Category: Neolithic

Circling the Square

Stonehenge
The smaller bluestones sit just inside the sarsen trilithons at Stonehenge and act to block your way into the centre of the circle

There is an interesting paper out by Tim Darvill in which he discusses the architecture of Stonehenge and the way in which it is designed to manipulate the experience of those using the monument. In particular, he considers the use of a square element set within an outer circle. Darvill is not negating the way in which Stonehenge developed out of a series of earlier settings, but his argument focuses on the manifestation that left the remains we see today and on the relationship between the bluestone elements of the monument and those comprising the sarsen stones. His interpretation of all this is very personal and some of it has been rehearsed by him before, not least the possibility that the incorporation of the bluestones may have brought special healing properties to Stonehenge. I can’t comment on that, but his paper did put me in mind of my own thoughts when I visited Stonehenge recently and had the privilege of entering into the heart of the monument.

What shocked me as I walked beneath the sarsen trilithon that is traditionally seen as the entrance to the centre (on the side by the Avenue) was the way in which the bluestone circle blocked me from entering further into the heart of the site. In order to progress I had to make a decision: to turn left or turn right. That, in itself is not unusual. What surprised me is that this is precisely the way in which one experiences the monumental structure known (by us) as Structure 8 at Barnhouse in Orkney. At Barnhouse you enter Structure 8 through a narrow break on the eastern side of the outer wall (nb: popular images often show an entrance at the north opposite the entrance to the inner circle, but the main break through the outer wall is to the east and that is the one that appears in Richards’ publication). Once inside, you are confronted by another wall, seemingly unbroken and running to both left and right. Eventually, by following this wall around, one reaches a more complex entrance passage running into the heart of the site. Structure 8, incidentally, incorporates the square-in-a-circle formation that Darville notes at Stonehenge (as Darville recognises). Curiously, this is precisely the symbol used as the World Heritage logo – though in that case the circle represents nature while the square represents human endeavour. It is a powerful motif.

I’ve no idea what this means. There are many, many questions left unanswered: was the inner structure at Barnhouse roofed? Was the outer passage roofed? How high were the walls? How, precisely, were the different elements of the structure at Stonehenge differentiated? What was it all for? What is interesting to me is the overt manipulation of the human experience. I’m fascinated by the way in which our surroundings can cause us to move in certain directions almost unconsciously. Of course, it may have been very overt in the Neolithic, perhaps there were big red warning markers telling people how to behave once inside. That does not really concern me. But I think we can see this sort of control manifest at a variety of other sites and I’m wondering if it is fundamental to this type of Neolithic public space.

Structure 10 at Ness of Brodgar is not completely excavated in plan, but it looks as if it may incorporate a similar entrance system (curiously, the plan suggests that the rounded element of the structure lay inside the square element here, though perhaps the outside wall of the whole site functioned as a rounded boundary). Even the architecture of the henge sites with their banks and ditches, stone circles and interior settings, as at the Stones of Stenness, could be seen as incorporating a series of concentric passages. We don’t know, can’t know, what it means, but to me it suggests that the design of these monuments incorporated some very specific, and perhaps symbolic, behavioural control and that this was repeated from one site to another. Those who visited Barnhouse would have known what was expected of them at Stonehenge.

As, of course, do we – as disciples of the heritage age we arrive at these sites prepared to display certain behaviour: we exhibit awe; we usually walk round in a certain way; we read the guidebooks; we take photographs; we look for the entrance booth to pay; we don’t leave graffiti…

The Challenge of Stonehenge

Stonehenge in low winter light, December 2004
Stonehenge never loses its ability to inspire wonder and mystery. I suspect this is something we have in common with our ancestors who built it.

Was anyone else challenged by watching BBC Four romp through the interpretation of Stonehenge through the ages for Timewatch last night? It wasn’t the content – I loved that, there was some great archive footage and it was very interesting to summarize how we have looked at Stonehenge over the last seventy years. What got me was the way in which Stonehenge emerged as a powerful symbol of patriarchy.

I’m not talking prehistory here (well, maybe just a little bit). I’m talking archaeology. Thank goodness the programme was presented by Alice Roberts (I wonder if that was a deliberate decision). Other than that, apart from the work done by Jacqueline McKinley, all of those interviewed or shown in the old footage were men. I did not even try to count them.

This is not the fault of those making the programme. They can only work with the material available. But it is a problem for archaeology. You might think that it is just a sad reflection of our profession in the past, and that things are better now. But I am afraid that is not the case because the Beeb could apparently only find men to comment on the work. Now, I know that all three commentators were people who have been actively engaged with research at Stonehenge in recent years. Indeed, two of them appeared in the earlier footage. But is it true to say that women have nothing to contribute to the Stonehenge debate today?

I wonder if the problem is a little wider than this? Where are the Mary Beards of British Archaeology? We need women with gravitas who can communicate, but what is gravitas? Well, off the cuff, lets assume that in order to have it you need an academic post (two of last night’s commentators were cited as in academia, the other was in popular publishing). I’ve just had a quick look at the staff pages of the four universities in Scotland that have archaeology departments. It is difficult to be certain because each lists staff in different ways, but it looks as if there are a total of 57 academic staff, of whom 23 are women and 34 are men. In order to assess whether or not they have ‘gravitas’ I then tried to investigate the standing of their post. Again it is difficult, but it looks as if there are 18 posts across Scotland at senior lecturer or above, and of these 3 are held by women and 15 by men (interestingly that means that at lower grades 20 are women and 19 are men).

Of course it might just be that women don’t do research on Stone Circles? I’m not going to get into that debate here, though I have a feeling that women are as interested in broadscale Neolithic topics as men are? I had a quick look at Colin Richards’ book Building the Great Stone Circles of the North: he lists 27 co-authors, of whom 18 are men and 9 are women.

I’m not sure where this leaves us. But I’m sad that archaeology can still come over as such a male dominated profession. In fact, thinking of people like Kathleen Kenyon and Isobel Smith, I’m sad that archaeology has ever come over as a male dominated profession. Perhaps men just get to excavate higher status sites?  Perhaps we listen more seriously to what men say? Perhaps women measure achievement in different ways? Perhaps women leave academia to move into other posts? Popular communication is a vital part of archaeology in the twenty-first century, though. So it would be good to break that barrier with more than a handful of women.

While I’m moaning – I’ve another gripe about the programme: where was the footage of Foamhenge? Channel Five’s full size polystyrene replica of Stonehenge lingers in my memory for the way in which seeing all the stones upright, as if functioning as a single entity, made me think in different ways about the monument. Of course, last night’s programme was only drawing on BBC archives; my fantasy now is for a programme that uses all the material, whatever the channel, and incorporates a greater diversity of voices in the twenty-first century commentary on past interpretations.