Neolithic (New Stone Age) people spread slowly through Europe from the Middle East and crossed the English Channel into southern Britain about 5,000BC. Over a thousand years, they left abundant traces of their activities throughout Wiltshire and the surrounding counties.
Having discovered agriculture, tilling light soils with hoes, and domesticated animals these were the first Stone Age people to live in permanent settlements. They made their homes mostly on the chalk and limestone uplands. Remains of their settlements have been found at Windmill Hill, along the Ridgeway and on Old Swindon Hill.
DEATH
Neolithic people had burial grounds such as the causeway Camps, West Kennet Long Barrow and Windmill Hill.
The first burial grounds to be excavated contained only the main bones - skulls, long leg and arm bones - of the body. The Causeway Camps were excavated much later and produced th minor bones such as those of the fingers. This has led to the conclusion that the Neolithic dead were first exposed in the camps and, the bodies decomposed, the principal bones were later conveyed to the ceremonial tombs - first the long and later round barrows.
Wiltshire bears evidence of both inhumation (direct burial) and cremation.
NEOLITHIC MONUMENTS
Wiltshire bears a rich abundance of Neolithic monuments, the most famous of which is Stonehenge. No less a megalithic construction, if only for the vast area which it covers, is Avebury Circle.
Perhaps one of the most enigmatic (speculation about its purpose have been recorded since the 14th century) is the huge and artificial mound near Avebury known as Silbury Hill which excavations indicate was built about 2,660 BC - about 1,000 before the construction of Stonehenge and predating the arrival of the Beaker Folk and the Bronze Age.
The county also possesses an abundance of Long and round barrows.
