Footnote 3 Best known for its use in megalithic structures from Wiltshire to Kent, sarsen nevertheless can be seen in buildings of varying date, purpose and status (fig 2) across its distribution.įig 2. Whilst the processes of silica deposition in the host sediments were varied and occurred at different times, indurate sarsen stones are accessible on the present-day land surface (for example, in south-west Dorset) or buried in superficial deposits (such as over south Buckinghamshire’s Chiltern Hills).

Discontinuously distributed across central-southern and eastern England as cobbles and boulders, sarsen was formed by the cementation of material in Tertiary sand and pebble beds by silica-rich groundwater or in drainage-line or pan/lacustrine settings. Since the expansion of this research in the nineteenth century, aspects of geological, archaeological and ethno-historical research into sarsen have often overlapped. Footnote 2 In asking themselves ‘what was the incidence of sarsen stone in prehistory?’ (in particular, in the Neolithic), they situated themselves in a tradition of enquiry concerning the geological origins, distribution and uses of southern Britain’s sarsen stones. Those Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries and their guests, who gathered on 23 February 1974 to inaugurate the ‘Evolution of the Landscape’ project, trod in the footsteps of eminent men including Mantell, Prestwich, Rupert Jones and Smith. This was a search for the present and former location of sarsen stones. Might be useful to suggest a particular task which could be easily defined and probably achieved within a year.

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