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Novel techniques were used to unlock the secrets of the recently discovered Durrington pit circle
Nicole Wootton-CaneThursday 27 November 2025 22:43 GMTComments
CloseMystery of Stonehenge deepens after ‘jaw-dropping’ discovery
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Archaeologists have said they believe humans are the architects behind a number of “extraordinary” pits near Stonehenge, in a groundbreaking new study.
The true nature of the Durrington pit circle has been debated among academics since its discovery in 2020. But a fresh analysis of the site using exciting new scientific techniques has shown they were likely to be created by determined ancestors, rather than by natural processes.
Made up of a sweep of 20 pits surrounding Durrington Walls henge, just two miles northeast of Stonehenge, the “extensive arrangement” is now believed to have formed a part of a “large, and currently unique, neolithic pit structure”.
The paper, published in the journal Internet Archaeology, analysed 16 of the pit “features” to determine how and when they were made. But due to the size of the features, archaeologists had to use a series of novel methods to come to their findings.
The Durrington pit circle lies around two miles away from Stonehenge (Alamy/PA)Electrical resistance tomography assessed the depth of the pits and radar and magnetometry was used to analyse their shapes. In order to establish how the pits came to be, they extracted sediment cores and used optically stimulated luminescence to date the soil from the last time it was exposed to the sun, as well as “sedDNA”, which recovers animal and plant DNA from the soil.
They also found repeating patterns in the soil from different parts of the site, which they believe proves that humans must have been involved.
Professor Vincent Gaffney, of the School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences at the University of Bradford, who is leading the analysis, told The Guardian he believed the new research showed the pits formed an “extraordinary structure” that was likely built in the late Neolithic period.
Of the repeating patterns, he added: “They can’t be occurring naturally. It just can’t happen,” Gaffney said. “We think we’ve nailed it.
“Now that we’re confident that the pits are a structure, we’ve got a massive monument inscribing the cosmology of the people at the time on to the land in a way we haven’t seen before. If it’s going to happen anywhere in Britain, it’s going to happen at Stonehenge.”
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