Issue 102

Sept / Oct 2008

Contents

news

Windfarm dig finds boat in style of Sutton Hoo

Prehistoric village under Isle of Man runway

Rare house continues first farmers debate

In the press

In Brief & Phase 2

features

Hadrian in London
The 'Hadrian: Empire and Conflict' exhibiton is impressive

Hadrian's Wall
Abandoned after three centuries, but still alive

New WHS, the Antonine Wall
David J Breeze tells how to make a successful bid to UNESCO

THE BIG DIG: Stonehenge
Mike Pitts sorts out the technical data

additional content
Reading about the Archaeology of Stonehenge

The Stonehenge Olympics
Plans for the stones to get the new facilities ready for 2012

on the web

Recommended websites
Caroline Wickham-Jones explores the realms of archaeological fiction and a look at Barwick-in-Elmet Historical Society's website

letters

your views and responses

spoilheap

a piece about Bonekickers with no archaeological puns!

science

Seeking what is best for buried bones, Sebastian Payne looks at new leglislation

CBA correspondent

Campaigns, comment and communications from the CBA
Gill Chitty on the stones, the bill and beyond

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

features

Reading about the archaeology of Stonehenge

The September/October issue features the recent excavations that have been taking place within the Stonehenge world heritage site.

This is a collection of archaeological references post-dating the publication of the landmark monograph by Cleal et al in 1995, with a few key publications from earlier in the 20th century which I've found particularly useful (with some of my own). The newer ones have valuable bibliographies.

Mike Pitts, July 2008

Key archaeological texts: Stonehenge

Atkinson, R 1979. Stonehenge (3rd ed). Penguin.

Cleal R, Walker, K & Montague, R 1995. Stonehenge in its Landscape: Twentieth Century Excavations. English Heritage.

Cunliffe, B & Renfrew, C (eds) 1997. Science & Stonehenge. British Academy.

Gowland, W 1902. Recent excavations at Stonehenge. Archaeologia 58, 37–105.

Hawley, W 1920–26. Excavations at Stonehenge. Typed Transcripts of Manuscript Diaries, Archives of Wessex Archaeology and Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum.

Parker Pearson, M, Cleal, R, Marshall, P, Needham, S, Pollard, J, Richards, C, Ruggles, C, Sheridan, A, Thomas, J, Tilley, C, Welham, K, Chamberlain, A, Chenery, C, Evans, J, Knüsel, C, Linford, N, Martin, L, Montgomery, J, Payne, A & Richards, M 2007. The age of Stonehenge. Antiquity 81, 617–39.

Pitts, M 1982. On the road to Stonehenge: report on investigations beside the A344 in 1968, 1979 and 1980. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 48, 75–132.

Pitts, M, Bayliss, A, McKinley, J, Boylston, A, Budd, P, Evans, J, Chenery, A, Reynolds, A & Semple, S. 2002 An Anglo-Saxon decapitation and burial at Stonehenge. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 95, 131–46.

Stone, E 1924. The Stones of Stonehenge. Robert Scott.

Stonehenge Riverside Project [including several downloadable reports].

Key archaeological texts: the wider landscape

Bradley, R, Entwistle, R & Raymond, F 1994. Prehistoric Land Divisions on Salisbury Plain. English Heritage.

Darvill, T, Constant, V & Milner, E 2005. Stonehenge World Heritage Site: An Archaeological Research Framework. English Heritage.

Exon, S, Gaffney, V, Woodward, A & Yorston, R 2000. Stonehenge Landscapes: Journeys through Real-and-Imagined Worlds. Archaeopress.

Fulford, MG, Powell, AB, Entwistle, R & Raymond, F 2006. Iron Age & Romano-British Settlements & Landscapes of Salisbury Plain. Wessex Archaeology

McOmish, D, Field, D & Brown, G 2002. The Field Archaeology of the Salisbury Plain Training Area. English Heritage.

Richards, J 1990. The Stonehenge Environs Project. English Heritage.

Stonehenge Riverside Project [including several downloadable reports].

Durrington Walls

Albarella, U & Payne, S. 2005. Neolithic pigs from Durrington Walls, Wiltshire, England : a biometrical database. Journal of Archaeological Science 32, 589–99.

Albarella, U & Serjeantson, S 2002. A passion for pork: meat consumption at the British late neolithic site of Durrington Walls. In Miracle, P & Milner, N (eds), Consuming Passions & Patterns of Consumption (McDonald Institute, Cambridge), 33–49.

Cleal, RMJ, Allen, MJ & Newman, C 2004. An archaeological and environmental study of the neolithic and later prehistoric landscape of the Avon valley and Durrington Walls environs. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 97, 218–48.

Larsson, M & Parker Pearson, M (eds) 2007. From Stonehenge to the Baltic: Living with Cultural Diversity in the Third Millennium BC. Archaeopress.

Parker Pearson, M, Pollard, J, Richards, C, Thomas, J, Tilley, C, Welham, K & Albarella, U 2006. Materializing Stonehenge: the Stonehenge Riverside Project and new discoveries. Journal of Material Culture 11, 227–61.

Parker Pearson, M, Richards, C, Allen, M, Payne, A & Welham, K 2004. The Stonehenge Riverside Project: research design and initial results. Journal of Nordic Archaeological Science 14, 45–60.

Stonehenge Riverside Project reports (including several downloadable files).

Stonehenge Riverside Project photos: Adam Stanford has an excellent selection of photos on the web. See his Aerial-Cam website and Photobox gallery for 2007

Wainwright, G & Longworth, I 1971. Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966–1968. Society of Antiquaries.

Woodhenge and neighbourhood

Cunnington, ME 1929. Woodhenge. George Simpson.

Pollard, J 1995. The Durrington 68 timber circle: a forgotten late neolithic monument. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 88, 122–5.

Pollard, J 1995. Inscribing space: formal deposition at the later neolithic monument of Woodhenge, Wiltshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 61, 137–56.

Stonehenge Riverside Project [including several downloadable reports].

The Cursus

Thomas, J 2006. On the origins and development of cursus monuments in Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 72, 229–41.

Stone, J 1948. The Stonehenge Cursus and its affinities. Archaeological Journal 104, 7–19.

Stonehenge Riverside Project [including several downloadable reports].

Astronomy

Pitts, M 1981. The discovery of a new stone at Stonehenge. Archaeoastronomy 4.2, 16–21.

Ruggles, C 1999. Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain & Ireland. Yale University Press.

Ruggles, C 2006. Interpreting solstitial alignments in late neolithic Wessex. Archaeoastronomy 20, 1–27.

Stone petrology

Howard, H 1982. A petrological study of the rock specimens from excavations at Stonehenge, 1979–1980. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 48, 104–24.

Ixer, RA 1997. Detailed provenancing of the Stonehenge dolerites using reflected light petrography: a return to the light. In Sinclair, A, Slater, E & Gowlett, J, (eds), Archaeological Sciences 1995 (Oxbow), 11–17.

Ixer, RA & Turner, P 2006. A detailed re-examination of the petrography of the Altar Stone and other non-sarsen sandstones form Stonehenge as a guide to their provenance. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 99, 1–9.

Thomas, H 1923. The source of the stones of Stonehenge. Antiquaries Journal 3, 239–60.

Pitts, M 1996. The stone axe in neolithic Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 62, 311–71.

Green, CP 1997. The provenance of rocks used in the construction of Stonehenge. In Cunliffe, B & Renfrew, C (eds) Science & Stonehenge, 257–70.

Thorpe, RS, Williams-Thorpe, O, Jenkins, D & Watson, J 1991. The geological sources and transport of the bluestones of Stonehenge, Wiltshire, UK. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 57.2, 103–57.

Ullyott, JS, Nash, DJ, Whiteman, CA & Mortimore, RN 2003. Distribution, petrology and mode of development of silcretes (sarsens and puddingstones) on the eastern South Downs, UK. Earth Surface Processes & Landforms 29, 1509–39.

West, IM 2008. Erratics and sarsen stones of the Wessex coast.

Background archaeology

Cleal, R & MacSween, A (eds) 1999. Grooved Ware in Britain & Ireland. Oxbow.

Kinnes, I & Gibson, A 1991. Radiocarbon dating and British Beakers: the British Museum programme. Scottish Archaeological Review 8, 35–68.

McKinley, J 1997. Bronze age "barrows" and funerary rites and rituals of cremation. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63, 129–45.

Needham, S 1996. Chronology and periodisation in the British bronze age. Acta Archaeologica 67, 121–40.

Needham, S 2000. Power pulses across a cultural divide: cosmologically driven acquisition between Armorica and Wessex. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 66, 151–207.

Needham, S 2005. Transforming Beaker culture in north-west Europe; processes of fusion and fission. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71, 171–217.

Parker Pearson, M 1999. From ancestor cult to divine religion. British Archaeology 45, 10–11.

Parker Pearson, M & Ramilisonina, 1998. Stonehenge for the ancestors: the stones pass on the message. Antiquity 72, 308–26.

Piggott, S 1938. The early bronze age in Wessex. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 4, 52–106.

Renfrew, C 1973. Monuments, mobilisation and social organisation in neolithic Wessex. In Renfrew (ed), The Explanation of Culture Change (Duckworth), 539–58.

Taylor, JJ 2005. The work of the Wessex master goldsmith: its implications. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine 98, 316–26.

Stonehenge: some recent books by archaeologists (of which Lawson and Richards incorporate some early results from the Riverside Project)

Burl, A 2006. Stonehenge: a New History of the World's Greatest Stone Circle. Constable.

Darvill, T 2006. Stonehenge: The Biography of a Landscape. Tempus.

Gibson, A 1998. Stonehenge & Timber Circles. Tempus.

Johnson, A 2008. Solving Stonehenge. Thames & Hudson.

Lawson, AJ 2007. Chalkland: An Archaeology of Stonehenge & its Region. Hobnob.

Pitts, M 2001. Hengeworld (2nd ed). Arrow. [this paperback has significant additions to the hardback]

Richards, J 2007. Stonehenge: The Story so Far. English Heritage.

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