A NEW stone avenue has apparently been located by photographic evidence at Avebury.

The discovery was made by digital photographic pictures which show a series of green patches that measure more than 470 metres in length towards the highest point of Waden Hill.

Two other stone avenues, known as the West Kennet Avenue and the Beckhampton Avenue, are known to archaeologists because some of the massive stones still line these areas.

Author and cartographer Robert John Langdon has been mapping the area over the last six years and has named the new avenue Silbury Avenue.

Recent discoveries show that Silbury was flooded in the past and Me Langdon believes Silbury Hill would have been used as a harbour, once the waters had eventually receded from the main site of Avebury.

He said: “The maps I have produced indicated that Avebury was a trading place for our ancestors.

“My assumption is that the nearby monument of Silbury Hill would have been used as a harbour, therefore, a direct pathway would have been used from Silbury Hill to Avebury for goods, which according to archaeologists doesn't exist."

Silbury Hill is the largest man-made monument of prehistoric Europe and its construction is believed be for either religious or ceremonial purposes.

But Mr Langdon believes that an ancient civilisation would not have spent millions of man hours building a monument without a very good practical reason.

He said: “We now know through recent excavations that this mound was built in stages, starting small, then getting taller, if it was purely symbolic you wouldn't need to change the size.

“You only change the height of this monument if it serves as a beacon to attract ships and boats to the trading place of Avebury, for the higher you build, the greater the visible range."

Mr Langdon has published a series of books and maps, based on his hypothesis that most of Britain was flooded directly after the last ice age and consequently, such ancient sites were built on the shorelines of the wetlands.

The first book of his Prehistoric Britain trilogy – The Stonehenge Enigma –describes Silbury Hill as Britain's first Lighthouse with a wood-burning beacon on the summit of the man-made hill.

Mr Langdon has written a book about his discovers called Avebury's Lost Stone Avenue and his website is www.the-stonehenge-enigma.info