I commented earlier in the year on the new Stonehenge – well, the new super-English-Heritage-at-its-very-best visitor centre, which I think we should be calling the Neocentre. As it nears completion, I'm told by the ever-reliable and insightful, World Heritage Trails [WHT], that the go-ahead's been given for the construction of 10 demonstration Neolithic houses – the sort that were experimentally built recently at Old Sarum.
However, in case sure-to-be-excited visitors to the Neocentre get the wrong impression about living in 2500 BCE, perhaps these houses ought to have this quote embroidered into their thatch:
"The discovery of houses within, underneath and outside Durrington Walls suggests that a large area of the valley in which the henge lies was probably covered in dwellings. The considerable quantities of pig and cattle bones, pottery, flint arrowheads and lithic debris indicate that occupation and consumption were intense. The many articulated and unfragmented animal bones are likely to be debris of the wasteful consumption resulting from feasting." [Note 1]
As WHT points out, the implication is that there is no evidence to suggest that the way in which people lived in these buildings was particularly sustainable. Indeed, in some respects, their lifestyles seem similar to our own.
Note 1
This quote is taken from: Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Thomas, J., Tilley, C. and Welham, K. (2007) The Stonehenge Riverside Project, summary interim report on the 2006 season. London: English Heritage. The full report is available online
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