Avebury — Avebury
Avebury Gordon Joly, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5

Site · United Kingdom

Avebury

2850–2200 BCE

Avebury is the largest stone circle in Britain, a henge of 330 metres enclosing a great circle and two inner circles, built around 2850 to 2200 BCE, with avenues leading to the Sanctuary. It is paired with Stonehenge as a World Heritage site.

CountryUnited Kingdom
State / provinceWiltshire
Dates2850–2200 BCE
StatusScheduled Monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site
Managed byNational Trust with English Heritage
AccessOpen free of charge; a village sits inside the henge
Coordinates51.428, -1.854 (public site)

What was found

Keiller's excavations recovered Grooved Ware and Beaker pottery, antler picks, flint tools and the skeleton of a barber-surgeon crushed under a stone in the fourteenth century. The West Kennet long barrow and Silbury Hill are nearby.

Rules

Nothing may be collected, dug, moved or removed at Avebury; it is a protected archaeological site managed by National Trust with English Heritage, and taking artifacts, stones or samples is an offence. In England, Scheduled Monument protection makes any digging or metal detecting without consent an offence. This article is for study and context only and is not a collecting locality.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Strata. "Avebury" (Site). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/sites/avebury. Accessed 2026-09-21.

@misc{stratum-avebury,
  title        = {Avebury},
  author       = {{Stratum Strata}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/sites/avebury}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Site article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, wikidata, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);Wikidata (CC0);Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-4.0). As of 2026-09-21; Strata pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

Found an error? Write to drew@tyr.ac with the article id site:avebury.

Stratum is the inventory, provenance and certificate system for fossil, mineral and shell collections. Strata is its open reference: every fact cites its source, and the credits page lists each one with its licence.