Archaeoastronomy in the British Isles - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 57

F IG . 4.11 ( a , b ) Maes Howe, Orkney, with Prof. Archie Roy at entrance
( right ). Figs. 4.11 , 4.12 and 4.13 by Chris O'Kane, 1998
F IG . 4.12 Stenness standing stones (Orkney 1998)
Work at Avebury began in 2900 b.c. with a wooden struc-
ture, the first “Sanctuary,” which Aubrey Burl saw as a charnel-
house for the dead (Chap. 1 ) . Whether that's true, and whether
everything else at Avebury took its cue from that, are different
questions. What happened next in the immediate vicinity was
the creation of the largest manmade mound in Europe, Silbury
Hill, between 2850 and 2750 b.c. (Fig. 4.14 ). There's disagreement
between experts about the exact date, as there is about the ditch