Editing Stonehenge (section)

===Before the monument (from 8000 BC)===
Archaeologists have found four, or possibly five, large [[Mesolithic]] [[posthole]]s (one may have been a natural [[tree throw]]), which date to around 8000 BC, beneath the nearby old tourist car park in use until 2013. These held pine posts around {{convert|0.75|m|order=flip|spell=in}} in diameter, which were erected and eventually rotted in place. Three of the posts (and possibly four) were in an east–west alignment which may have had [[ritual]] significance.<ref>Exon, 30–31; Southern, Patricia, ''The Story of Stonehenge'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=4myoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PP15 Ch. 2] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180407053434/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4myoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PP15|date=7 April 2018 }}, 2012, Amberley Publishing Limited, {{ISBN|1-4456-1587-8|978-1-4456-1587-5}}</ref> Another Mesolithic astronomical site in Britain is [[Warren Field]] in [[Aberdeenshire]], which is considered the world's oldest [[lunisolar calendar]], corrected yearly by observing the [[midwinter solstice]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=V. Gaffney |display-authors=etal |title=Time and a Place: A luni-solar 'time-reckoner' from 8th millennium BC Scotland |url=http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue34/gaffney_index.html |url-status=live |journal=[[Internet Archaeology]] |date=2013 |issue=34 |doi=10.11141/ia.34.1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130718145814/http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue34/gaffney_index.html |archive-date=18 July 2013 |access-date=16 July 2013|doi-access=free }}</ref> Similar but later sites have been found in [[Scandinavia]].<ref>Exon, 30</ref> A settlement that may have been contemporaneous with the posts has been found at [[Blick Mead]], a reliable year-round spring {{convert|1|mi|spell=in}} from Stonehenge.<ref name="UB"/><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-cradle-of-stonehenge-blick-mead-a-mesolithic-site-in-the-stonehenge-landscape |title='The Cradle of Stonehenge'? Blick Mead – a Mesolithic Site in the Stonehenge Landscape – Lecture Transcript |last=Professor David Jacques FSA |date=21 September 2016 |website=www.gresham.ac.uk |publisher=Gresham College |access-date=15 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116170229/https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-cradle-of-stonehenge-blick-mead-a-mesolithic-site-in-the-stonehenge-landscape |archive-date=16 January 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Salisbury Plain]] was then still wooded, but, 4,000 years later, during the earlier Neolithic, people built a [[causewayed enclosure]] at [[Robin Hood's Ball]], and [[long barrow]] tombs in the surrounding landscape. In approximately 3500 BC, a [[Stonehenge Cursus]] was built {{convert|700|m|ft|order=flip}} north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the trees and develop the area. Other previously overlooked stone or wooden structures and burial mounds may date as far back as 4000 BC.<ref name=webb>{{cite book |last=Webb |first=John |title=Stone-Henge Restored with Observations on Rules of Architecture |date=1665 |publisher=Tho. Bassett |location=London |page=17 |oclc=650116061}}</ref><ref name=Charlton>{{cite book |last=Charlton |first=Dr. Walter |title=The Chorea Gigantum, Or, Stone-Heng Restored to the Danes |date=1715 |publisher=James Bettenham |location=London |page=45 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRg4nQAACAAJ |access-date=22 August 2020 |archive-date=26 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210426231306/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRg4nQAACAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Charcoal from the 'Blick Mead' camp {{convert|2.4|km|order=flip}} from Stonehenge (near the [[Vespasian's Camp]] site) has been dated to 4000 BC.<ref name=sarah>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11303127/Stonehenge-discovery-could-rewrite-British-pre-history.html |title=Stonehenge discovery could rewrite British pre-history |work=Daily Telegraph |author=Sarah Knapton |date=19 December 2014 |access-date=19 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219192353/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11303127/Stonehenge-discovery-could-rewrite-British-pre-history.html |archive-date=19 December 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> The [[University of Buckingham]]'s Humanities Research Institute believes that the community who built Stonehenge lived here for several millennia, making it potentially "one of the pivotal places in the history of the Stonehenge landscape."<ref name=UB>{{cite web |url=http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/research/hri/blickmead |work=University of Buckingham |title=The New Discoveries at Blick Mead: the Key to the Stonehenge Landscape |access-date=26 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227095402/http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/research/hri/blickmead |archive-date=27 December 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref>