Anthony Johnson

Anthony Johnson BA (Hons) DPhil (Oxon).

Anthony was born in Dublin in 1948, but spent his early years in rural Lancashire. The family moved to London in 1960. Schooling in a rough North London comprehensive was an experience which quickly quashed early academic aspirations. Family circumstances meant leaving school at fifteen and working in a variety of jobs until finding employment ‘swinging a pick and shovel on rescue excavations' in the 1960's. Some six years later he was invited to apply to study archaeology at the University of Cardiff; a place offered on merit and hard won field experience. After graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in archaeology he returned to fieldwork, working on many sites in the UK and abroad, from prehistoric to post medieval. In 1990 his emphasis shifted towards technical archaeological evaluation, principally magnetic survey and topographic work, developing soil magnetic susceptibility survey and magnetometer applications on more than three hundred sites. This pioneering survey work offered the opportunity to undertake a DPhil at the University of Oxford.

His work on Stonehenge arose from his initial interest while a student at Cardiff, and the ‘utter frustration’ with speculative non - archaeological interpretations of the monument. In his book 'Solving Stonehenge' (a title promoted by the publishers Thames & Hudson, rather than the author) we see the culmination of over forty years of archaeological experience focused on Europe’s most outstanding work of prehistoric architecture. Today Anthony is still actively involved with fieldwork, largely research projects and teaching.