Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"

Redrawing the Map

An administrative oversight may also be partly responsible for the site remaining hidden—and assumedly pristine, at least underground—project leader Wickstead said.

When prehistoric sites in the area were being mapped and documented in the 1890s, a county-border change placed Damerham within Hampshire rather than Stonehenge's Wiltshire, she said.

"Perhaps people in Hampshire thought [the monuments] were someone else's problem."

This lucky conjunction of plowing and politics obscured Damerham's prehistoric heritage until now.

The site shows that "a lot of the ceremonial activity isn't necessarily located in these big centers," such as Stonehenge, Pollard said. "But there are other locations where people are congregating and constructing ceremonial monuments."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090615-stonehenge-tombs-crop-circles_2.html