A PUBLIC row has broken out among archaeologists over the UK government鈥檚 decision to allow the building of a road tunnel close to Stonehenge, a protected prehistoric monument in Wiltshire. The tunnel is intended to replace a congested road that disrupts the landscape around the site, but some argue that the plans will cause irreparable damage to archaeological deposits. While digging near ancient history may seem like an obviously bad idea, the case isn鈥檛 clear-cut.
Stonehenge is a ring of standing stones surrounded by an earth bank and ditch that was probably erected between 3000 and 2000 BC. It has long been protected by British law, and , meaning it is protected by international treaty.
UNESCO forbids any sort of damage to the sites it protects, but Stonehenge has a problem. A major road, the A303, was built long before the 1986 listing and runs right past the monument, spoiling the uninterrupted landscape in which Stonehenge was originally situated. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just appalling,鈥� says Mike Pitts, an archaeologist and author of Digging Up Britain.
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The UK government鈥檚 solution is essentially a form of corrective surgery, replacing the road with a 3.3-kilometre tunnel under the World Heritage Site. It was approved by UK transport secretary Grant Shapps on 12 November 2020 against the recommendation of planning officials.
Like any kind of surgery, some damage is inevitable, which is why the plan takes precautions. Before the tunnel is dug, a consortium of archaeologists led by heritage company Wessex Archaeology in Meopham, UK, will conduct detailed surveys, sampling and excavations along the route, with the aim of ensuring that no significant sites or artefacts are destroyed. The team has already carried out surveys as part of the route鈥檚 approval process.
鈥淚n an ideal world, the A303 would never have been built and we鈥檇 never have this problem,鈥� says Andy Crockett at Wessex Archaeology. 鈥淚 genuinely do believe that this is the most appropriate, best scheme that鈥檚 been prepared.鈥�
So if the tunnel will remove the problematic A303 from the Stonehenge area, restore the landscape and improve traffic flow, and a team of archaeologists will be on hand to oversee any artefacts that may be uncovered, why are other archaeologists mounting a against the plans?
Critics argue that the tunnel isn鈥檛 long enough to prevent damaging the World Heritage Site, and that the archaeological plan 鈥� while ambitious 鈥� doesn鈥檛 offer enough protection.
鈥淚n all of its incarnations as the scheme has developed, the tunnel has never been adequate for the length of the World Heritage Site, which is just over 5 kilometres long,鈥� says Mike Parker Pearson at University College London. As a result, the entrances of the tunnel will be inside the site, meaning surface digging will have to take place within the boundaries.
There is no risk to Stonehenge itself, because the entrances will be well away from it. But the entire area within and surrounding the World Heritage Site is dotted with archaeological remains. Most criticism relates to the area around the western tunnel entrance.
One such site is Normanton Down, which hosts a set of burial mounds from the Bronze Age (2000 to 700 BC). There is a single long barrow, or burial mound, surrounded by 18 round barrows. 鈥淚t鈥檚 little known and visited, because it鈥檚 such an unpleasant location because of the roads, but for archaeologists, it鈥檚 an iconic location,鈥� says Pitts.
鈥淪omething like 90 per cent of the remains of the prehistoric people and their activities from the time of Stonehenge are actually in the very surface layers of soil,鈥� says Parker Pearson. But most of these artefacts will be fairly standard stone tools and only a small fraction can actually tell us anything we don鈥檛 already know about this period. 鈥淏ecause 2 per cent of the sample is what鈥檚 important to us, you have to have very high sampling proportions of that plough soil,鈥� he says. He adds that the planned sampling of the soil is insufficient.
Others argue that such meticulous sampling would be overkill. 鈥淭he flint artefacts are useful only inasmuch as they tell you people were there at a particular time,鈥� says Pitts. 鈥淎ctually, we know there were people in the landscape at Stonehenge in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. We don鈥檛 need the arrowheads to tell us that.鈥�
Think of the future
Parker Pearson says we should consider future archaeologists along with the soil loss. 鈥淥nce it鈥檚 gone, it鈥檚 gone for good,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd it means no future researchers will ever have the opportunity to bring to bear new methods, new technologies, once that resource is removed.鈥�
Even in the east of the World Heritage Site, archaeologists are raising concerns. One place highlighted is Blick Mead: a hot spring that was inhabited for thousands of years in the late Stone Age. Since 2005, archaeologists led by David Jacques at the University of Buckingham in the UK have uncovered thousands of stone artefacts and bones there. 鈥淚t looks as though we鈥檝e got what鈥檚 called a home base,鈥� says Jacques. This is a place that people regularly visited for a long time. Radiocarbon dates indicate that people were there between 8000 and 3600 BC, a timespan longer than the existence of London.
The people at Blick Mead were hunter-gatherers, but the dates indicate that they lasted long enough to live alongside the first farmers, says Jacques. Furthermore, in unpublished results, the team has obtained DNA from the remains of plants preserved in the water of the spring. 鈥淲e got 43 different plant species,鈥� says Jacques, which date to between 7500 and 4700 BC. This means Blick Mead preserves information about an earlier phase of the Stone Age, the Mesolithic, as opposed to the later Neolithic, making it the only site in the area known to do so.
鈥淚n an ideal world, the A303 road would never have been built and we would never have had this issue鈥�
Jacques is concerned that Blick Mead will be irreparably damaged by the project. 鈥淲e are within 10 metres of where the flyover is going to be built,鈥� he says, describing it as 鈥渁 real rough position鈥�. The water table in the area is only 8 centimetres deep, so large-scale digging nearby , he says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got nationally important organic remains preserved by that water table, and they鈥檙e going to be damaged and destroyed.鈥�
UNESCO condemned the proposed tunnel in July 2019 and considers the scheme a potential threat to the World Heritage Site. The International Council on Monuments & Sites UK condemned Shapps鈥檚 decision to proceed in a . They noted that the government鈥檚 own Planning Inspectorate, in a report , recommended that the scheme not go ahead in its present form 鈥� but was overruled by Shapps. Opposition is being coordinated by the Stonehenge Alliance, a group of non-governmental organisations and individuals.
Many argue that the problems could be largely solved by extending the tunnel further west, so the western entrance is outside the World Heritage Site. Parker Pearson and Jacques both support that idea, yet Pitts argues there are problems with it, too. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no one point at which you would say, here we want to stop the tunnel because after that, there鈥檚 no significant archaeology,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou can carry on like this for miles and miles and miles.鈥�
A range of views
The tunnel entrance was chosen so it is on a slope, falling away from Stonehenge, says Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, a UK government body. 鈥淵ou won鈥檛 see it from the stones themselves.鈥� Such sites are few and far between. Wilson notes that the current plan will move the Longbarrow Roundabout, which is unacceptably close to the Normanton Down burial mounds, to a less disruptive area.
For Pitts, the debate is too narrow. 鈥淎ll the focus is on the loss, and people are not recognising the gains,鈥� he says. He points out that in the eastern side of the World Heritage Site, the A303 currently runs right through the Avenue, a long earthworks construction that connects Stonehenge to the River Avon. This route could be restored if the tunnel is built. Removing the road will also improve the view from nearby King Barrow Ridge, which has its own burial mounds. 鈥淭he amenity value, the visual, the atmospheric value of that group of burial mounds would be completely transformed,鈥� he says.
But here the UK鈥檚 planning rules, which emphasise cost-benefit calculations, run up against UNESCO鈥檚 no-damage approach. Ultimately, one side will have to budge. 鈥淭here is no ideal solution,鈥� says Pitts.
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