ANDREW J. LAWSON. Chalkland: an archaeology of Stonehenge and its region. 2007. Salisbury: Hobnob; 978-0-946418-61-9 casebound £25; 978-0-946418-70-1 paperback £17.95
ANDREW J. LAWSON. Chalkland: an archaeology of Stonehenge and its region. 2007. Salisbury: Hobnob; 978-0-946418-61-9 casebound £25; 978-0-946418-70-1 paperback £17.95
Review by Alasdair Whittle
School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
(Email: whittle@cardiff.ac.uk)
It is sometimes claimed these days that some areas of Britain are over-researched, and that we need to concentrate on other regions to achieve better balance. Wessex and Orkney spring to mind. It is also sometimes argued that too much attention has been given to Neolithic monuments, and within these to some of the biggest and most impressive, at the expense of both settlements and smaller constructions. Stonehenge springs to mind. Who could be against better balance? And gradually, with broader research agendas and effective action in the field of contract archaeology, a wider coverage is being achieved, reflected, for example, in the number of regions right across Britain figured in Richard Bradley's recent Prehistory of Britain and Ireland (see this reviewer's account in Antiquity 82 (2008): 224-5). But what then of the supposed hotspots themselves? Are they to be neglected for a generation or more, to let everywhere else catch up, and do we really know as much about them as we think?
Chalkland gives emphatic answers. Taking the chalkland of central-southern England, and spilling over at times into the Thames valley gravels to the north (and thus generally avoiding the term 'Wessex' itself), Andrew Lawson gives us the long history of a region, from the Palaeolithic right through to late prehistory and beyond. Stonehenge is woven into the account as a central thread (almost literally, since it appears on grey-tone pages at intervals through the book), and is still there, as an ancient monument, in the setting of the historic landscape; there is an attractive final chapter on the intriguing diversity of the modern landscape, a 'complex mosaic' (p. 361) in the present that serves as a powerful metaphor for the deep past. The coverage within the broad region defined is very wide, so that although the obvious monument complexes in the Neolithic or the major excavated hillforts in the Iron Age, for example, figure prominently, there is plenty of attention given to small settlements and occupations, and land division, over the area as a whole. In this way, Lawson shows how much more there is to chalkland archaeology than simply the major sites alone, and how much more we need to know about it, especially for the settlement record from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age, and again for aspects of unenclosed settlement in the Later Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
For a book of such breadth, the detail on individual sites is impressive. There is a full account of Stonehenge itself and many of the recent discoveries from around it, from the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen to the work of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, and there is reference to recent formal modelling of the date of Silbury Hill and the English Heritage intervention in 2007. The summary of the complex research carried out at Stonehenge will be particularly useful for any readers coming to the topic - or literally the site - for the first time. Most of the current big ideas about how to make sense of these monuments are discussed. Lawson's tone is both enthusiastic about the hunt for explanation and cautious about specific outcomes, for example (p. 197) on the hypothesis of 'Stonehenge for the ancestors' But we are also taken to less glamorous locations, like the sewage works at Newbury (for early Mesolithic occupation), the grounds of a school in Dorchester (for scattered early Neolithic pits) or a long spur of open chalk downland at Battlesbury near Warminster (for open Iron Age settlement). The same approach generates a satisfyingly broad perspective on Early Bronze Age barrows, with a detailed account of well-known sites (with a useful supporting appendix on those around Stonehenge) balanced by a matching account of many others, far beyond the major clusters on Salisbury Plain. The text is heavily illustrated with informative plans and photographs, many figuring the excavators and researchers themselves, and all the information and references look right up-to-date.
This book should find a very wide readership. It contributes to a debate about the broader sweep of British prehistory. It helps to define a continuing research agenda for the southern chalkland itself. And it offers students, visitors and general readers a readable, clear and accessible account of how the great sites and monuments of the southern chalkland fit into wider contexts and patterns.
