Wiltshire house rivalled Stonehenge as a hub for ancient Britons

Neolithic building on vast site at Marden Henge is welcoming public visitors again after thousands of years buried beneath farmland

Pieces of flint tools dropped more than 4,300 years ago on the floor of a house as old as Stonehenge have been laid bare on the edge of Marden Henge, a giant ditch and bank enclosure so buried in rich Wiltshire farmland that it has almost vanished from view.

"We've over-fetishised Stonehenge for far too long, because those giant trilithons are just so damn impressive," said Dr Jim Leary, director of this summer's excavation with the Reading University archaeology summer school, in the lush Vale of Pewsey. "It could well be that this was really where it was at in the Neolithic."