2000 series: Waddon, Dorset

Mick Aston spoke to Steve Platt to answer viewers' questions about the Waddon 'henge':

Was the henge excavated further by Time Team or others after the programme?

No. What you saw was the limit of the excavation.

Will it get fully excavated?

I hope so, but there are no plans for anyone to do so at present. What is needed is for a prehistorian to take it on as a one- or two-year project and to investigate it properly.

Were any finds discovered from the ditch infill after the programme?

No – and we were handicapped in carrying out a thorough examination by the partial collapse of the trench we dug.

Were any finds made that provide positive dating evidence?

No, some pottery was discovered but it proved inconclusive – and again the collapse of the trench prevented us doing all that we might have liked.

Reconstruction of the Neolithic henge.

Will the site gain legal preservation status?

It's most unlikely that it would gain scheduled monument status without further investigation. English Heritage is much more reluctant simply to schedule sites these days than in the past without positive evidence of their nature.

The computer reconstruction of the henge had only one entrance. Was this based on observation of the earthwork or simply a guess to show one type of henge?

It was pure guesswork. The reconstruction was for illustrative purposes only – to show what the earthwork might have looked like. All of our judgements about this site were speculative. The truth is that it needs more work doing on it.

You sound much more doubtful than you appeared in the programme. Is that so?

I'm a natural sceptic. I feel as though you don't just stumble across an unknown henge monument in this way – life isn't like that. It's also not really where we'd expect to find a henge. At the same time, I can't think what else it could be. The judgement we made was based on the form of it. The outer bank was dumped on top of a buried land surface and had been dug out leaving the ditch on the inside. I don't know of anything other than a henge that fits that description. We are left with the probability that it is a henge, but it needs more work to be certain.

When the test trench was dug on the henge site, Tony's commentary said that they had discovered some 'archaeology'. There then followed a discussion between Stewart Ainsworth and John Gater about why the geophysics hadn't shown it. What was this about?

We are fortunate on Time Team that we are able both to carry out geophysics surveys and test the results by digging holes. Usually geophysicists don't have that luxury. These surveys are subject to all sorts of anomalies, though, and it's quite common for something not to show up clearly even if it's there [in this case the bank and ditch]. It's even more common, of course, for something to appear to be there when it isn't. A hard-packed layer of earth can show up as stonework, for example, or certain mineral deposits can show up the same as metal or stone.

Did the geophysics show anything to suggest that there may have been standing stones or wooden posts associated with the earthwork?

No. Again the reconstructions of the 'henge' were speculative.

What do we know about the sea level in this area at the time that any henge might have been built?

Generally speaking, the sea level would have been lower then in southern Britain and higher in the north (the result of the land mass of Britain 'tilting' as the ice caps retreated). The overall landscape in the area of Waddon would not have been dramatically different, however, to what it is today. This was a desirable place to live then, just as it is today. We should not really be surprised that it has probably been in continuous occupation since at least the Iron Age.

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