Moving megaliths: the Stonehenge-Asia link

I recently gave a talk at the Society of Antiquaries in London about how observers in British colonial Asia – mostly civil servants during the years of the Raj, when the Crown claimed the right to rule India between 1858 and 1947 – recorded their impressions of people creating megaliths. In diaries, talks, books, or …

Quick thoughts on A303 written representations

Well, the Stonehenge A303 proposed works examination representations are now in and available online. Many of the 264 documents (perhaps most) are from Highways England. But there are many more, including from Historic England (579 pages), National Trust (286), Stonehenge Alliance (218), Blick Mead (149, an odd submission, consisting mostly of copies of other people’s …

DNA, executions and Stonehenge: a new British Archaeology

Isn’t this a fabulous photo? We have some great images in the new British Archaeology, and we had fun with a series of shots showing a bronze age hoard under excavation. But I particularly like this photo taken by someone at Cotswold Archaeology (if you are reading this, let me know who you are!) which …

Stonehenge deserves better than this

You may have noticed that Blick Mead was in the press today. I’m writing a feature rounding up all the recent excavations in and around the world heritage site for a future British Archaeology (you will be astonished at how much there is!), so I thought I’d have a look at the story. Excavation at …

A guide to siting new roads around Stonehenge

Historic England has published a new edition of its online research magazine. It‘s devoted to new research around Stonehenge. You can read it here – excavations (covered in news reports in British Archaeology), surveys, artwork and finds. I’m just going to pick up on one thing… Martyn Barber and Fiona Small write about mapping the …

What would Trump do with Stonehenge?

This is not a polemic, but a long reflection on Stonehenge, archaeology, conservation and the modern world. So as not to interrupt the read, I have put no links in the text. There are some at the end. In 2014 the president of the United States visited Britain’s most famous ancient monument. Barack Obama was …

What did the world heritage site mean to people who built Stonehenge? Nothing

Yesterday I walked in the landscape around Stonehenge. In a recent short video headed The Stonehenge Tunnel Begins, Tom Holland stands on Bush Barrow, near Stonehenge and one of the country’s iconic prehistoric monuments, and addresses the camera. He describes “vans and lorries employed by the Highways Agency who are testing out the ground for …

Stonehenge finds tell of divided society

The new British Archaeology, which went live online today (February 8), reports significant new discoveries near Stonehenge, among them the grave of a man who might have seen the earliest megaliths erected at the site. Cremated remains of over 100 people were buried at the first Stonehenge, from 3100BC – the largest cremation cemetery in …

Cold stones

I was down at Larkhill this morning to visit a large excavation. The Ministry of Defence is building a new housing estate for soldiers and their families, and Wessex Archaeology has found all sorts of interesting things, among them the edge of a new causewayed enclosure, which you’ll be able to read about in the …

The strange case of the dog in the Stonehenge tunnel

It had been pretty quiet in Stonehenge media land. We had an excavation at Durrington Walls in August that got a bit of attention. This was thin stuff compared to the coverage given last year to the geophysics sensation that the dig overturned, though what we now have is far more significant (and so features …