An ancient artificial mound in Britain is 4,000 years old, giving it a much longer pedigree than most experts of historical England thought, researchers say.
The 62-foot Marlborough mound in Wiltshire has served as the site of a castle, a possible grave site for Merlin the Magician, home to a king, and most recently as a centerpiece for a boarding school bearing the same name, PhysOrg.com reported Friday.
A team of archaeologists have carbon dated samples of charcoal from deep in the mound on the Old Bath Road between Bath and London and have put the building of the mound back to the time of the construction of Stonehenge and other monuments built by early British tribes.
Once the site of a Norman castle dubbed the "Mount," built after the invasion of 1066, the castle stood for almost 400 years but was eventually torn down and replaced by a house that sat just next to the mound, which eventually formed the basis for the current boarding school.
The mound, sometimes known as Silbury's little sister after a bigger and more famous artificial hill just outside of Avebury, is now believed to be the second-largest artificial mound in Europe.
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