Archaeologists have for the first time unearthed the homes of Neolithic henge builders, in a set of dwellings, some older than Stonehenge, excavated from a Northumberland quarry. The two settlement sites, each about the size of a football pitch and probably inhabited by a few related families, are dated to between 4,000BC and 3,000BC. The remains of the modest buildings are among the most extensive Neolithic dwellings ever found in Britain. The site is near the village of Milfield, in an area with a rich archaeological history, dominated by the enormous Yeavering Bell hill fort, built 1,000 years after the huts and henges on the plain below. The dwellings are surrounded by timber and earth bank henges so close in date it is assumed they must have been built by the same people.

The Neolithic Britons left some of the most spectacular prehistoric monuments in the world, but there have been only scraps of evidence showing where and how they lived. House sites are so rare that some archaeologists believe most people lived a semi-nomadic existence. "Neolithic habitation sites are as rare as hens' teeth anyway, but this is the first time we have found them in association with henge sites," David Miles, chief archaeologist at English Heritage, said yesterday.

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Neolithic habitation sites...not many of them to be found, which makes this rare find.

I am not familiar with some of the terminology used. Any help would be appreciated. The term "Henge " for example. I think these are stones worked by humans for a purpose. There for the age of the works is interesting.

Are they going to be releasing pictures anytime soon? I find that that would be very interesting to see

Here you go, Roger. Any other specific questions?

A henge is a roughly circular or oval-shaped flat area enclosed and delimited by a boundary earthwork - usually a ditch with an external bank.

The most distinctive components of any henge monuments are its bank and ditch. Most henges have either a single ditch or a pair of concentric ditches surrounding the central area. This is not always the case, however, with some henges having no ditch while others have three.

The soil and bedrock taken from the ditch was used to build the henge bank which generally lay outside the ditch. The sizes of the banks varied proportionally with the size of the ditches. Typically, however, they seem to have been fairly broad at the base, five metres to 30 metres wide and up to five metres high.

Access to the central area was via formal entrances through the earthwork. Most henges have either one entrance or two opposed entrances.

The alignment of henges seen in the position of their entrances is highly variable and may have been as much conditioned by local geography as by any preferred orientation. There is, however, a slight tendency for henges with a single entrance to have that entrance set in the north or north-east sector while sites with two entrances are aligned SE-SSE to NW-NNW or ENE-E to WSW-W.

The original purpose and function of henge monuments is not fully understood. Because of the arrangement of banks and ditches it is generally accepted that they are ceremonial or ritual monuments.

Henges are generally classified into four main types according to the number of entrances and ditches they have. The traditional classification is as follows:

Class I Single entrance, single bank, and, usually, a single ditch circuit.
Class IA Single entrance, single bank, and double circuit of ditches.
Class II Two opposed entrances, single bank, and single ditch circuit.
Class IIA Two opposed entrances, single bank, and two or more circuits of ditches.
Class III Four opposed entrances, single bank, and single ditch circuit.
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