* circa 2750 BC — Silbury Hill begun

In 1986, UNESCO added Avebury, along with Stonehenge, Silbury Hill, and associated local sites, to its World Heritage List.

It is generally accepted that the Mound is actually of much more ancient construction and possibly a similar feature to Silbury Hill ; indeed, it is a contender for the prize of Europe's oldest building.

At high, Silbury Hill – which is part of the complex of Neolithic monuments around Avebury, which includes the Avebury Ring and West Kennet Long Barrow – is the tallest prehistoric human-made mound in Europe and one of the largest in the world ; it is similar in size to some of the smaller Egyptian pyramids of the Giza Necropolis.

Archaeologists calculate that Silbury Hill was built about 4, 750 years ago and that it took 18 million man-hours, or 500 men working for 15 years ( Atkinson 1974: 128 ) to deposit and shape of earth and fill on top of a natural hill.

Silbury Hill, seen from the nearby West Kennet Long Barrow.

In March 2007, English Heritage announced that a Roman village the size of 24 football pitches had been found at the foot of Silbury Hill.

Few prehistoric artefacts have ever been found on Silbury Hill: at its core there is only clay, flints, turf, moss, topsoil, gravel, freshwater shells, mistletoe, oak, hazel, sarsen stones, ox bones, and antler tines.

In 1861 it was reported that hundreds of people from Kennett, Avebury, Overton and the neighbouring villages thronged Silbury Hill every Palm Sunday.

Professor John C. Barret asserts that although we no longer know what was at the top of Silbury Hill and cannot suggest what specific rituals or beliefs were associated with it, we can tease out basic spatial concepts.

He notes that any ritual at Silbury Hill would have involved physically raising a few individuals far above the level of everyone else.

Michael Dames put forward a composite theory of seasonal rituals, in an attempt to explain the purpose of Silbury Hill and its associated sites ( West Kennet Long Barrow, the Avebury henge, The Sanctuary and Windmill Hill ), from which the summit of Silbury Hill is visible.

Silbury Hill with associated archaeological sites in the Avebury region ca.

Silbury Hill is located in the Kennett Valley, at OSGB grid reference SU099685 ().

* Leary, Jim and Field, David, 2010 The Story Of Silbury Hill, English Heritage, Swindon

* BBC Wiltshire: Going Inside Silbury Hill

* Secrets of Silbury Hill, a short BBC report on the archeological work at Silbury Hill

A clear example occurs in Silbury Air in which a readily identifiable musical motif – a blow from the tom-toms followed by scurrying figures from the strings and woodwind – is elaborated in a number of different ways as the piece progresses.

According to legend, Silbury is the last resting place of a King Sil, represented in a lifesize gold statue and sitting on a golden horse.

One of the Kennet's sources is Swallowhead Spring near Silbury Hill in the county of Wiltshire, the other being a collection of tributaries to the North of Avebury near the villages of Uffcott and Broad Hinton which flow south past Avebury and join up with the waters from Swallowhead Springs.

It is of similar age to the larger Silbury Hill about west of the town.

The West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury in Wiltshire, England.

It is part of a wider Neolithic landscape which includes the nearby sites of Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow and Avebury, to which The Sanctuary was linked by the 25m wide and 2. 5 km long Kennet Avenue.

The proximity of Maes Knoll is comparable with that of Silbury Hill.

In these early stages it passes close by many prehistoric sites including for Avebury Henge and Silbury Hill.

The Avebury monument was a part of a larger prehistoric landscape containing several older monuments nearby, including West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.

Associated with the megalithic constructions across Europe, there are often large earthworks of various designs – ditches and banks, broad terraces, circular enclosures known as henges, and frequently artificial mounds such as Silbury Hill in England and Monte d ’ Accoddi in Sardinia.

Among the most remarkable are Vespasian's Camp, near Amesbury ; Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in Europe, near Avebury ; the mounds of Marlborough and Old Sarum ; the camps of Battlesbury and Scratchbury, near Warminster ; Yarnbury, to the north of Wylye, in very perfect preservation ; Casterley, on a ridgeway about east-southeast of Devizes ; Whitesheet and Winkelbury, overlooking the vale of Chalk ; Chisbury, near Savernake ; Sidbury, near Ludgershall ; and Figsbury Ring, five kilometres ( 3 mi ) northeast of Salisbury.

Several other important Neolithic monuments in Wiltshire in the care of English Heritage, including the large henges at Marden and Stonehenge, may be culturally or functionally related to Avebury and Silbury.

From various surrounding barrows and from Avebury, the step aligns with hills on the horizon behind Silbury, or with the hills in front of Silbury, leaving only the topmost part visible.

In addition, new enclosures called henges were built, along with stone rows and the famous sites of Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill, which building reached its peak at this time.

Places of interest: Avebury ( stone circle ), Kennet Long-Barrow, Savernake Forest, Crofton Pumping Station, Silbury Hill, Wilton Windmill, Stonehenge, Stourhead, Longleat, Alton Barnes ( crop circles ), Stonehenge ( stone circle ), Marlborough, Kennet and Avon Canal, Bruce Tunnel.

Michael Dames ( see References ) put forward a composite theory of seasonal rituals, in an attempt to explain the Long Barrow and its associated sites ( the Avebury henge, Silbury Hill, The Sanctuary and Windmill Hill ).

Michael Dames has proposed a composite theory of seasonal rituals in an attempt to explain Windmill Hill and its associated sites: ( West Kennet Long Barrow, the Avebury henge, The Sanctuary, and Silbury Hill ).

Michael Dames ( see References ) put forward a composite theory of seasonal rituals, in an attempt to explain the Sanctuary and its associated sites ( West Kennet Long Barrow, the Avebury henge, Silbury Hill and Windmill Hill ).

With other nearby sites, including Silbury Hill, Beckhampton Avenue, and West Kennet Avenue, they form a UNESCO World Heritage Site called Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites.

* Silbury Hill, English Heritage

In this respect, Castle Hill may be compared with other unusual hills in Britain, such as Silbury Hill in Wiltshire.

In 1968 to 1970 professor Richard J. C. Atkinson undertook work at Silbury which was broadcast on BBC Television.

This excavation revealed most of the environmental evidence known about the site, including the remains of winged ants which indicate that Silbury was begun in an August.

Atkinson reported the C 14 date for the base layer of turf and decayed material indicated a corrected date for the commencement of Silbury was close to 2750 BC.

Paul Devereux observes that Silbury and its surrounding monuments appear to have been designed with a system of inter-related sightlines, focusing on the step several metres below the summit.