The Stonehenge People


Book Description

First published in 1990. Of all the monuments left by the past, Stonehenge is the most evocative, the most memorable and the most mysterious. Whilst the monuments of other cultures have gradually surrendered their mysteries, Stonehenge alone seems to stimulate endless conjecture. Rodney Castleden's vivid presentation of the world of the megaliths answers many of the most baffling questions about Stonehenge. There are, he stresses, few absolute certainties, but from the vast body of evidence assembled during the last hundred years it is now possible to get much closer to the truth than ever before. Who built the monuments and for what purpose? How were the bluestones moved from the sacred mountains of the west to Salisbury Plain? Who were the people responsible for this amazing undertaking, and what did they think and believe?




How to Build Stonehenge


Book Description

Icon of the New Stone Age, sculptural and engineering marvel, symbol of national pride: there is nothing quite like Stonehenge. These great sarsen and bluestone slabs, arranged with simple, graphic genius, attract visitors from across the world. The monument stands silent in the face of the questions its unlikely existence raises: who built it? Why? How? There has been endless speculation about why Stonehenge was built, inspiring theories ranging from the academically credible to the improbable, but far less investigation into how. In the millennia since its creation, pieces of Stonehenge have been knocked over by heavy machinery, found their way to Florida (and back again), and been exposed to radioactive sodium, but the seemingly impossible endeavour of raising the stones with Neolithic technology has remained inexplicable until now. In the past decade ground-breaking discoveries, made possible by cutting-edge scientific techniques, have traced the precise provenance of the bluestones in Wales, but can we plot their journeys to the Salisbury Plain? And how might teams of labourers lacking machinery or even pack animals have dragged them 150 miles to the site? How did they carve joints into the sarsen boulders, among the hardest stones in the world, and then raise them into place? Mike Pitts draws on a lifetimes study to answer these questions, revealing how Stonehenge stood not in austere isolation, as we see it today, but as part of a wider world, the focus of a megalithic cosmology of belief, ritual and creativity.




Stonehenge


Book Description

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.




Neolithic Britain


Book Description

The climax of the Stone Age in Britain, the Neolithic period (4700-2000BC), was a period of startling achievement. The British Isles are rich in Neolithic sites, which give us evidence of a complex and surprisingly developed archaic society. The author surveys 1100 secular and ceremonial sites in Britain, selecting some for detailed explanation; from these a sense of the diversity and dynamism of the living Neolithic communities emerges. He presents a comprehensive, profusely illustrated and up-to-date view of the Neolithic, organised by county. Archaeologists and prehistorians will find this book of interest and it should prove indispensable to students of archaeology as a source of information about the British Neolithic.




Stonehenge


Book Description

Perched on the chalk uplands of Salisbury Plain, the megaliths of Stonehenge offer one of the most recognizable outlines of any ancient structure. Its purpose—place of worship, sacrificial arena, giant calendar—is unknown, but its story is one of the most extraordinary of any of the world's prehistoric monuments. Constructed in several phases over a period of some 1500 years, beginning in 3000 BC, Stonehenge's key elements are its “bluestones,” transported from West Wales by unexplained means, and its sarsen stones quarried from the nearby Marlborough Downs. Francis Pryor delivers a rigorous account of the nature and history of Stonehenge, but also places the enigmatic monument in a wider cultural context, bringing acute insight into how antiquarians, scholars, writers, artists–and even neopagans—have interpreted the mystery over the centuries.




Where Is Stonehenge?


Book Description

Unravel some of the riddles of Stonehenge, one of the most famous and mysterious monuments in the world! Where is Stonehenge? That's an easy question to answer. It sits on the Salisbury Plain in Southern England. But what is the meaning of these strange circles of stones? Was Stonehenge a religious site to honor the dead? Or a sacred place of healing? Or perhaps an astrological calendar? These are much harder questions to answer. However, in an engaging and easy-to-read account, True Kelley puts forth all theories—past as well as current ones—about Stonehenge and the people who four thousand years ago managed to build this amazing monument.




The Giants of Stonehenge and Ancient Britain


Book Description

Did giants really exist in the British Isles? Do the legends of them building Stonehenge hold any reality? Why does the establishment deny they ever existed? Hugh Newman and Jim Vieira, best selling authors of Giants On Record: America's Hidden History, Secrets in the Mounds and the Smithsonian Files (2015), and stars of History Channel's Search for the Lost Giants, investigate these claims and take a deep dive into obscure newspaper accounts, antiquarian diaries, archaeological reports, local history records, newly-translated ancient texts, academic papers, new scientific reports and written evidence from hundreds of sources going back over a 4,000-year period to uncover the truth. Over 250 accounts of the remains of giant human skeletons ranging from 7 feet to 21 feet have been found in the archaeological and historical record, often measured and commented on by famous scientists, scholars and writers at the time. A wealth of folklore from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland talks about sophisticated cultures of giants with supernatural powers and advanced technology who had control over thunder and lightning, as witnessed when their tombs were disturbed by later generations. They were often high kings and queens who were master geomancers, surveyors, architects and astronomers who ruled from their mountaintop fortresses--whilst others were cannibals with violent tendencies who enjoyed throwing gigantic rocks across the landscape! The authors take a close look at these age-old stories and the remarkable skeletal discoveries to reveal for the first time an important lost chapter of British history. Includes an 8-page color section.




Megalith


Book Description

On the plains of Wiltshire in England lie the remains of ancient giant stones. Exactly which people built these stones remains the eternal question. Just like the pyramids of Egypt its origins remain shrouded in mystery. Various theories have been put forward as to the race or otherwise of these builders, but still, much uncertainty remains. The evidence is simply overwhelming that the earliest inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were Blacks. Mythological, archeological, linguistic and other sources have substantiated this remarkable fact. Candid authorities like the British Egyptologists Gerald Massey and Albert Churchward, the Scottish historian David Mac Ritchie, and the British antiquarian Godfrey Higgins, have done exhaustive research and brought many facts to our knowledge. Tacitus, Pliny, Claudian and other writers have described the Blacks they encountered in the British Isles as "Black as Ethiopians," "Cum Nigris Gentibus," "nimble-footed blackamoors," and so on. This book reveals much about the Black presence in the early British Isles, including the "mysterious" builders of Stonehenge. We learn about the Black Fomorians, Partholonians, Nemedians, Firbolgs, Tuatha De Danann, Black Danes, Black Douglases, the giants or Cyclopes and so on. We also learn about the Black serpent-worshiping Druids who built serpentine monuments like those at Avebury and Carnac, as well as the builders of the Round Towers of Ireland. The fact remains, that Blacks have played a very important role in the early history, traditions, religion and so on, of early Britain and elsewhere than is generally known and acknowledged. This is a must-read book.




From Stonehenge to Mycenae


Book Description

This book reconsiders how we can understand archaeology on a grand scale by abandoning the claims that material remains stand for the people and institutions that produced them, or that genetic change somehow caused cultural change. Our challenge is to understand the worlds that made great projects like the building of Stonehenge or Mycenae possible. The radiocarbon revolution made the old view that the architecture of Mycenae influenced the building of Stonehenge untenable. But the recent use of 'big data' and of genetic histories have led archaeology back to a worldview where 'big problems' are assumed to require 'big solutions'. Making an animated plea for bottom-up rather than top-down solutions, the authors consider how life was made possible by living in the local and materially distinct worlds of the period. By considering how people once built connections between each other through their production and use of things, their movement between and occupancy of places, and their treatment of the dead, we learn about the kinds of identities that people constructed for themselves. Stonehenge did not require an architect from Mycenae for it to be built, but the builders of Stonehenge and Mycenae would have shared a mutual recognition of the kinds of humans that they were, and the kinds of practices these monuments were once host to.




Stonehenge


Book Description

In a land steeped with ritual and sacrifice, a family of brothers whose deadly rivalries and glorious ambitions will forever mark the world, gather at Stonehenge.