Avebury henge and stone circles are one of the greatest marvels of prehistoric Britain. Built and much altered during the Neolithic period, roughly between 2850 BC and 2200 BC, the henge survives as a huge circular bank and ditch, encircling an area that includes part of Avebury village. Within the henge is the largest stone circle in Britain - originally of about 100 stones - which in turn encloses two smaller stone circles.

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The Avebury Stone Circle dates back to the Neolithic age.

The Avebury Stone Circle was built during prehistoric Britain. It dates back to the Neolithic Age (also known as the New Stone Age) over a course of centuries, roughly between 2850 BC and 2200 BC. Just to give you an idea of how marvellous a feat this architectural wonder is, people in the Neolithic Age still primarily used stone tools, with evidences of early metallurgy and pottery, but no advanced technology to transport and erect each stone in place. The Neolithic Age also marked the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution and the start of domestication practices in Eurasia and other parts of the world, which give an insight (but no clear evidence) on why it was built for.

 The Avebury Stone Circle originally comprised of 100 stones.

The Avebury Stone Circle was built roughly 4,000 to 5,000 years ago and has survived centuries of weathering and erosion. Originally, there were 100 stones in the Avebury Stone Circle, with 29 or 30 stones comprising its outermost ring. The outermost ring of the Avebury stone circle has a diameter of 1,088 feet, making it Britain’s largest stone circle. Meanwhile, the northern and southern inner rings have diameters of 322 feet and 354 feet respectively.

The stones of the Avebury Stone Circle are massive.

What adds to the perplexity of the Avebury Stone Circle is just how massive the stones that comprise it are. Given the time period when these stones were erected, one wonders how prehistoric people were able to take each stone to its position and push it upright. They did not have trucks and cranes to help them put the stones in place when some of them weigh more than 40 tons (that’s 80,000 pounds!). The stones were tall, too. They measure from 12 feet to as tall as 18 feet.