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Despite its being one of prehistory's most alluring landmarks, before the Stonehenge Riverside Project led by noted archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson, only half of Stonehenge itself, and far less of its surroundings, had ever been investigated; and many records from previous digs are inaccurate or incomplete. With fresh evidence based on seven years of unprecedented access to the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, this excavation replaces centuries of speculation about even the most fundamental mysteries of Stonehenge with hard proof. Stonehenge changes the way we think about the site, correcting previously erroneous dating, filling gaps in our knowledge about its builders and how they lived, clarifying the monument's significance both celestially and as a burial ground, and contextualizing Stonehenge, which sits at the center of one of the densest prehistoric settlements in history within the broader landscape of the Neolithic Age.… (more)
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Postscript: bought the hardback edition at Stonehenge itself. What a difference to see the stones in context as one landmark in a rich ritual landscape.
This approach places the monument in the context of its landscape, the wider pan-island culture, and its role as part of a large complex of adjacent Neolithic monuments, settlements, and landforms. Far from being the isolated stone circle we see today it was part of a evolving thriving culture where it was just one (but probably the largest) of many henges.
While the conclusions and observations in this book are fascinating it does drag a bit mid-narrative as it gets bogged down in the detail of how a modern archeological dig is conducted and recorded.