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'A simply outstanding book' 'Astonishing' '[A] rich treasure-trove
of photographs of objects' 'The book truly is a delight, and is a
'book of the ancestors' in a very real sense.' 'Highly
recommended.' - Sacred Hoop Magazine, March 2022 Stonehenge is one
of the best known, but most misunderstood, monuments in the world.
Contrary to common belief, it was not a static, unchanging
structure built by shadowy figures or druids. Rather it represents
the cumulative achievement of numerous generations who were woven
into a complex and widespread network of cultural interactions,
environmental change and belief systems. This publication, which
accompanies the first exhibition about Stonehenge ever staged in
London, uses the monument as a gateway to explore the communities
and civilisations active at the time of its construction and
beyond, between 4,000 and 1,000 BCE. Recent archaeological findings
regarding the origin of Stonehenge's striking 'bluestones' have
reignited interest in this ancient wonder, the people who built it
and the beliefs they held. Through the 'iconic' structure,
spectacular objects of precious and exotic material and more
humble, personal objects, authors Duncan Garrow and Neil Wilkin
examine the dramatic cultural and societal shifts that
characterised the world of Stonehenge, including the introduction
of farming and development of metalworking. Covering a period of
thousands of years, the publication traces the appearance of the
first monuments in the landscape of Britain around 4,000 BCE, the
arrival of the bluestones from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire
1,000 years later, all the way up to a remarkable era of
cross-Channel connectivity and trade between 1,500 and 800 BCE.
Through a new study of the enigmatic and beautiful objects made and
circulated during the age of Stonehenge, connections are charted in
the shared religious practices and beliefs of communities from
across Britain, Ireland and continental Europe. The presence of
other stone and wooden circles hundreds of miles from Salisbury
Plain - including Seahenge, discovered on a beach in Norfolk in
1998 - is further evidence of these shared ways of thinking. At a
critical moment in the narrative of Stonehenge, around 2,500 BCE,
the significance of the cosmos and the heavens expressed through
the construction of stone circles and megalithic passage tombs
began to wane and portable objects gained increasing importance.
This key transformation is demonstrated by a highlight object from
Germany: the Nebra Sky Disc, a bronze disc inlaid with gold symbols
believed to represent the sun, a crescent moon and the Pleiades
constellation. More modest items found in tombs, burials and
settlements are no less important in shedding light on the
development of ideas relating to identity, religious practices, and
relationships between the living and dead. Monuments such as
Stonehenge cannot be understood in isolation. Stonehenge was not
always a static, monolithic structure: over generations it was
adapted and added to by communities that changed and developed the
landscape on which it still stands today.
Britain is internationally renowned for the high quality and
exquisite crafting of its later prehistoric grave goods (c. 4000 BC
to AD 43). Many of prehistoric Britain's most impressive artefacts
have come from graves. Interred with both inhumations and
cremations, they provide some of the most durable and
well-preserved insights into personal identity and the prehistoric
life-course, yet they also speak of the care shown to the dead by
the living, and of people's relationships with 'things'. Objects
matter. This book's title is an intentional play on words. These
are objects in burials; but they are also goods, material culture,
that must be taken seriously. Within it, we outline the results of
the first long-term, large-scale investigation into grave goods
during this period, which enables a new level of understanding of
mortuary practice and material culture throughout this major period
of technological innovation and social transformation. Analysis is
structured at a series of different scales, ranging from
macro-scale patterning across Britain, to regional explorations of
continuity and change, to site-specific histories of practice, to
micro-scale analysis of specific graves and the individual objects
(and people) within them. We bring these different scales of
analysis together in the first ever book focusing specifically on
objects and death in later prehistoric Britain. Focusing on six key
case study regions, the book innovatively synthesises antiquarian
reports, research projects and developer funded excavations. At the
same time, it also engages with, and develops, a number of recent
theoretical trends within archaeology, including personhood, object
biography and materiality, ensuring that it will be of relevance
right across the discipline. Its subject matter will also resonate
with those working in anthropology, sociology, museology and other
areas where death, burial and the role of material culture in
people's lives are key contemporary issues.
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