New Archaeological Research & Digital Projects

The large, mysterious pits surrounding the Durrington Walls at a distance of almost one kilometre from it, have got a lot of attention over the years. Were they really dug to encircle the Durrington Walls, five kilometres from Stonehenge or are their positions a strange coincidence? In this video I discuss the latest fieldwork on the pits which has recently been published in the journal Internet Archaeology. I also talk about the Time Team's announcement about the Ness of Brodgar and look at three amazing digital projects that bring archaeology and history right to your living room.

#ancient #ancienthistory #archaeology

✨ IN THIS EPISODE

01:13 The Durrington Pits
05:19 The Ness of Brodgar
07:33 The Digital Atlas of Roman Roads
08:33 Portal of Etruscan Chamber Tombs
09:24 eMuseum Malta

✨ JOIN MY CHANNEL

   / @megalithhunter  

✨ FOLLOW ME ON SOCIALS

BlueSky: @MegalithHunter.bsky.social

✨ REFERENCES

Gaffney, V. et al. 2020 A Massive, Late Neolithic Pit Structure associated with Durrington Walls Henge, Internet Archaeology 55. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.55.4

Gaffney, V., Baldwin, E., Allaby, R., Bates, M., Bates, R., Finlay, A., Gaffney, C., Hansford, T., Kinnaird, T., Neubauer, W., Löcker, K., Sparrow, T., Trinks, I., Wallner, M. and Ch’ng, E. 2025 The Perils of Pits: further research at Durrington Walls henge (2021-2025), Internet Archaeology 69. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.69.19

BBC (2025). ‘’Extraordinary discovery' at Orkney Neolithic site,’ BBC, 27 November. https://bbc.com/news/articles/c7836wv...

de Soto, P., Pažout, A., Brughmans, T. et al. Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire. Sci Data 12, 1731 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06...

https://itiner-e.org/

https://etruscan.dh.gu.se/

https://emuseum.heritagemalta.mt/


✨ PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS

Google Earth
Locations

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Western wall of Durrington Walls, credit: Ethan Doyle White
Ness of Brodgar layout, credit: S Marshall
Carved stone ball with incised lines, credit: Johnbod

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Reconstruction of a Durrington Walls house, credit: TobyEditor
Ness of Brodgar excavations, credit: Victuallers

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Durrington Walls and pits on a map, credit: Gaffney, V. et al. 2025, containing additional copyrighted material: Figure 6 OS 10K overlay © Environment Agency copyright and database right 2019. All rights reserved. Lidar Composite DTM 2m resolution, Scale 1:8000 and 1m resolution, Scale 1:4000; © Crown copyright and database rights 2013 OS 1:10000 Scale; EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service (100025252) http://digimap.edina.ac.uk
Durrington Walls and pits in an animation, credit: Gaffney, V. et al. 2020, containing additional copyrighted material: © Crown copyright and database rights 2013 (OS Profile DTM Scale 1:10000); EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service (100025252) http://digimap.edina.ac.uk
Photographs of the geology of the area, credit: Gaffney, V. et al. 2025
Table of pit features, Gaffney, V. et al. 2025

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Carved stone ball, credit: Nachosan
Ring of Brodgar, credit: Stevekeiretsu

Other
Mesolithic pits at Limner, credit: © MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology)

Public domain
Standing Stones of Stenness