How was Silbury Hill built?
Silbury is the largest man-made hill in Europe and one of the three largest in the world. Built by Neolithic tribesmen in around 2400 BC, it has been a World Heritage site since 1986. Yet its Britains biggest archaeological mystery: for hundreds of years, people suspected that it was a giant tomb for an ancient king, but successive generations of investigators have failed to find any evidence of human burial. During the 20th century, archaeologists concluded that it was a non-funerary religious monument perhaps built as a stepped truncated cone, in some ways reminiscent of Egypts first pyramid, the Mesopotamian ziggurats and the Mesoamerican pyramids in todays Mexico. However, the most recent research shows that Silbury Hill was never a step pyramid and never contained the mortal remains of a king or anyone else. But a new investigation, led by English Heritage archaeologist Jim Leary, has revealed exactly how the monuments complex interior was constructed. First, the builders removed
