Between 3000BC and 1500BC. Stonehenge Phase 1 Aubrey Holes are fifty-six pits 1m in diameter known as the Aubrey Holes after John Aubrey who first identified them. It isn't known whether the pits held posts or stones or neither.

The date for these holes, and consequently where they fit into the order of the wide monument is very vague. Excavation indicates Sarsen stone chips are found only in the upper layers suggesting the Aubrey holes pre-date the Sarsens.

The pits originally contained the 50,000 cremated bone fragments of sixty-three individuals which were excavated in 1920 by William Hawley who re-interred them in a single pit; Aubrey Hole 7.

In 2013 a team led by Mike Parker Pearson analysed the remains finding the individuals were equally male and female, including children, originally from south-west wales, the source of the Stonehenge Bluestones, and had not lived in the Stonehenge area for long before death. Evidence of chalk crushing at the base of the pits is believed to indicate the pits once contained the Stonehenge Bluestones as grave markers.