Early View: Zitierfähige Online-Fassung mit vorläufiger Seitenzählung. Nach Erscheinen des gedruckten Bandes finden Sie den Beitrag mit den endgültigen Seitenzahlen im Open Access dort: http://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arch-inf Den gedruckten Band erhalten Sie unter http://www.archaeologische-informationen.de. Early View: Quotable online version with preliminary pagination. After the printed volume has appeared you can find this article with its final pagination as open access publication there: http://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archParker-inf Pearson,The printed volumeM. et al.will (eds) be available (2020). there: Stonehenge http://www.archaeologische-informationen.de for the Ancestors 1 . Review of: Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Rich- mations buried near the Cuckoo Stone are given ards, C., Thomas, J., Tilley, C. & Welham, K. but no further details are provided. (eds) (2020). Stonehenge for the Ancestors, Part The monograph is a hefty 602 pages, packed 1: Landscape and Monuments. Leiden: Side- with in-depth specialist reports and thorough stone Press. 606 pp, 202 illustrations (b/w), 190 excavation descriptions. The publisher Sidestone illustrations (colour), hb/pb/online. ISBN 978-90- Press has used an innovative publishing model, 8890-702-9. https://www.sidestone.com/books/ with the book available at various prices: an ex- stonehenge-for-the-ancestors-part-1 pensive hardback, a less expensive paperback, a very modestly priced downloadable PDF, or a free Susan Greaney version to read online. This aim to provide free public access is admirable; the website informs This is the first of four volumes setting out in full that it has been read online 890 times since pub- the results of the Stonehenge Riverside Project lication in October 2020. The PDF is perhaps the (hereafter SRP), a major archaeological study of most useful format – easy to search by keyword the Stonehenge landscape in Wiltshire, England, and to selectively read about the relevant site, under which fieldwork took place between 2003 as this is first and foremost a reference volume, and 2009. The project is led by Professor Mike rather than something to be read cover-to-cov- Parker Pearson, together with a stellar team of er. There is no overall conclusion at the end, and archaeologists from several British universities, most of the chapters end rather abruptly without who have all contributed to this opening volume. summary or synthesis and cross-referencing be- The introductory chapter sets out the extraor- tween the chapters is somewhat lacking. Perhaps dinary vision and scope of the endeavour, with the synthesis will come in a later volume in the a map (Fig. 1.7) showing the location of the 56 series.However, reading the entire volume is well trenches excavated, reminding the reader of the worth the effort, as there are significant results sheer scale of the project. Originally fieldwork presented, as well as some insightful and use- was conceived to test the hypothesis that Stone- ful analyses. The figures are of variable quality henge was a monument to the ancestors and and not plentiful; a consistent style for mapping was linked to the ceremonial timber and earth would have reduced several accessibility and ap- complex at Durrington Walls, interpreted as the pearance issues. Figures 2.1 and 9.1 are examples domain of the living, by the River Avon (PARKER of maps that are not easy to read. Some drawings PEARSON & RAMILISONINA, 1998). However, as the are reproduced rather small (e.g. Fig. 7.11); others project developed several other research objec- are far too large (e.g. Fig. 6.16-19). Many sections tives emerged, leading to investigations at the would have benefited from more photographs Stonehenge Greater Cursus and nearby Ames- and detailed maps, particularly the phenomeno- bury 42 long barrow, at two natural sarsen stones logical accounts of travelling along the cursus, the (Cuckoo Stone and Tor Stone), at a bluestone avenue or the River Avon, to assist those less fa- scatter near Fargo Plantation and a sarsen-dress- miliar with the landscape. ing area to the north of Stonehenge. Some of the work presented in this volume This firstvolume covers all the sites investigat- has been previously published elsewhere, either ed in the wider landscape around Stonehenge and within SRP books aimed at the public (PARK- work undertaken at Stonehenge itself, where Au- ER PEARSON, 2012; PARKER PEARSON ET AL., 2015) brey Hole 7 was re-excavated. Volume 2 is due to or within academic papers (PARKER PEARSON ET provide various syntheses of artefactual and eco- AL., 2009; THOMAS ET AL., 2009; ALLEN ET AL., 2016; factual evidence, Volume 3 dedicated to Durring- WILLIS ET AL., 2016). On occasion, it is difficult to ton Walls and Woodhenge, and Volume 4 will in- know whether certain chapters are edited ver- clude all results from later periods, from the early sions of previously available work or contain new Bronze Age onwards. This first volume is roughly information; close reading and comparison is re- chronological with earlier chapters dedicated to quired. Some chapters see the welcome publica- early Neolithic monuments and sites, followed by tion of research based originally on student MA largely late Neolithic results. Although the aim and PhD theses (WHITAKER, 2010; WILLIS, 2019). to keep all material later than this for Volume 4 However, the great achievement of the volume is appears logical, it does lead to some frustrating that it finally presents the detailed results of the omissions. For example, the Bronze Age post- research excavations that many of us have heard holes at West Amesbury henge are mentioned but so much about over the past 15 or so years. For not discussed, and the radiocarbon dates for cre- example, here we have the details those perigla- Received: 2 Feb 2021 Archäologische Informationen 44, Early View accepted: 1 March 2021 CC BY 4.0 published online: 26 March 2021 1 Rezensionen Rezensionen Susan Greaney cial stripes and chalk ridges under the avenue, the the Greater Cursus) which are usefully detailed. evidence for the stone circle at West Amesbury, Analysis of the distribution of worked flint shows the interpretation of Aubrey Hole 7 at Stonehenge that the westernmost ditch of the cursus was de- as having held an upright stone and the evidence liberately selected as a suitable place to reduce for the dressing of a single sarsen stone to the flint nodules, whereas other parts of the cursus north of the monument. This volume allows the had sparse evidence for flint-working (p. 128). evidence to be scrutinised and interpretations to The excavations have provided important radi- be assessed. ocarbon determinations on antler that date the After setting out the background to the SRP construction of the Greater Cursus and Ames- and its evolving objectives and providing a brief bury 42 long barrow, as well identifying a series introduction to the key sites in Chapter 1, Chapter of re-cut pits at both sites dating to the late Neo- 2 by Welham and Tilley focuses on early Neolith- lithic, when the monuments appear to have been ic long barrows, cursus monuments and cause- reinstated in the landscape. The excavation of a wayed enclosures in the Stonehenge area. The tree-throw pit and hollow at Woodhenge con- section on long barrows is a valuable discussion taining carinated bowl pottery, animal bone and on their landscape positioning and includes a use- worked flint shows evidence for considerable ful table, including their orientation, dimensions, activity in the early Neolithic. It is possible that and shape (Tab. 2.1, 2.2). Intervisibility studies signs of this occupation were still visible in the between these early Neolithic monuments are a late Neolithic when Woodhenge was construct- little speculative without evidence for the date ed; one was filled with rammed chalk before the of their construction as only three long barrows henge bank was raised. The pottery report by have absolute dates associated with them. There Cleal includes a thorough discussion of early follows a classic phenomenological account of Neolithic pottery from the Stonehenge landscape walking the Greater Cursus in either direction (p. 150-151), concluding that the material from (p. 53-56), presented without reference to recent Woodhenge is most closely paralleled at Con- scholarship that examines the value of such ac- eybury Anomaly and as such represents activity counts in generating valid archaeological inter- from the earliest Neolithic. pretations (e.g. BRÜCK, 2001; BROPHY & WATSON, Moving away from detailed excavation re- 2018) nor to alternative interpretations that the ports, the next section (Chapter 4, by Parker cursus might have formed a barrier to people and Pearson and Richards) focuses on the Stonehenge their animals moving north-south along the dry bluestones, the components of that monument valley of Stonehenge Bottom (PEARSON & FIELD, brought from the Preseli Hills in south-west 2011, figs 16-17, 38-39). After some interesting ide- Wales. The chapter examines the suggestion that as about different cosmological worlds of higher the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge held bluestones ground, surface watercourses and ‘dead rivers’ or and presents the results of investigations at the dry coombes (p. 58), there is a slip back into rath- bluestone scatter at Fargo Plantation and prelim- er simplistic ideas about long barrows being used inary work at a pit circle north of Airman’s Cross, by small communities and cursus monuments by both located to the north-west of Stonehenge. larger kin groups. Here the argument is that the Aubrey Holes, 56 Chapter 3, authored by Thomas and Pollard, pits set just within the bank and ditch at Stone- incorporates the excavations at the Greater Cur- henge, held stone pillars, rather than containing sus and nearby Amesbury 42 long barrow, as timber posts or simply being pits.