Hengeworld - Hardcover

Pitts, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0712679545 ISBN 13: 9780712679541

Publisher: Random House UK, 2000

Synopsis

This is a story of the discovery of a lost civilization that spanned five centuries—a civilization that now lies mostly beneath the fields of Southern England. Mike Pitts, an archaeologist, asks what sort of people designed and built these extraordinary structures. Using computer reconstructions he shows what they looked like and attempts to discover what their purpose was.

About this title

From the Publisher

The ancient sites at Stonehenge and Avebury lie at the heart of Britain’s imagined past, as fabled as they are mysterious. In Hengeworld, archaeologist Mike Pitts, who has led excavations at both sites, looks at the people who designed and built these structures—and why. Starting with the excavation that followed the collapse of a Stonehenge megalith on the last night of the 19th century, and ending with a dramatic discovery in Avebury at the close of the 20th, Hengeworld tells the story of a lost civilization that spanned five centuries, a civilization that now largely lies beneath the fields of southern England. A major, authoritative reappraisal of these great prehistoric sites and of their bygone civilizations.

From the Inside Flap

By the author of the highly acclaimed "Fairweather Eden, and Joint winner of the British Archaeology Press Award.
As famous as it is mysterious, Stonehenge lies at the heart of a lost civilization that spanned five centuries, a civilization that now lies mostly beneath the fields of southern England. At nearby Avebury is one of the most extraordinary ancient religious landscapes, and the recently discovered wooden rings at Stanton Drew in Somerset are the biggest of a series of remarkable discoveries that have transformed the way archaeologists think of the great monuments in the region.
For the first time in over forty years, an archaeologist presents the story from the inside. Starting at the excavation that followed the collapse of a Stonehenge megalith on the last night of the 19th century, and ending with a dramatic discovery in Avebury at the close of the 20th, "Hengeworld explains how recent archaeological discoveries have revolutionized 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 them, and he reconstructs the ceremony that would have symbolized this.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0712679545
• ISBN 13: 9780712679541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368