Hengeworld: Life in Britain 2000 BC as Revealed by the Latest Discoveries at Stonehenge, Avebury and Stanton Drew

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.

Michael Pitts is an archaeologist who has excavated at Stonehenge and Avebury. He is co-author with Mark Roberts of the critically acclaimed Fairweather Eden, the story of Boxgrove Man.