Customer Reviews

Hengeworld

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4 star:		(1)
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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]

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.

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.

This book claims to be the only up-to-date account of "henges", the enigmatic circular monuments that sprang up across Britain around 5000 years ago. Actually there is serious competition from the works of Aubery Burl, but if you like your archaeology journalistic and gossipy rather than authoritative and erudite, Mike Pitts is the man for you. If you are already a fan of British archaeology, don't expect too much from the "new discoveries" hype; most has been known for a decade or more (but new dates for Stonehenge change the picture a bit).

Among the many stories in this book is the poignant tale of the man responsible for by far the largest dig at Stonehenge. "At Hawley's annual lectures... speakers from the floor at first politely praised him for his determination to stick to the facts. Before long, however, he was being harangued for doing just that... bored with descriptions of holes in the ground, [they] wanted answers to the big questions. Who built Stonehenge, and why?". Gradually Hawley's funds dried up, he became dispirited, the dig petered out and (to the fury of later archaeologists) he never published a final report.

The time of the henges is the time that the (lost) history of Britain starts rolling. Their appearance implies a new cultural element (religion?) shared across the island. At first they are small and seem to serve village-sized communities, but a few centuries later enormous "super-henges" like Avebury are built, implying much larger political units on the scale of Celtic tribes. Also around this time the warrior Beaker culture spreads to Britain and Ireland, bringing a clearly hierarchical social structure. Soon after, bronze is invented in Britain, bringing not just better tools, but serious commerce in the form of long-distance, large-scale trade in copper and tin. By no coincidence the spectacular megalithic ring of Stonehenge is constructed around now, demonstrating the improved communications by incorporating 300 tons of stone from 200 miles away in Wales. Within a few centuries, most henges have been destroyed or abandoned and only a re-developed Stonehenge remains in use. These events carry tantalising hints of wars, invasions, alliances, the rise and fall of dynasties and religions. What adds to the fun is that we don't know the precise order of events... Carbon 14 can pin dates down only to a range of five centuries or so. Which is why archaeologists prefer to stick to facts about holes in the ground.

Seventy-five years after Hawley, there are a lot more facts, including some collected by Pitts himself in small digs at Stonehenge and Avebury. Pitts has no intention of losing his audience the way Hawley did, but he can't bring himself even to ask questions about that lost history. His solution is to spice up his account by turning it into a scientific mystery story (actually several mysteries interwoven to heighten suspense). The book is as much or more about the archaeologists as about their discoveries. But the mysteries solved answer only little questions. The result is entertaining, but unfilling; in the end we don't learn enough about either the people who built the henges or the people who dug them up. Although they are a cast of grade "A" eccentrics, none of the archaeologists stay on stage for long enough to become a true character.

As for the henges, the focus is on Stonehenge, Avebury, and their surroundings. We get the usual collection of maps, including the various stages of Stonehenge. Pitts points out that maps give completely the wrong impression of the monuments, which were designed to be looked at, not from the air, but from the ground, set in the surrounding landscape. Unfortunately the publishers' budget has not stretched to hiring an artist to show us this. The only reconstructions included show Woodhenge and related "post-circle" monuments as large huts; strange, because Pitts is certain these reconstructions are wrong. I suppose open-air circles of wooden posts are just less interesting to look at.

What is really disappointing about this book is what is not in it. Far from giving an overview of "Life in Britain 2000 BC" as promised by the publishers' blurb, the only aspect of Neolithic /Bronze Age life that seems to interest Pitts are the rituals and symbolism of the big henges, the most unknowable aspects of all. He risks a detailed interpretation, but it is transparently only one of a thousand possibilities. In contrast, quite a bit is now known about the Neolithic: its landscape, its climate, what people ate, what they wore, how long they lived, how they died, whether they grew crops or herded animals, what tools they used, and so on. On these topics, recent archaeology really is changing our view of the past, but such things are mentioned here in passing if at all.

It was with a sudden passion for Stonehenge that I came across Hengeworld. I have read a great deal about henges in general, and Stonehenge in particular, over the last six months of obsession with the topic. This book stands out for a number of reasons.
1. It is very informative, and gave me a clear picture of what Pitts was talking about. I could physically visualize the places and various monument in location, without having to go and hunt for sizes, dates and scale, as I had to with so many other books and articles. Many other archaeologists leave out critical details because they are so familiar with the jargon, they forget that readers may not be.
2. Pitts put Stonehenge into context, giving a much broader picture than just the massive sarsens and their companion bluestones. It is so much more than that.
3. I got a really clear idea of exactly how archaeologists work. This is critical in assessing just how much of what is 'known' is really known for sure, and how much is subject to later variation.
4. There were some great anecdotes. They weren't just a good read but added to the big picture.
5. The book gave a really good image of life at the time and the changes which were taking place over the lifespan of the henges.
6. By including Stonehenge in an overview of henge monuments, Pitts made it clear that any explanation of Stonehenge must fit a broader pattern.
7. And it was a great read because it is just so well written. I would have enjoyed it for the writing alone.

Having read a great deal since I first read Hengeworld and gained a lot more expertise in the field, I have returned to Hengeworld and am finding that a second reading enables me to really absorb the finer details. It's a rare book which can be read - and thoroughly enjoyed - for general interest and also for really detailed data. Pitts achieves this.

One of the more readable and informative books on the topic, Mike Pitts covers all aspects of the complex surrounding Stonehenge. After reading from cover to cover twice, I still find myself going back time and again, making this one of my chief resources for the study of Salisbury plain. Other books tend to be more or less arguments for the author's personal theories regarding what went on there, Mr. Pitts fills his pages with what has been found, how it ties in with nearby sites (the Cursus, Woodhenge, the many burials in the area and the more recent finds at Durrington Walls, that is, facts not fantasy. When he does propose an explaination for what he describes, it is done without bias and leaves the decision to the reader.

If you are to read one book on Stonehenge, this has to be it.