Fetch Hengeworld Originated By Mike Pitts Visible In Copy

little outdated, science has moved on, it even moved on between the first and second edition of the book.
But a very good history of archaeology and a synthesis of ideas of Stonehenge and Avebury and other Hengeworld sites An excellent, readable, comprehensive survey of the state of archaeological knowledge of late Neolithic Britain, along with the the history of the field.


Pitts brings crucial firsthand experience: some of the most interesting stories in recent discoveries come from his own work.
He's readable for a general audience while exhaustively sourcing everything, and including extensive maps and charts,

Hengeworld attempts a synthesis of knowledge across a range of sites to explain the culture of the wood and stone henge builders.
Like similar books, it also attempts too many other things at once to be an adequate cultural history, even given the paucity of data.
The book succeeds more as a history of British archaeology, a narrative of the slow encroachment of scientific method and meticulous practice on a field that was breathtakingly halfassed well into the lateth Century.


That history also provides an interesting look at the rise and fall of academic fads, and points out the problems of a field that, while grounded in pottery and ethnography, really doesn't grapple well with understanding sociotechnical systems.


Archaeologists have begun to make some very useful contributions to science amp technology studies I think there would be a lot to gain from an exchange running the other way.


That said, this book does an excellent job of placing Neolithic technologies in a cultural context, and calling out unfounded assumptions made by past scholars.
It's a thoughtprovoking, fascinating book, For the most part, Hengeworld is a thoughtful discussion of the various discoveries about henge sites, mostly in the Wessex area.
It looks at dating and old digs, piecing together as accurate a story as possible and trying to put together the context of Stonehenge and the places like it.
Im pretty happy that, at least inish when this was written, Pitts was saying nothing controversial his work aligns with that of Francis Pryor notably not referenced, though and Mike Parker Pearson.


One note, though where Pitts discusses people protesting the dig at Seahenge, he insists that the protestors didnt understand what was going on.
Surely, he seems to think, if theyd understood the circle was going to be destroyed anyway by the sea, if theyd understood the importance to archaeology, they wouldnt have had anything to protest about.
But that ignores the link people still have with the prehistoric monuments like Seahenge, It was built of timber, so surely our ancestors knew it would rot in the end, It was built on the shore, for goodness sake a liminal, impermanent place if there ever was one, They meant for Seahenge to be taken by the sea, perhaps, It may even have been important to them, Who is Mike Pitts, or any archaeologist, to claim thats not worth respecting

I share the curiosity about megaliths and henges obviously.
Ive read this book. But sometimes I do wonder why we privilege our understanding of them over the symbolism they had for ancient peoples.
On the one hand, of course those people are gone and wont know whats happening, On the other maybe rescuing Seahenge is not a sign of respect for the past, but a desecration, However important you think the archaeology is, I think there should be room to consider that and accept that some people may feel it trumps the opportunity for radiocarbon dating, and freezing the remains of Seahenge in time in a climate controlled environment.
That is not, after all, what Seahenge was built for,

When Pitts concludes that different eras have made what they will of Stonehenge and the other megalithic and megadendritic structures out there, hes closest to recognising their real power, I think.


sitelinked for The Bibliophibian, Research for novel This is a lengthy and comprehensive nonfiction book about the megalithic structures of Neolithic Britain Avebury, Stonehenge etc, the cultures who built them and how modern science arrived at what we currently know about those.


The early chapters go into detail about the often eccentric, individual personalities involved in the archaeological fieldwork, the evolution of excavation and investigation methods through modernity as well as the different theories that have been posited so far about how and why these megalithic structures were constructed.


If you ask me, the most interesting part of "Hengeworld" is finding out how much the archaeological theories about Stonehenge and similar henges have evolved with the evidence and analysis available.
First they were thought to have been constructed in the Iron Age, then the Bronze Age before being discovered to be Neolithic.
While the Henges were built by the preIndoEuropean Neolithic farming cultures related to those the late sitelinkMarija Gimbutas waxed nostalgic about in books like sitelinkThe Goddesses and Gods of old Europe,BC.
Myths and cult images, these same megalithic structures were extensively modified by the invading Bronze Age ProtoIndoEuropean "Bell Beaker culture" for use in their own very different religious rituals! perhaps to counteract the magic set in place by the previous inhabitants, whom the Bell Beaker people viewed as evil

That is not all, either: Ritual burials around the area could be found from as late as the Iron Age, with one skeleton turning out to belong to a Saxon from the Dark Ages.
The last chapter in "Hengeworld" revolves around the difficult forensic detective work in figuring out this person's identity,

It is also interesting to learn how the henges were first thought to be astronomical observatories, and it wasn't until the's and's anyone discovered burial places there.
One chapter examines the evidence for how many astronomical observation uses are even possible for Stonehenge in the first place, something that is far from clear quite contrary to popular belief.


More of the insight to be found in "Hengeworld" which stands out revolves around the process of figuring out how the henges were built, complete with sarcastic comments about Erich von Däniken and company: The author Mike Pitts is notsure how the construction of he henges went, but he leans towards the stones being transported to the construction sites using rafts and barges along the seas and rivers.
Since this theory is not that popularly accepted in archaeology, he expends quite a bit of effort in arguing for that explanation.


I should at last mention that "Hengeworld" has aroundpages of footnotes and appendixes, most of them focusing on radiocarbon dating the archaeological discoveries and artifacts from around the various henges.
As I said in the beginning of this review, this is as thorough a book about the Megalithbuilders of Neolithic Europe as you can find at least as far as books written for popular audiences go, and I would encourage anyone with an indepth interest in the subject to give "Hengeworld" a read.
Fascinating and wellwritten, with a few unexpected odd bits of humor, excellent review of current thinking on the Neolithic As famous as it is mysterious, Stonehenge lies at he heart of our imagined past.
Nearby at Avebury is one of the most extraordinary ancient religious landscapes, For the first time in overyears, an archaeologist close to both sites presents the story from the inside, Starting at he excavation that followed the collapse of a Stonehenge megalith on the last night of theth century, and ending with a dramatic discovery on Avebury at the close of theth century.
Hengeworld tells how recent archaeology has revolutionised the way we think about these great stone circles and the people who built them.
Finally, Pitts shows a pattern emerging from the archaeology of these sites which explains the relationship between then and reconstructs the ceremony that would have symbolised this.


Generations have tried to understand the meaning of this amazing monument, . . yet till now no one has been able to say with any confidence what it was for, . . an uptodate, eyeopening book on our greatest prehistoric monument Daily Mail

Reads like a.
. . whodunit Manchester Evening News

Mike Pitts is that rare thing, an archaeologist who not only makes the news.
. . but who can also write it, This book is a gem witty, charming, urbane, informative Simon Denison, British Archaeology Lively writing, Tells the past and present Stonehenge stories: there's plenty on the archaeological chaos

around Stonehenge and the frankly shockingly haphazard way it's been excavated and treated.
We also get, if not a picture, a few possible sketches of the unknowable lost world of hengeswhat they might have meant to their successive builders, how they were erected and used and adapted.
Intriguing stuff. As an bit of an archaeology buff, I appreciated that this book gave me a huge amount of balanced information without oversimplifying or overembellishing.
This book perhaps opens more questions than it provides answers, but the nuanced and extremely careful information helped me see through other books that are too reductive or conversely sensationalizing.
Hengeworld put the Neolithic henges of Britain into context, It is laced with interesting anecdotes which give insight into the way archaeologists work and think, The anecdotes do not come at the expense of accurate details about the actual archaeology, Pitts is a very clear writer, He gives the details about Stonehenge, but puts it in the context of the other large henges and the various monuments of the Neolithic.


I have now read the book cover to cover twice and referred back to it often, I recommend it highly. .