The Age of Stonehenge

by Colin Burgess

Book Overview

In this fascinating book, Colin Burgess brings to life the history of Britain and Ireland between 3000 and 1000 BC. Departing from the traditional stone, bronze, and iron terminology, he provides a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0785815937
• ISBN13: 9780785815938
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Castle Books
• Length: 402 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.6" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent!

This book is the most comprehensive overview of found objects and conclusive evidence that I have read to date. It is old, but that doesn't matter, since the material it covers is much older. Fascinating! A little difficult to get through at times, but factual, and therefore and invaluable resource.

Old, but still very worth while.

The Age of Stonehenge was originally written in 1980. Colin Burgess subsequently left the field of the early prehistory of the British Isles for work in the Mediterranean on the Phoenicians and the Sea Peoples. The book has subsequently seen new editions in 2001 and 2003, which suggests that the material is both well presented and well researched. If it is any indication of his thoroughness one can only regret his early departure from English pre-history and his early retirement from the academic world in general. While I found the first few chapters a little difficult to get through because they deal primarily with pottery styles, I enjoyed the book as a whole. It filled in a great deal of information with respect to the culture of the age of Stonehenge, and corrected several misapprehensions I had acquired from other reading. Most importantly, it presents a fine overview of modern archaeology as applied to a period that many people think they already know! I was particularly impressed with the introduction of more recent information on the character of early settlement and subsequent culture change. Early books on the topic accredit population movements, invasions, and total replacement of one culture by another. Having taken some archaeology classes on European archaeology within the past 5 years, I had become aware of professional doubts on this topic. The tendency of past researchers to think in terms of nations, ethnic groups, etc., probably because we live with these social structures today, had produced a map covered with tribal names and arrows of migration that is now being discredited. As the author notes, it is more likely that culture and populations remained stable for centuries, in contact and exchanging cultural variables among them along shared borders. The archaeology of the British Isles bears little credence to anything like massive invasions. He does note the movements in the period of the Sea Peoples in the Mediterranean and suggests that during this time considerable movement of people may well have occurred in the British Isles as they did elsewhere. What surprised me particularly was the degree of organization of property and control over land and people. One has the impression of á relatively open society with everyone living much the same as everyone else and of mass efforts to erect major monuments for which the group felt the need. It is abundantly apparent that the building of Stonehenge and other major works required a large labor force, but one does not necessarily carry that idea forward to the conclusions that naturally would arise from shear numbers. What kind of life did these people live? How were they organized on a day to day basis? Was there a cooperative effort across geo-political borders? Etc. The author answers many of these questions. Among the specific data Burgess provides, I was most surprised by the apparent lack of artistic sense among craftsmen of the day-he noted that mos