This year’s Archaeological Research Project of the Year is the Bluestonehenge excavations of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

The Stonehenge Riverside Project team were presented with the award, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) during the Archaeology 2010 Conference held recently at the British Museum.

Fieldwork during the summer of 2009 revealed a newly discovered stone circle at the end of the Stonehenge Avenue in Wiltshire.  Now called Bluestonehenge, due to its setting of 20 Welsh bluestones, the 5000-year old circle is a major discovery.

The results of this excavation confirmed the hypothesis that Stonehenge was part of an integrated complex of monuments, linked by the River Avon, that were constructed to celebrate the ancestral dead of an important Stone Age lineage.

The multi-university project is directed by Professor Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University, with co-directors Dr Josh Pollard (Bristol University), Prof. Julian Thomas (Manchester University), Dr Kate Welham (Bournemouth University) and Dr Colin Richards (Manchester University).  Over five years, it has contributed greatly to a better understanding of Stonehenge and the surrounding landscape.

A short video podcast is now online that offers viewers an insight in to the scale of the fieldwork being undertaken.

In addition to winning the Research Project of the Year Award, Professor Parker Pearson was also presented with the award of 'Archaeologist of the Year' for 2010.

The awards were made on the basis of voting by the readers of Current Archaeology magazine.

For further information on the project visit: http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/stonehenge