Silbury Hill
Europe's tallest prehistoric man-made mound — a hill of stacked chalk with no known burial — built around 2400 BC by the societies of Stonehenge. How? Mastered. Why? Still unanswered.
- Location
- United Kingdom · Europe
- Civilisation
- British Neolithic
- Period
- ~−2470 to −2300
- Technique
- Multi-phase chalk mound, ~30 m high (academic measurements: 39.3 m), ~248,000 m³
- Studies
real support, not settled. A revisable snapshot of the state of research, never a judgement.
→ Show on the mapThe elements of the site
Where the site is
51.416° N, 1.857° W · satellite view
What science says
30 radiocarbon dates (Bayliss, McAvoy & Whittle, Antiquity 2007) place the start of construction in the second half of the 25th century BC (~2470–2350); Bayesian models suggest a duration of several decades to a century and a half.
The reference monograph (Leary, Field & Campbell, English Heritage 2013) documents numerous incremental construction phases, refuting Atkinson's three-stage model (1968–1970): the mound was built up over successive generations.
Volume: ~248,000 m³ of chalk and clay; circular base about 160 m in diameter. The volume is comparable to that of contemporary Egyptian pyramids.
The 2007–2008 excavation (English Heritage Conservation Project) revealed exceptional organic preservation at the core of the mound and a Romano-British settlement at its foot. No artifact or burial linked to the construction has been found.
What remains unexplained
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Studies & sources
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Keep exploring
DebatedStonehenge
The bluestones traveled 250 km from Wales. And the altar stone, from Scotland. Why those particular stones?
ConsensusAvebury Circle
With its 11.5 hectares (28.5 acres) enclosed by a ditch 9 m deep and an outer circle 338 m in diameter, Avebury is Europe's largest megalithic henge monument. Built in phases between ~2850 and ~2200 BC, it holds around a hundred sarsens, exact count still debated, — many toppled or buried in the Middle Ages — two inner circles and a 2.4 km avenue.
DebatedCarnac Stones
More than 3,000 standing stones in rows over ten kilometers. The largest megalithic complex in the world, dated between 4600 and 4300 BC — with no text to explain it.