Although this sarsen stone sitting by the novelist Thomas Hardy’s former lawn may seem inauspicious, it is actually part of a ditch enclosure similar to the one at Stonehenge. Even more impressively, this one may be hundreds of years older than Stonehenge, reshaping our understanding of prehistoric Britain.
The stone was first discovered underground in 1891, surrounded by half-charred bones and ashes. Thomas Hardy was impressed enough by the stone to erect it in his garden and even write a poem about it.
The real significance of the stone was not realized until the 1980s, when an archaeological survey was being done for a highway passing by Hardy’s Max Gate. Archaeologists found human remains and cremations in a ditch enclosure, similar to the one surrounding Stonehenge. Some were under sarsen stones similar to the one discovered earlier.
More recent datings have determined most of the remains and earthworks to be from the fourth millennium BCE, around two hundred years older than Stonehenge. That means that a similar structure may have stood at Max Gate before the more famous one in Wiltshire! The findings here have become invaluable in showcasing the neolithic transition between long barrow cremation and burials in circular ditch enclosures.
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