A Landscape of Epic Proportions
The monuments span 2,000 years of continuous Neolithic and Bronze Age activity (c. 3,700 – 1,600 BC) in Wiltshire.
What's special about the monuments?
Settlements, burial grounds and large constructions of earth and stone provide an insight into past mortuary and ceremonial practices.
The monuments evidence prehistoric technology, architecture, and astronomy and have influenced centuries of archaeological discovery and artistic inspiration.
What’s special about the landscape?
There are thousands of monuments in the Stonehenge & Avebury landscape, as recorded on the Wiltshire and Swindon Historic Environment Record.
Bronze Age barrow cemeteries lie on prominent ridgelines and several monuments are positioned in relation to rivers and water. Stonehenge, and a number of other monuments, are aligned with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset. The careful siting of monuments in the chalkland landscape helps us to understand how they were designed and experienced.
Outstanding engineering skills
These monuments represent a huge investment of time and effort and would have been of major significance to those who created them.
Outstanding Universal Value
There are more than 1,200 World Heritage Sites worldwide. Each unique site is considered by UNESCO to have its own special qualities, known as Outstanding Universal Value (OUV):
“cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity”.
At Stonehenge & Avebury, this is expressed by seven attributes:
1) Stonehenge itself as a globally famous and iconic monument.
2) The physical remains of the Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial monuments and associated sites.
3) The siting of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial sites and monuments in relation to the landscape.
4) The design of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial sites and monuments in relation to the skies and astronomy.
5) The siting of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial sites and monuments in relation to each other.
6) The disposition, physical remains and settings of the key Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary, ceremonial and other monuments and sites of the period, which together form a landscape without parallel.
7) The influence of the remains of Neolithic and Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial monuments and their landscape settings on architects, artists, historians, archaeologists and others.
Video produced by World Heritage UK
World Heritage UK aims to raise the profile of World Heritage at home and abroad, lobby for support, resources and policy change, exchange expertise and good practice, and link culture with nature.
Caring for the Site
We work to protect, conserve and share the World Heritage Site for current and future generations.