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‘Immensely readable… In this beautifully crafted and meticulously researched book, historian John North has produced the clearest and most detailed account of Stonehenge for a generation.’
Michael White, Mail on Sunday
‘If anyone’s judgement can be trusted on this topic, it is North’s. It is fortunate that the millennium will be marked by this important book… a major contribution to understanding the origins of mathematical astronomy. Ann Geneva, Financial Times
‘Brilliant… The mass and quality of his new evidence point inevitably to the conclusion he reaches, that the builders of Stonehenge and their Stone Age ancestors were adepts at astronomy and ritual magic.’
John Michell, Spectator
‘Masterful… It must surely become the standard, both for scholars and general readers.’
Patrick Moore
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‘The clearest and most detailed account of Stonehenge for a generation.’ Mail on Sunday
John North’s extraordinary book finally solves the riddle of Stonehenge.
How? By carefully reassessing the archaeological evidence and reconstructing the heavens as they would have appeared thousands of years ago.
As well as considering Stonehenge, John North draws evidence from prehistoric remains throughout Britain and northern Europe – the stone circles at Avebury, the White Horse at Uffington, the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex and the long barrows which are dotted over southern England.
He shows how all these pieces fit together to establish the function of the stones themselves and what we can know of the religion that caused them to be erected in the first place.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Only partly about Stonehenge, also covering the barrows, chalk hill figures etc. of Britain. Avoiding speculation and packed with rigorous research, North comes up with much more to say than the usual tiresome amateurish theorising. Quite demanding to read but also quietly entertaining, he covers a huge amount of ground. There's fascinating detail on star, sun and moon alignments (for all types of monument) that he makes wholly credible. It's soon apparent you're reading a tour de force. Surely the best book on the subject.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
North's comprehensive study of Neolithic structures and their purpose is an intense read. Except for frequent returns to earlier information, this book is not a "page-turner." It is, however, a wealth of challenging ideas on how our Neolithic ancestors lived. While North avoids suggesting that Neolithic Europe was unified in religious thinking, he points out areas of commonality. Some form of ancestor worship, he contends, led to sophisticated insight of the heavens across Europe. Over the centuries this knowledge went from star sightings to the recording of positions of the sun and moon at significant times. The evidence for this thesis lies in the burial sites, banks and ditches, wooden and stone monuments dating back nearly seven thousand years.
With firm conviction, illustrated by numerous graphic images, North demonstrates how early burial sites acted to mark stellar risings. Neolithic burials took place in a variety of sites: gallery graves, passage graves and dolmens, among others. The prevailing final step was the practice of covering the site with a mound of stones and earth. This could result in long barrows, mounds or other structures, but the one thing they had in common was to elevate the top above the surrounding horizon. Using the surrounding ditch remaining from relocating the soil and rock, observers could note certain stars appearing over an "artificial horizon." North postulates a possible shift in focus from ancestors and stars to gods or spirits associated with the sun and moon. This "advance" in thinking resulted in stone monuments like Stonehenge in Britain and sites in Western Europe.
In tracing the growth of religious thinking and its manifestations in Neolithic Europe, North sees consistency without unity. What he does stress is the advanced thinking that must have been taking place during passing years. Wood and stone circles were positioned with uncanny accuracy to perform their tasks. He provides reconstruction drawings of many of the sites to display the limited fields of view they allowed. Peering along the post alignments, only a brief glimpse of rising or setting sun was available to the observer. Lintels, whether wood or stone, were designed to cut down on glare during sunrise or sunset observations. The graphics illustrating these points require careful study, but are rewarding for that.
Some of his contentions seem implausible. He uniformly places observers of stellar risings in ditches. If these were religious leaders, this would seem a diminution of priestly status not seen elsewhere. North has gone to considerable effort to demonstrate just how complex the sites are and what that says about the motivation and abilities of Neolithic peoples. How much of this effort is his, and how much derived from others is difficult to assess. There are frequent references to various authors in the text, but no direct citations. His "Bibliography" is by chapters and too vague to pursue sources without excessive toil. The appendices, on carbon dating, astronomical issues and geographical positioning are helpful, particularly if you have the maths. Overall, this is a useful book, even if it must be read with a sense of caution. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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5 reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
A definitive look at Stonehenge
4 Dec 1999
Format:Hardcover
This is not the easiest book to read. John North is so painstakingly detailed that I occasionally had to set the book aside and let my mind rest a while. Once I finally was able to get all the way through, however, I was very glad I had made the effort. North has given us a definitive look at Stonehenge.
North starts with a fairly simple premise: In order to truly understand Stonehenge one should first study the many other comparable structures built in Britan and Europe during prehistoric times. North slowly works his way through these structures before finally arriving at the ultimate destination: Stonehenge.
The conclusions he finally reaches about Stonehenge are at once startling and fascinating. For instance, he shows that observations were not done from within the Stonehenge circle, but from a point many meters outside the circle.
I could go on, but suffice it to say that if you have ever been curious about Stonehenge, North's book is a must read.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
A Labyrinth of Data
7 Jan 2004
Format:Paperback
Although John North is to be congratulated on his diligence and tenacity in researching and producing this book, I have to say that it is heavy going and his infinitely detailed measurements and conclusions are so mutually entangled that it's very hard to form a clear picture of his conclusions and hence determine whether his science is really as soundly based as he claims. Part of his trouble is the very wide scope of the book. There is material for several substantial books crowded into this one and I feel sometimes the wood gets lost for the trees. Moreover the many drawings of alignments scattered through the pages are frequently lacking in clear notation. This is a pity, because I would like to believe most of the conclusions that I understand. His argument for rising star alignments on many monuments appears to stretch credibility; what about the obscuration of stars by atmospheric density close to the horizon? And for the Uffington White Horse, which I've visited many times and know well, he claims an alignment along a modern road, citing that it may well have followed an earlier track? Proof?
But it is a serious attempt to understand the minds of early architects and their society's relationship to the heavens, and as such is a very welcome addition to the growing archaeo-astronomy corpus.
But it is a serious attempt to understand the minds of early architects and their society's relationship to the heavens, and as such is a very welcome addition to the growing archaeo-astronomy corpus.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Finally, The Truth
4 July 2000
Format:Hardcover
Mr. North exceeds my expectations in his book on the inhabitants of this magnificent area. Although it was at times tedious and heavy in the astronomical sense, I am an amateur astronomy buff so his interpretations were not totally lost to me. The most amazing breakthrough noted by Mr. North is our arrogance as a literal society to assume their intelligence as minimal due to the lack of a written legacy by these brilliant and sensitive people. Additionally, he subtley proposes that we should not judge the Stonehenge people as one because of a few isolated finds of deviant tribal rituals. The cosmological affect on the beliefs and practices of this era is well documented in Mr. North's book. Aristotle would have understood their aptitude given the tools and skills of the time. Nature is the most perfect teacher and the most accurate. Bravo Mr. North
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