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| Today only five, probably the heaviest, of the lozenge-shaped monsters that made up the south circle still stand, numbered from 101 in the south to 106 at the west, but even this wrecked arc is long enough to show the efforts of its builders. One by one the sarsens were dragged to Avebury, maybe only ten or twelve a year. Around the circumference of the circle men dug out about thiry irregularly shaped holes, crude pits with an inclined ramp down which the base of the sarsen was tipped until it rested against stakes rammed in to protect the back of the stonehole from damage. During the hacking out of these positions bits of broken and weathered pottery lying in the grass, the domestic debris of the settlement, slipped into the holes, Windmill Hill sherds, thin sandy fragments, coarse Peterborough ware, well over a score of pieces and two or three flints right at the bottom of the pits with not a beaker sherd amongst them, proving the early date of the stone circle. ~ Burl, p 165 |
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