Era 3: The first monument - Phase 1 c3000BC
The Bank and Ditch
The Cursus
The Lesser Cursus
Originally the bank stood about 1.8m high and was built of chalk rubble quarried from the ditch immediately outside it. The ditch and all the other holes for stones and posts were dug with pick-axes made from the antlers of red deer. The chalk rubble loosened with picks was scraped together with the shoulder blades of cattle and loaded into baskets. Wooden shovels may have been used as well, but no trace of them survives. Modern experiments have shown that these tools are more effective than they look. To dig the ditch and build the bank with them would have taken only twice the time required today with steel picks, shovels and buckets.
About eight hundred metres to the north it consists of two straight banks and ditches 90m apart, running some three kilometres in length from east to west. Called the Cursus in the eighteenth century, it was thought to be some sort of race track. Some people also think that it has a processional ritual use. However, its true function remains a mystery.
Situated to the north west of Stonehenge it is shorter than most of the other cursus monuments with a rounded west end and open east end. It is divided in the centre by a transverse ditch. Excavations have shown that it was built in several stages but its function is still unknown. Its remains are no longer visible.