described as a smoking gun.

Freshwater shells.

Not found in trenches.
Not found in ritual contexts.
Not explained away as surface contamination.

But found sealed within borehole sequences, at elevations that only make sense if Stonehenge was once hydraulically connected to a river system.

Freshwater shells do not lie

The graphic above plots three boreholes against terrace height and modern groundwater level. What immediately stands out is not just the presence of freshwater shells, but where they occur:

at multiple depths
across more than one borehole
within water-sorted deposits
well below any plausible archaeological horizon

Shells behave differently from flint.

Flint can be dismissed as “residual”.
Shells cannot.

Freshwater shells do not form in dry chalk, they are not produced by springs, and they are not carried downslope by soil creep. Their only viable mode of emplacement is transport and deposition by flowing water within an active fluvial system.

That is basic hydrology.

Why this matters more than any single borehole

On their own, boreholes showing gravels or sands are often waved away as local anomalies. Archaeology has done this for decades.

But once freshwater shells are present, that escape route closes.

Shells require:

sustained aquatic habitat upstream
lateral transport
deposition within a water-moving system

In other words:

If freshwater shells exist beneath Stonehenge, Stonehenge was not hydrologically isolated.

It must have been connected — directly or seasonally — to the River Avon system.

There is no third option.

The missing piece: alluvium finally acknowledged

This is where the newly cited report becomes critical.

For decades, the claim that “Stonehenge bottom was dry in the Holocene” rested on one assumption:
that no fluvial deposits existed in the surrounding landscape.

That assumption is now demonstrably false.

The Winterbourne Stoke East Archaeological Evaluation Report explicitly identifies:

alluvium in the valley bottom
floodplain deposits
Holocene sediment movement by water
buried soils and palaeochannel features

You can read the report directly here:
https://wessexarchaeologylibrary.org/library/repository/object/160/download/179/

This matters because alluvium has a precise meaning. It is not “wet ground”. It is not slopewash. It is not groundwater seepage.

Alluvium is river-deposited sediment.

So we now have, independently:

alluvium proving river activity in the landscape
boreholes proving water-sorted material beneath Stonehenge
freshwater shells prove aquatic transport and deposition

That combination is devastating to the dry-chalk model.

Why periodic flooding without a river does not work

A common fallback argument is “periodic flooding”.

But flooding from what?

Springs do not create alluvium.

Rainfall does not sort shells into subsurface layers.
Groundwater rise does not transport sediment laterally.

Flooding only exists because a river overtops its banks.

Once alluvium is acknowledged — as this report now does — a river is no longer optional. It is required.

What this means for Stonehenge itself

Taken together, the evidence now shows:

Stonehenge sits at a terrace height consistent with fluvial influence
The monument bottom lies within a former wet basin
Subsurface deposits show repeated water movement
Freshwater shells confirm aquatic transport
The surrounding landscape contains floodplain alluvium

The conclusion is no longer radical, it is simply logical:

Stonehenge was once surrounded by water, and functioned within a river-connected landscape.

That has direct consequences for how the stones arrived.

The Avenue re-interpreted

If Stonehenge was hydraulically connected to the Avon system, then The Avenue stops being a ceremonial path and becomes something far more practical:

A managed water-linked route between river and monument.

Moving multi-ton stones by water is trivial compared to dragging them across dry chalk.

Every ancient riverine culture understood this.
Britain was no exception.

Where this now leaves the evidence

We are no longer talking about one or two anomalies.

Across more than 200 logged samples from Stonehenge bottom, we now have:

gravels
sands
voids
reworked flint
freshwater shells
floodplain alluvium
palaeochannel indicators

All pointing the same way.

Not ritual.
Not symbolism.
Hydrology.

Final point (and this matters)

The idea that Stonehenge stood isolated on dry chalk throughout the Holocene was never proven.

It was assumed.

That assumption no longer survives contact with the data.

Freshwater shells are the smoking gun — and the alluvium has finally been acknowledged.

The landscape was wet.
The monument was connected.

And water, not land, explains how Stonehenge worked — and how it was built.

The Prehistoric AI Team

NB: The first graphic shows two boreholes placed at the margins of the Stonehenge basin, where freshwater shells would be expected if the monument once lay on a river shoreline. Shells occur at these edges and are absent from the centre until around 66.60 m OD, where the former channel reaches the basin floor. This is the same infilling pattern seen at Avebury, where a once-open river course has been choked by sediment from surrounding higher ground over the last ~5,000 years. With the present groundwater table at 75 m OD, the system remains hydraulically live; remove the infill and the river would flow again. The evidence is now unequivocal. The second is from the official A303 Tunnel report showing how shallow is the water table to the bottom of the ditch.

In-depth at certain points. The presence of this trench suggests a purpose beyond the ceremonial, indicating either practical or symbolic significance. While there is no direct evidence of a connection between the ditch and the existing moat, it becomes unnecessary given the porous nature of chalk, which allows water to flow over short distances.

Stonehenge as a Hydrological Case Study

Stonehenge occupies a low-lying basin within a chalk landscape that functions as a regionally connected aquifer rather than a dry, impermeable surface. Chalk terrains absorb rainfall, transmit groundwater laterally over wide areas, and express excess water through rivers and wetlands at topographic lows. In post-glacial conditions—characterised by high recharge, limited vegetation, and reduced evapotranspiration—groundwater tables would have been substantially higher than today. Under such conditions, river systems expand laterally, valley floors remain saturated, and shallow basins become hydraulically active components of the wider fluvial network (British Geological Survey, British Upper Cretaceous Stratigraphy; Wessex Archaeology, Winterbourne Stoke East Archaeological Evaluation Report). From a physical standpoint, hydrological connectivity is therefore the expected condition, not an exception.

At Stonehenge, this expectation is reinforced by independent subsurface and engineering evidence. Borehole records around the monument document water-sorted sediments and freshwater shells at depth, while landscape investigations identify alluvium and floodplain deposits within adjacent valleys (Wessex Archaeology, Winterbourne Stoke East Archaeological Evaluation Report). Crucially, tunnel ground-investigation cross-sections prepared for the A303 scheme show Stonehenge Bottom as a structurally controlled groundwater basin, with measured groundwater levels intersecting the basin floor and permeability contrasts forcing hydraulic convergence (Highways England, Implications of 2018 Ground Investigations to the Groundwater Risk Assessment, REP3-019; reproduced in Stonehenge Alliance, Written Summaries of Oral Submissions at ISH10). These data demonstrate that Stonehenge was not hydrologically isolated but formed part of a river-connected landscape linked to the River Avon system. When viewed in this context, the Avenue resolves as a water-aligned route rather than a purely ceremonial path, and stone transport by water becomes a practical consequence of post-glacial chalk hydrology rather than a speculative alternative.

More information on Stonehenge Avenue can be found on our documentary video: https://youtu.be/-Ds1HYB15w8

Podcast

Author’s Biography

Robert John Langdon, a polymathic luminary, emerges as a writer, historian, and eminent specialist in LiDAR Landscape Archaeology.

His intellectual voyage has interwoven with stints as an astute scrutineer for governmental realms and grand corporate bastions, a tapestry spanning British Telecommunications, Cable and Wireless, British Gas, and the esteemed University of London.

A decade hence, Robert’s transition into retirement unfurled a chapter of insatiable curiosity. This phase saw him immerse himself in Politics, Archaeology, Philosophy, and the enigmatic realm of Quantum Mechanics. His academic odyssey traversed the venerable corridors of knowledge hubs such as the Museum of London, University College London, Birkbeck College, The City Literature Institute, and Chichester University.

In the symphony of his life, Robert is a custodian of three progeny and a pair of cherished grandchildren. His sanctuary lies ensconced in the embrace of West Wales, where he inhabits an isolated cottage, its windows framing a vista of the boundless sea – a retreat from the scrutinous gaze of the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, an amiable clandestinity in the lap of nature’s embrace.

Exploring Prehistoric Britain: A Journey Through Time

My blog delves into the fascinating mysteries of prehistoric Britain, challenging conventional narratives and offering fresh perspectives based on cutting-edge research, particularly using LiDAR technology. I invite you to explore some key areas of my research. For example, the Wansdyke, often cited as a defensive structure, is re-examined in light of new evidence. I’ve presented my findings in my blog post Wansdyke: A British Frontier Wall – ‘Debunked’, and a Wansdyke LiDAR Flyover video further visualizes my conclusions.

My work also often challenges established archaeological dogma. I argue that many sites, such as Hambledon Hill, commonly identified as Iron Age hillforts are not what they seem. My posts Lidar Investigation Hambledon Hill – NOT an ‘Iron Age Fort’ and Unmasking the “Iron Age Hillfort” Myth explore these ideas in detail and offer an alternative view. Similarly, sites like Cissbury Ring and White Sheet Camp, also receive a re-evaluation based on LiDAR analysis in my posts Lidar Investigation Cissbury Ring through time and Lidar Investigation White Sheet Camp, revealing fascinating insights into their true purpose. I have also examined South Cadbury Castle, often linked to the mythical Camelot56.

My research also extends to the topic of ancient water management, including the role of canals and other linear earthworks. I have discussed the true origins of Car Dyke in multiple posts including Car Dyke – ABC News PodCast and Lidar Investigation Car Dyke – North Section, suggesting a Mesolithic origin2357. I also explore the misidentification of Roman aqueducts, as seen in my posts on the Great Chesters (Roman) Aqueduct. My research has also been greatly informed by my post-glacial flooding hypothesis which has helped to inform the landscape transformations over time. I have discussed this hypothesis in several posts including AI now supports my Post-Glacial Flooding Hypothesis and Exploring Britain’s Flooded Past: A Personal Journey

Finally, my blog also investigates prehistoric burial practices, as seen in Prehistoric Burial Practices of Britain and explores the mystery of Pillow Mounds, often mistaken for medieval rabbit warrens, but with a potential link to Bronze Age cremation in my posts: Pillow Mounds: A Bronze Age Legacy of Cremation? and The Mystery of Pillow Mounds: Are They Really Medieval Rabbit Warrens?. My research also includes the astronomical insights of ancient sites, for example, in Rediscovering the Winter Solstice: The Original Winter Festival. I also review new information about the construction of Stonehenge in The Stonehenge Enigma.