Over the past year, Butser Ancient Farm have been constructing an interpretation of a late Neolithic 'Grooved Ware' structure from Wyke Down, Dorset - originally excavated by the archaeologist extraordinaire Martin Green. On Wednesday, April 9, 2025, the structure was officially opened.
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00:00Hi, I'm Martin Green. I was the excavator of the original ground plan for this building that's been reconstructed here at Butser.
00:08And I'm Therese Cairns and I'm the Experimental Archaeologist here at Butser Ancient Farm.
00:13So tell me a little bit about the building behind us.
00:17So many, many years ago we visited Martin's Farm, which is an extraordinary place set in prehistoric Wessex, teeming with archaeology.
00:26And we found evidence that Martin showed us, which Martin had excavated for this late Neolithic structure.
00:33Martin had post-hole evidence, pottery evidence and very unusually walling evidence.
00:38And so we were inspired to try to create an experimental reconstruction based on all of that evidence put together.
00:46Tell me what the reaction's been like today unveiling this structure.
00:49It's been amazing. It's been a really happy day.
00:51Oh, absolutely stunning.
00:52I mean, when I was digging post-holes way back almost 30 years ago, to think that that place is what's come from it is absolutely magnificent.
01:01I think the team's done a stunning job and it's actually very beautiful when you go inside a lovely space and the decoration is stunning.
01:09And we're really pleased to have it on site because we are all about education and really inspiring.
01:14The next generation of archaeologists are inspiring people of all ages.
01:17So it's wonderful to be able to share the story of Wight Down with our visitors, young and old.
01:21We'll have to do some more excavations there perhaps next year if things go according to plan.
01:27And so it's a continuing story, understanding how these houses were built, continuing the analyses of the various things that we found and expanding our knowledge of this period.
01:39And it's lovely for us here at Butserud because as an experimental centre, all we're then trying to do is to bring the evidence to life in a way.
01:47So we're trying to, I suppose, bring back 5,000 years of archaeology and thinking about the people who would have originally built this structure and the amazing hinges around the landscape.
01:59Having that little connection with you, which is quite incredible.
02:02It is, yeah, it's a wonderful structure and you can imagine that in the past at that site there would have been a number of these buildings of various sizes and it goes to show the sort of range of structures that were being built at that time.