Hengeworld [Import] [Hardcover]

Mike Pitts (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 415 pages
• Publisher: Century (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0712679545
• ISBN-13: 978-0712679541
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,758,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What motivated them??, March 16, 2003

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hengeworld: Life in Britain 2000 BC as Revealed by the Latest Discoveries at Stonehenge, Avebury and Stanton Drew (Paperback)

You're the honoured guest at Mike Pitts' party. He's set up a receiving line. You meet a guest, are given some personal background, there's a bit of chat, perhaps a short show and tell, then on to the next. They're a varied lot - an RAF veteran, a testy lady, students of all kinds, scholars and civil servants. Off to one side huddle a scruffy group of fishermen. They seem unimportant, but they're vital to this book. Everyone here, including you, Pitts hopes, has a common interest - the henges of Britain. Each of them has contributed something to a better understanding of the ditch circles, posthole remnants, standing and fallen stones, and corpses that make up the hengeworld. They all want to know how the henges were built and by what sort of people. Mostly, they want to know why these monuments came to be. Perhaps you can help answer the questions.

Originally subtitled "Why Was Stonehenge Built?", this question remains glaringly unanswered by this book. Yet in pursuing the inquiry, Pitts has provided more information about the sites, their construction and environment than any other single source. Pitts' title reflects his attempt, largely successful, to bring to life the circumstances and people involved in the multiple constructions scattered about the British landscape. He stresses that all the henges underwent successive building or remodeling over the centuries. Ditches and banks established an enclosure, later modified by circles of posts. Sometimes, as at Stonehenge, dedicated residents finished the project with stone monuments. Over the centuries, those people died, or were killed, their bodies interred within the enclosures or nearby.

Pitts explains how information is gleaned on ages of the sites, condition of the artefacts unearthed, morphology of the disinterred corpses. In his quest to show us the lives of the builders and occupiers, he has a face built from skeletal remnants. Don't skip over that image, it may be one of your ancestors. He provides a wealth of other images - many fine maps, tables of artefact ages, photographs of workmen [some at your party] unearthing or restoring the sites.

The "Why?" remains elusive, for many reasons. We have no written records, of course, and the carvings on stones are enigmatic. So is the positioning. If Stonehenge's Heel Stone doesn't mark the midsummer sunrise, why is it placed where it is? Why is there a preponderance of cattle remains at Stonehenge, but pig remains at Woodhenge, only a few kilometres [and years] away? Why are there massive wood constructions, many with human remains adjoining the posts, as well as stone monuments? Why is Stonehenge's construction method such a departure from the remaining henge sites? And why, if they did, should Stonehenge's builders have trekked all the way to southern Wales for building materials? [That's similar to my walking to Toronto, buying the Province's legislature building, tearing it apart and returning the stones to Ottawa by way of Lake Ontario and the Rideau River - 900 kilometres round trip. Try that thought experiment in your own locality.]

Pitts proposes Neolithic peoples had the dedication to mount such an expedition. Their motivation, in his view, is ancestor worship. Such doctrines have built the Pyramids, Gothic cathedrals and Greek temples, he reminds us. Faith, dedication and some special talents are all that's needed. Return to our party. The group of fishermen at Pitts' gathering likely went off to the pub. After a few pints, they were queried about the tides, weather and currents around the southern coasts of Wales. Some numbers scribbled on a beer mat is given to us as testimony that, yes, 'we could transport your stones 260 miles [Welsh fishermen think Metric is a Czech poet].' Thus Aubrey Burl's insistence Stonehenge came from local stone is disposed of. Perhaps. However, implausible, Pitts has done a well-researched and vividly presented job of viewing the hengeworld. Read it with pleasure. Study it for information gems of the Neolithic world. You won't be disappointed in either case. And you might be motivated to solve some of the issues he lists as needing investigation. [stephen a. haines, Ottawa, Canada]

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE SAVVY ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY: by a non-archaeologist, March 7, 2003

By 

D. Knowlton "thevillagebookshop" (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hengeworld: Life in Britain 2000 BC as Revealed by the Latest Discoveries at Stonehenge, Avebury and Stanton Drew (Paperback)

Mike Pitts', _Hengeworld_ is the most exciting jewel of journalistic-style archeology I've run across since the most recent Dead-Sea Scroll ferment, or "missing link" bones-find article written up in Scientific American. Pitt's volume fills some of my own arcane need for reliable historical review of digs at paleolithic sites in Great Britain, and their current status. The tantalyzing bits we know about the age of the Celtic people and early Britons never ceases to stretch my imagination to creative edges, but finding trusty sources is tricky and often discouraging. Pitt's efforts to clean up the murk around previous digs, and his willingness to frankly set out the limits of our knowledge about the Henges, their makers and customs is refreshing. I found his hypothesized conclusions coherent with the evidence presented, and anthropologically sound.

One warning is in order here for those who might say to themselves, "Ah-ha! Readable archaelogy. Good, I'll pick that one right up!" This book, if given the close reading it deserves, has the potential to broaden one's rear-view horizon. Hengeworld is above all a candid book. It can lead some of us to re-consider, in concert with disquieting facts and acknowledgment of good data, our whole enterprise of gathering knowledge about our ancestors. In spite of this caveat, the book's final chapter exceeded my expectations.
The chap who wrote the review above obviously knows too much for his own good. It's rare that good archaeology is offered in an appealing way to the non-specialist, without attempting to inflame the masses with mere sensationalism, and maintaining a healthy skeptical edge. Pitt's book is well-worth the time and effort.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book!, October 4, 2002

By 

Brian P. Hudson "Writer@Large" (Dearborn, MI) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hengeworld: Life in Britain 2000 BC as Revealed by the Latest Discoveries at Stonehenge, Avebury and Stanton Drew (Paperback)

I bought this book out of curiosity after seeing Mike Pitts as part of a TLC documentary on Stonehenge. I'm glad I did. It's very readable, and very interesting, and very accessable to a non-archaeologist such as myself. Highly recommended.