Avebury stone circle belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 2600 BCE at Wiltshire. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
The largest stone circle in Europe encloses a village, a ditch, and two inner rings — a henge you can live inside.
How it was made
Sarsens dragged from the downs, a bank outside the ditch (opposite to defence). Silbury Hill looms nearby as a chalk pyramid.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
Stonehenge is the icon. Avebury is the bigger idea.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 2600 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 76 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.