Burnham Andy - The old stones: a field guide to the megalithic sites of Britain and Ireland

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all Megalithic Portal contributors, especially those who have passed to the realms of the ancestors.

Tom Bullock (Tom_Bullock), who visited more than 1,200 stone circles to create his CD-ROM guide

Jack Morris-Eyton (JackME), who spent years developing his intriguing theory about shadow casting at megalithic sites (see )

Holger Rix (Holger_Rix), who contributed around 4,500 images and over 6,300 site pages from all over Europe

The Old Stones

The Megalithic Portal

Edited by Andy Burnham

First published in the UK and USA in 2018 by
Watkins, an imprint of Watkins Media Limited
Unit 11, Shepperton House, 8993 Shepperton Road
London N1 3DF

Design and typography copyright Watkins Media Limited 2018

Foreword copyright Mike Parker Pearson 2018

Introduction copyright Andy Burnham 2018

Imagining Prehistoric Landscapes copyright Vicki Cummings 2018

Feature boxes and site entries by named contributors copyright each named contributor 2018

All other text copyright Watkins Media Limited and the Megalithic Portal 2018

Artwork copyright Watkins Media Limited 2018, except for the following illustrations:

p.45(l) copyright Roy Goutt; p.96 copyright Jon Morris; p.271 copyright Angie Lake; p.308 copyright Gail Higgenbottom

Photography copyright each named photographer 2018

Maps created with QGIS mapping software. UK map backgrounds Ordnance Survey Open Data, Crown copyright and database right (2018)

The right of the Megalithic Portal to be identified as the Author of this text has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Commissioning Editor: Fiona Robertson

Editor: Jackie Bates

Proofreader and Indexer: James Hodgson

Senior Designer: Francesca Corsini

Head of Design: Georgina Hewitt

Production: Uzma Taj

Map Design: Andy Burnham

Commissioned Artwork: Jay Kane

A CIP record for this book is available from the

British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78678-154-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Typeset in ITC Lubalin Graph
Colour reproduction by XY Digital
Printed in Hong Kong

www.watkinspublishing.com

Note: Site information is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of going to press, but it is advisable to check access details before visiting. Inclusion in this guide does not imply a site has public access or is safe to visit.

Contents

FOREWORD
Mike Parker Pearson

INTRODUCTION
Andy Burnham

Photogrammetry
Hugo Anderson-Whymark

IMAGINING PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPES
Vicki Cummings

Fighting Moorland Enclosure in Penwith
Ian McNeil Cooke

Strange Experiences at Ancient Sites
Rune

The Rough Tor Triangle: A Theory
Roy Goutt

Under the Supermarket
Andy Burnham

The Stone Rows of Dartmoor
Sandy Gerrard

The Cist on Whitehorse Hill
Andy Burnham

The Miniliths of Exmoor
Martyn Copcutt

Top 10 Pieces of Music Inspired by Prehistory
Andy Burnham

Stonehenge: Model of a Geocentric Universe?
Jon Morris

Stonehenge and the Neolithic Cosmos
N.D. Wiseman

Feasting and Monument Building
Barney Harris

Cats Brain: A House for the Living?
Andy Burnham

Development of the Avebury Landscape
Joshua Pollard

Unique Transfigurative Rock Art?
Terence Meaden

Archaeoacoustics
Steve Marshall

Dorstone Hill: A Unique Configuration of Monuments
Andy Burnham

Looking to the Land of the Ancestors
Vicky Tuckman

A Phenomenology of Shadow
Daniel Brown

Icknield Way: Ancient Track or Medieval Fantasy?
Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews

Must Farm: An Extraordinary Fenland Survival
Jackie Bates

Chalk Artefacts
Anne Teather

Insights from a Bronze Age Timber Circle
Andy Burnham

Propped Stones
David Shepherd

Thornborough Archaeoastronomy
Andy Burnham

Neolithic Sites in the Landscape
Cathryn Iliffe

The Gypsey Race
Chris Collyer

Stone Axes
Leslie Phillips

Jack Morris-Eytons Shadow Theory
David Smyth

Prehistoric Rock Art in Britain and Ireland
Cezary Namirski

Translating Welsh Place Names
Simon Charlesworth & Stephen Rule

Bancbryn Stone Row
Sandy Gerrard

A Phenomenological Approach to Dolmens
Vicki Cummings

Stonehenge and the Glacial Transport Theory
Brian John

Healing Stones? The Preseli Bluestones
Julie Kearney

Bringing the Neolithic Back to Life
Martyn Copcutt

Colour in the Monuments of Neolithic Europe
Penelope Foreman

Stone Circles
John Barnatt

Dowsing at Cairn Holy
Angie Lake

Hidden Evidence: The Lochbrow Project
Kirsty Millican

Top 10 Urban Prehistory Sites
Kenneth Brophy

The Lives of Stones
Anne Tate

Investigating the Forteviot Ceremonial Landscape
Andy Burnham

Archaeoastronomy in Western Scotland
Gail Higginbottom

Carved Stone Balls
Julie Kearney

Recumbent Stone Circles
Adam Welfare

Skyscape Archaeology at Tomnaverie
Liz Henty

What is the Lunar Standstill?
Vicky Tuckman

The Song of the Low Moon
Grahame Gardner

Excavations at the Ness of Brodgar
Andy Burnham

An Early Neolithic House at Cata Sand
Vicki Cummings

Lithic Symbolism at Drombeg
Terence Meaden

The Art of the Boyne Valley
Robert Hensey

Modified Boulders of the Cavan Burren
Gaby Burns

Foreword

Mike Parker Pearson, Professor of British Later Prehistory at University College London

Megaliths are among the most enduring remazins from our prehistoric past. Whether as single standing stones or impressive stone circles and tombs, they provide a glimpse into a vanished way of life that may seem beyond our comprehension. Yet, as Vicki Cummings points out so well in her introduction to this book, megalithic monuments represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of what has survived from thousands of years ago. Thanks to advances in archaeology, both technical and organizational, we are learning much about the people who built the megaliths. The remains that usually survive only below ground the houses, portable material culture, non-megalithic monuments and environmental evidence are becoming better understood. Thanks to analyses of chemical isotopes and ancient DNA, we are learning about the people themselves who their ancestors were, where they came from and how mobile they were. With the application of so many new scientific methods, this is an exciting time to be an archaeologist.

Even as I write, new results from ancient DNA analysis are revealing that Britains Neolithic inhabitants show little evidence of genetic mixing with the indigenous Mesolithic huntergatherers who lived in Britain before the arrival of agriculture. These Neolithic farmers, in turn, appear to have been substantially replaced by the Beaker people and their Bronze Age descendants; current evidence suggests that, by 1500BC, only 10 per cent of peoples genes derived from the previous Neolithic population of Britain. Isotope analyses also show that these prehistoric people were highly mobile in all periods from the Neolithic to the end of the early Bronze Age. Megaliths would have been some of the few human-constructed fixed points in their lives.