If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge (History (World))

Description

This book on Stonehenge by Mike Parker Pearson with Marc Aronson is about the process of discovery. What is Stonehenge? Every kind of answer has been proposed, from ancient calendar to Druid temple. In 1998, through the insight of an archaeologist-colleague from Madagascar, Mike Parker-Pearson realised that it was actually part of a kind of ancient machine. A parallel circle made of wood was a place of feasting, where the dead were sent off, taken down to the adjacent Avon River. Then, as part of the same ritual, people went up from the river to the stones, where the dead became the permanent ancestors. Within just the past 2 years Mike and his colleagues have revolutionised our understanding of Stonehenge, and are now revisiting the entire set of sites that surrounds it. In 1998, Mike and Ramilisonina, his Madagascarian colleague, made a set of predictions of what would be found in that landscape. One by one they are proving true. This winter they announced the finding of the largest Neolithic village ever found in England. Just this week a geophysicist has indicated that he believes he has found yet another circle, just where Mike and Ramilisonina said it should be. It shows how the views of a total outsider, a man from Madagascar, could transform how we see one of the most studied monuments in our world. It is a book about an 'aha' moment, a paradigm shift; it is book that gives young readers to exciting new discoveries going on right now; and it is the only book for young people that will give them the most current thinking about this World Historical Site.

Mike Parker-Pearson is a Professor of Archaeology. He is an internationally renowned expert in the archaeology of death and also specializes in the later prehistory of Britain and Northern Europe and the archaeology of Madagascar and the western Indian Ocean. He has published more than 10 books and over 100 academic papers, on topics that range from architecture, food and warfare to ethnoarchaeology, archaeological theory and heritage management. He has worked on archaeological excavations in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Madagascar, Syria and the United States, and currently directs field projects in the Outer Hebrides, Madagascar and the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. He is a professor at the University of Sheffield in England. Marc Aronson is an awardwinning author and editor who earned his doctorate in American History at NYU.

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