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Stonehenge: Exploring the greatest Stone Age mystery Paperback – June 6, 2013

by Mike Parker Pearson (Author)

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Our knowledge about Stonehenge has changed dramatically as a result of the Stonehenge Riverside Project (2003-2009), led by Mike Parker Pearson, and included not only Stonehenge itself but also the nearby great henge enclosure of Durrington Walls. This book is about the people who built Stonehenge and its relationship to the surrounding landscape. The book explores the theory that the people of Durrington Walls built both Stonehenge and Durrington Walls, and that the choice of stone for constructing Stonehenge has a significance so far undiscovered, namely, that stone was used for monuments to the dead. Through years of thorough and extensive work at the site, Parker Pearson and his team unearthed evidence of the Neolithic inhabitants and builders which connected the settlement at Durrington Walls with the henge, and contextualised Stonehenge within the larger site complex, linked by the River Avon, as well as in terms of its relationship with the rest of the British Isles. Parker Pearson's book changes the way that we think about Stonehenge; correcting previously erroneous chronology and dating; filling in gaps in our knowledge about its people and how they lived; identifying a previously unknown type of Neolithic building; discovering Bluestonehenge, a circle of 25 blue stones from western Wales; and confirming what started as a hypothesis - that Stonehenge was a place of the dead - through more than 64 cremation burials unearthed there, which span the monument's use during the third millennium BC. In lively and engaging prose, Parker Pearson brings to life the imposing ancient monument that continues to hold a fascination for everyone.

Print length

416 pages
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English
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Simon & Schuster UK
Publication date

June 6, 2013
Dimensions

5.2 x 1.06 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

0857207326
ISBN-13

978-0857207326
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster UK; UK ed. edition (June 6, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0857207326
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0857207326
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 1.06 x 7.8 inches

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Daniel

A fascinating book!

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2012

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First, I've read several books about Stonehenge and other ancient monuments, been to Stonehenge, heard Mike Parker Pearson speak last spring, and feel moderately well-informed. Yet the book has so much new information on Stonehenge and its immediate area that I was having many "wow!" moments. Pearson's argument combines descriptions of the significant new archaeological discoveries with the logic of science on the topic; he is oriented to evidence and careful inferences. He is quite frank about the work of past archaeologists--some of them did poorly. He also has fascinating excursions into related topics: Ancient units of measurements (the long foot and the short foot), astronomical theories, Druids and ancient religions, when animals were killed and eaten, how to move large heavy stones from western Wales to Wessex, how to raise heavy stones, comparisons to other ancient villages and monuments in Europe, chronologies (archaeologists love accurate dates); and the financing and politics of doing archaeology. It is well illustrated with maps, diagrams of monuments, and artistic pictures of what a monument may have looked like. It is a rich satisfying book. He writes well and has a good narrative sense. A newcomer to the topic can handle the book.
Second, a few minor annoyances: He knows the names of archaeologists and--forgetting that we readers may forget names mentioned in earlier chapters--he mentions names without reminders of who they are. Indexing does not highlight definitions ("portal dolmens" baffled me for awhile). The printing of diagrams includes tiny, light, gray and hard-to-read numbers. Some of his theorizing about the builders' religion and national unity floats a bit free from available evidence.

7 people found this helpful

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Neil Wiseman

Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2012

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406 pages. Simon & Shuster, London. £19.

Coming on the heels of vast amounts of archeological research directed by Dr. Parker-Pearson over seven years, there are many who have waited for this summation since 2010. The book does not disappoint.

As few others have done, Parker-Pearson and his Riverside Project take the reader on a journey through the entire landscape of Stonehenge in order to make sense of this most enigmatic of Statement Monuments. Beginning in the deeps of the Mesolithic Era and working forward to the late Neolithic, he directs our attention to the numerous prequel-structures found within the Salisbury landscape. Through artifacts and finds of the immediate vicinity, we learn that this ever-morphing culture was constantly refining their conception of Sun, Life, Death, and how the myriad subsidiaries of these fit together into the long-lasting traditions we now know must have been observed.

Though standing firmly on the shoulders of his predecessors, Parker-Pearson has nevertheless taken previously interpreted physical information and expanded it to include other themes within this 8,000 years-ago culture. With unprecedented permissions from the numerous English authorities, in seven years over forty new digs were conducted at the Cursus, the Cuckoo Stone, Woodhenge and its environs, Durrington Walls, and many others ― even within the Dike of Stonehenge. Identifying and collating this new information is daunting, and proceeds to the present day.

Stonehenge itself it not immune to serious editorial, and many things that were previously held as truth have now been relegated to the pile of discarded theories. The controversial periglacial striations, coincidentally aligning to the summer solstice sunrise, are now established as a rationale for placing the monument in its otherwise mundane location. The age and time-frame of the Monument is firmly established by reviewing many of the artifacts found in the 20th century. The order of postholes in the initial Phase has been explained. The arrival of the Bluestones has been pushed back almost 200 years, and the Arcs, Ovals and Circles made with these are put in proper sequence, throwing the previously misunderstood timing of the Sarsen erection into welcome disarray. Additionally, the order of erection is definitively solved, that is: yes ― the Trilithons went up first.

The book is very readable; to the inclusion of many anecdotal tales of various adventures corresponding to digs, past and present. One of these is Geoff Wainwright's 3-month quick-dig at Durrington in 1967, with his raucous band of archeological merry-making jokesters. It is a hilarious, eye-opening read. The consumption of great quantities of beer while experiencing `Eureka Moments', is also a featured theme. This keeps the detailed information within reach of those who might otherwise shrink from reading it.

He does not preach. With this book, one might be sitting at the local pub discussing these issues in a round-robin atmosphere, and is not presented as an opportunity to pontificate. He mentions `Future Findings' many times, as well as a conscious dismay at having to disturb the ground at all, while noting that the same curses levied at previous archeologists will no doubt be directed at him with the next generation.

The downside of this book is mechanical ― not with the contents. The reproduction of profuse black & white photographs is not the best, though the folio of color plates come through nicely on 90# gloss. Also, the illustrations are understandably small, and I urge the aging hand to reach for a magnifier.

Though well edited, I did find one error. This occurs on page 41 and concerns the caption of a photo on that page. It shows Drs. Piggott and Atkinson peering at the bottom of a Trilithon upright as it's being lowered into a newly fabricated reinforced concrete slot. The caption details the orthostat as Stone 53. In fact, it is Stone 57 from the collapsed West Trilithon, re-erected in 1958. Seen behind the many onlookers are Stones 21, 22, & 23. Stone 53 was, along with 54, excavated and righted in 1964, but never pulled. Also, Dr Piggott was not associated with the later work.

It is a small thing among many noteworthy revelations, and I recommend this book to armchair researchers and professionals alike.
Four out of Five Stars.

ND Wiseman
August 2012

24 people found this helpful

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Whitney Keen

Major revision of Stonehenge interpretations.

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2013

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I was familiar with many of the new findings in this book because Mike Parker-Pearson spoke to the NY City AIA a few years ago. However, this book included much more than what was covered by his talk then. If you are interested in the story behind henge monuments, Stonehenge and Durrington Walls in particular, this book is a MUST READ. Furthermore, it's a good read, clear and full of new interpretations, new datings, new findings. I bought it on amazon.uk but understand it will be available in the US this summer.

2 people found this helpful

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Physics Prof

Not the last word, but the most current word.

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2015

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Nothing that's not in this book is worth knowing about Stonehenge. Its author is one of the most knowledgeable and active British archaeologists, who is familiar with all and responsible for much of our real understanding of neolithic Britain.

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Number 7 of 9

Stonehenge and the neolithic landscape for regular persons

Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2015

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This book is easy to read and understand.

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2017

Why is My Mishkan still under My Heel Stone?
Auger coring 1.2m (4ft) below it too Hard?
Your Book makes no Mention, Why?

G-D

Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2012

Mike Parker Pearson's 'Stonehenge' is one of the latest, and perhaps greatest, of scholarly books reviewing the status of archaeological studies of the monument and environ. Well organized and written by the foremost scholar of the Durrington Walls, Woodhenge and Stonehenge complex, the book is very reader friendly and offers all the information one could ask for as to the current state of understanding of the greatest megalithic structure in Europe, if not the world. A must have for anyone interested in ancient structures.

5 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Book ordered

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2022

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Very prompt delivery. Great condition.

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Traveller

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on July 28, 2017

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Very detailed investigation of excavations past and present a must read before you visit the sites.

NVB

Affascinante

Reviewed in Italy on March 10, 2016

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il libro è in inglese; se questo non è un problema per voi il libro è in questo momento il documento più aggiornato e completo sull'affascinante Stonehenge, colmo non solo di professionalità ma anche di humor inglese e piccoli particolari sugli scavi che lo rendono affascinante senza essere tedioso o pontificante. Ottima lettura anche per chi non è un archeologo

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Gordon Toumaniantz

Stonehenge

Reviewed in France on July 24, 2015

Verified Purchase

Superb. New views on what might have been the reasons for building Stonehenge, and for its positioning in relation to tpography and other monuments

Jack Frost

A superb read - worth every penny

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2012

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Every age gets the Stonehenge it wants/deserves/needs.

There are many varying theories that have and are proposed for "why Stonehenge was built" and we are all entitled to our views. No one wil have the complete answer but this comes very close to an integrated logical interpretation.

Parker-Pearson based upon an a ethnographic analogy suggesteed by Ramilisonina (with the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) team) combine many lines of scientific investigation and interpretation to present a complex yet well argued explanation of when, why and how this iconic monument was built. Most importantly it explains what the monument was used for. Stonehenge is placed within its landscape - a palimpsest of ritual activity since the early Mesolithic. M P-P also follows scientific practice by predicting features prior to excavation - eg. the links to the R.Avon.

Archaeological texts can be very dry but this is NOT. It is as if you are sitting across a pub table listening to M P-P tell the story of his investigations with SRP over the last years. Time flies by as you read and I fell asleep several times in the early hours desparate to read the next chapter. He has managed to organise this book in a very readable manner combining accurate hard science with interpretaion and a great narrative style. If you ever get the chance to hear him lecture take it. M P-P acknowledges and welcomes that this interpretation is open to review but at present it provides the best approximation for understanding this location.

Other reviewers have provided details. (There is only one negative reviewer - but I would respectfully suggest that this is a 'rather biased' view of a competing concept). Not that I would deride this concept - I just cannot afford c. £200 for a 150 page independently published book.

So pour yourselves a pint or three and let M P-P transport to you the world of the late Neolithic and explain upon a logically argued information of what the human experience MAY have been like then and there.

Update

If you are a Stonehenge/Neolithic follower then the Antiquity December 2012 issue requires reading to update the chronology. (ref: "Prof Thom" - this is the methodology of science - no ultimate solutions just researchers current "best model as of now" - and will be further modified as time goes by.) Good diagrams and tables.

M. P-P and the SRP team have shown that Craig Rhosfelin (point 8) is an exact geological match for the bluestone rhyolites. Moreover this location at this site large and small hammerstones have been found along with quartz, flint and rhyolite tools and three large pits one of which held packing stones for a standing stone. So the evidence for a 'bluestone' quarry site north of the famous Prescelli ridge is very strong. (The glacial transport theory needs more evidence of glaciation into west
Wiltshire - although there are some fascinating features such as the Rickford gorge on Mendip).

Future research in Wales is at a possible henge site where the bluestones may have stood originally and in Wiltshire to locate the quarry sites of the sarsens.

This fascinating story continues to develop.

10 people found this helpful

Greywolf

Stonehenge in its context, a new look at an old site

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2012

Verified Purchase

This new book on the most written-about ancient monument in the world is largely the result of a programme of archaeological investigation undertaken at and around the henge between 2004 and 2011 and called the Stonehenge Riverside Project. Mike Parker Pearson was the project leader throughout. He writes in an entertaining style clearly aimed to engage the general reader with a Time-Team-inspired interest in archaeology as much as to inform fellow archaeologists. Rather than focusing entirely on analysing shards of pottery and strings of radio-carbon dates, we are given a good deal of information about the background to the dig. There is a run through previous excavations at the monument and in the surrounding area, detailing their major discoveries on which the Riverside Project aimed to expand. There is information about how the Project plan was formulated, including discussions in pubs, and the hoops that then had to be gone through before any actual digging could be done. This included negotiating permissions with English Heritage and the National Trust and getting digging permits signed off by a Secretary of State. These days, you don't just wander in with a trowel, certainly not at a designated World Heritage Site like Stonehenge. Mike even goes into the process of raising funding for the Project, not something the general public often gets to hear about.
The reassessment of previous digs is particularly interesting. Working from the published reports, the Project team then went back to the original, hand-written site diaries, photographs and drawings the earlier teams had produced and were able to mine these for information that had, in some cases, been missed or misinterpreted by the original excavators. The location of previous digs and what had been found in them also enabled the Project team to site their own excavations where they were most likely to produce results. In some cases, they re-excavated earlier digs while in others they extended previous trenches. They also went back to artefacts unearthed in previous digs and obtained new and more accurate radio-carbon dates for them.
The Project digs were conducted in a more painstaking manner than any before, using newly acquired knowledge and the best possible methods. This was possible because, unlike most archaeology these days, the sites were not in imminent danger of being buried under a motorway or housing development. Digging began not at the henge but at Durrington Walls, a huge henge-like monument a couple of miles to the North-east, now cut through by a main road. A few pages into the book, Mike says that "everyone had thought" that Durrington and Stonehenge were two separate, unrelated monuments. This confused me somewhat since I recall reading books forty years ago that identified Durrington as the probable home of the builders of Stonehenge. Indeed, given the nearness of the two sites, the fact that they are linked by a very obvious route via the river Avon and the Stonehenge Avenue that runs from the river to Stonehenge, surely you would need to be fairly blinkered not to think the two sites linked? Similarly the much-vaunted 'new' theory that Stonehenge was a place of the ancestral dead. Well, fine, but the remains of the dead have been unearthed at Stonehenge in fairly large numbers for a century or more. Plus, having made ritual there myself, I can vouch for the fact that the place is full of the spirits of the dead. I didn't need a colleague from Madagascar to tell me that.
There is much here to be positive about though. In digging at Durrington, the fact that Mike had previously dug stone houses in the Orkneys proved fortuitous. Durrington and Stonehenge are built on the chalk of Salisbury Plain. This means that the prehistoric house floors the Project found at Durrington were formed from a kind of plaster made from wetted chalk. This floor took and held imprints of anything placed on it soon after it was laid. The careful digging techniques used meant that the team were able to identify where wooden furniture had been sited in the houses. In one, the layout of beds, dressers, kitchen cabinets, etc., perfectly mirrored an Orkney house in which the furniture, being made of stone, has survived intact.
Inevitably, however, it was when the team began to dig at Stonehenge itself that most of the publicity was generated as well as the most contention, particularly when they re-excavated one of the Aubrey holes that circle the site just inside the surrounding ditch. This hole had originally been excavated in the 1920s and found to contain a cremation. The remains from this cremation, along with those of 58 others from the same series of digs, were re-interred in Aubrey hole 7 in 1935. In 2008, when the Project team wanted to unearth them again, responsibility for licensing the removal of human remains had recently passed from the Home Office to the newly-formed Ministry for Justice. The new Ministry re-interpreted the 1857 Burial Act and told the team that any human remains they unearthed would have to be reburied within two years. This sent seismic shock waves through the archaeological community who had previously enjoyed carte blanche to do what they liked with human remains, which usually meant displaying a tiny minority in museums and storing the vast majority in boxes where they are seldom seen by anyone, often poorly catalogued and frequently lost. To have their control over such remains called into question for the first time was a deeply uncomfortable and unwelcome experience and this is reflected in Mike's book, in the chapter entitled, 'The Druids and Stonehenge.'
That this contentious issue should appear in a chapter with this title is appropriate. I seem to have been the first UK Pagan to raise the issue of the reburial of ancestral remains in Britain. From the mid-1990s, I attended meetings of the Stonehenge Access Committee, hosted by English Heritage and attended by many interested parties, including various Druid groups. After the meetings, I raised the issue of reburial with archaeologists employed by both EH and the National Trust, who own or manage most of the land around Stonehenge as well as the henge itself. Rather to my surprise, I found them quite sympathetic. I was pleased when my old friend, Emma Restall Orr, started the group, Honouring the Ancient Dead, in order to take forward the idea of respectful reburial. I was less than pleased when members of militant Druid groups hijacked the idea and began haranguing and, in some cases, threatening archaeologists and museum curators. Sure enough, attracted by the publicity surrounding the Project, a handful of militant Druids began turning up at Stonehenge, yelling abuse at archaeologists and visitors. This, not surprisingly, gave the same archaeologists and visitors a very poor opinion of Druids.
Mike's opinion of reburial, as stated in the book, is that it amounts to ancient human remains being "consigned to oblivion." This argument is, of course, undermined by the fact that, in 2008, his own Project recovered useful information from bones that had been reburied in 1935. The problem for the team was that the archaeologists who reburied them then had failed to box, bag or tag them with any information about where on the site they had originally been interred. They had simply dumped the remains of 59 cremations loose into Aubrey hole 7 and covered them over with spoil from the hole. In spite of which, Jacqui McKinley, one of Britain's leading osteo-archaeologists, who was there when the remains were unearthed in 2008 was "very pleased to see that they were generally large pieces in good condition." 73 years back in the ground, unprotected by anything other than earth, and these ancient remains had survived pretty much intact. "Consigned to oblivion?" Apparently not. This completely undermines one of the main arguments put forward against reburial; that it leaves remains unavailable for future research. If simply dumping them in a hole and loosely covering them with soil preserves cremated remains in good condition for 73 years, how much longer might they remain intact if put in a simple leather bag, properly labelled of course? Or a wooden box? Or an earthenware pot? Or a polythene bag in an earthenware pot? 100 years? 150? 200? Another 5,000? I contacted Mike Parker-Pearson about this apparent contradiction, but, at the time of writing, have not received a reply.
On the subject of Druids, the dust jacket blurb for the book states that it "debunks once and for all the myths about Stonehenge's 'druidic' identity." In fact, the author merely repeats the same arguments that have been trotted out for the last sixty years, which boil down to Druids being a Celtic Iron Age phenomenon and therefore nothing to do with a Neolithic monument, with the additional argument that there is little archaeological evidence for Iron Age people gathering at stone circles. He quotes Julius Caesar as one of the few ancient writers who actually knew some Druids, but fails to mention Caesar's most relevant comment, in which he states that the Druids of his time held their beliefs to have originated in Britain and to still be taught there in their purest form. Archaeology places the origins of the Celtic Iron Age in Central Europe. The implication is that Druidry was an insular British development that European Celts only encountered after they had spread across the continent. If Druidry did not come to Britain with the Celts but existed here prior to their arrival, then it must have developed out of an earlier strata of belief that could well have its origins in the Neolithic. The author himself lends credence to the argument for continuity when he states that "excavations at Stonehenge ... have recovered nearly as much pottery from the period 1500-700 BCE as there is for the period 3000-1500 BCE," that is as many from the Bronze Age up to the early Iron Age as from the Neolithic period during which the henge was built.
Mike states, quite rightly, that classical writers do not mention Druids in relation to stone circles. However, he fails to mention the existence of alignments of standing stones at Iron Age Celtic shrines in Northern France or of Woodhenge-like shrines of the same period in Britain.
The feeling that Druids may have a link with megalithic sites is not confined to modern Druids. It is an opinion shared by several noted archaeologists. In 1949, Stuart Piggott expressed his opinion that there was continuity between the religious practices of the Neolithic and those of the Iron Age, a continuity that included the practitioners of that religion, whom he identified as Druids. However, following encounters with some very unhelpful modern Druids at Stonehenge, Piggott completely reversed his opinion and spent a good deal of his 1968 book, The Druids, slagging off Druid revivalists. Another respected archaeologist, Christopher Hawkes, lecturing at Oxford in 1955, argued that Druids were "the nameless priests of the old megalithic religion Celticized." In the 1970s, Glyn Daniel told Ronald Hutton that "Druidry and stone circles might have been intrinsically linked, and that this would explain why Britain both had more such circles than any other part of Europe, and was credited by Caesar with being the home of Druidry." In 2004, Francis Pryor wrote that "today ... most prehistorians would accept that the religious beliefs that formed the core of Druidism had very ancient roots indeed, at least as old as Stonehenge, and probably a great deal older."
A final problem with the book is the low quality of reproduction of the photographs in it. The book is printed on a slightly fuzzy paper that gives the photographs a grey, blurry appearance that makes it impossible to identify some of the things mentioned in the accompanying text.
Other than these quibbles, this is a very good book, highly readable and containing a lot of fresh information as well as fresh interpretations of things we thought we knew. It brings the dating of Stonehenge and surrounding sites up to date, creating a firmer sequence for building and usage. It places Stonehenge more completely into its context than ever before. It even adds a previously unknown henge to the picture, dubbed Bluestonehenge, situated by the banks of the river Avon. Mike Parker Pearson, as well as being a very careful archaeologist, is also a very good writer, marshalling his facts well and setting them out clearly. As for the theories based on those facts, well, intelligent readers are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether they make sense of not. In any case, for anyone with an interest in Stonehenge and its environs, this is a must read.

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