[...]... before the beginning of the era that forms the focus of this book In 4700 BC a significantly different way of life began, with tamed animals and ploughing, sowing and harvesting ensuring a reliable food supply The mesolithic inhabitants were converted to it by unknown numbers of mysterious immigrants from the European mainland The lifestyle of the neolithic or new stone age included many distinctive... patch of fertile arable land Even though commanding hillside and hilltop sites were often chosen for the monuments, they marked the upper margins of the farming territory, the wilderness edge There was a flurry of activity in the Midlands too Far from remaining a huge and intractable expanse of continuous oak-alder forest, the Midlands had a substantial farming population exploiting the easily managed and... of forest were left untouched right through the neolithic in North Yorkshire, East Durham, the claylands of East Anglia and the Midlands, the New Forest and probably the Vales of Kent and Sussex The abundance of game for hunting shows that forest was widespread Yet by 4000 BC there were already countless small clearings, many of them temporary but an increasing number permanent By 3500 BC much of the. .. the front The interior was void: the interior was empty Let fertility appear and spread to the hills Grant the smell of food, a portion of fatness, A breeze that calls for fermentation Polynesian first fruits feast When we reconstruct in our mind’s eye the virgin forest that stretched from one end of Britain to the other at the beginning of the neolithic, we have a measure of the magnitude of the neolithic. .. produced it In 7000 BC, the ice that had held the whole of Britain in its grip for seventy millennia melted finally from the highlands, to leave a gradually warming landscape sparsely peopled by hunting, fishing and gathering communities These people of the middle stone age, or mesolithic period, scratched a living along the encroaching shoreline and among the pine and oak woods for some two thousand years... explore the minds of a long dead, alien people and unravel their inmost thoughts on the nature of life and death? Is it possible to discover their relationship with the The mysterious monument · 5 spirit world and the passage of time? I believe it is possible to find answers to these and related questions, but only by looking far beyond the origins of Stonehenge itself to the origins and development of the. .. onetenth of the forest trees 1 The forest: predominant tree species at the beginning of the neolithic 1 montane grassland and 4 hazel open shrubland 5 alder 2 birch 6 oak 3 pine 7 elm 8 lime Where two or three letters are shown, they are arranged in order of precedence, the first indicating the dominant species Here in this magic wood · 15 As the pioneers trekked through the forest searching for suitable... researchers, theorists and dreamers devoting decades of their lives to unravelling its secrets, mostly to little effect The way to the truth is to try to forget Stonehenge in the first instance, to study the archaeology of other sites and to try to piece the whole culture together like a jigsaw puzzle, starting with the corners and edges and working gradually in towards the centre; the most interesting parts of. .. dear? I think you are lying on an altar.’… He heard something behind him, the brush of feet Turning, he saw over the prostrate columns another figure; then before he was aware, another was at hand on the right under a trilithon, and another on the left The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and Clare could discern that he was tall, and walked as if trained They all closed in with evident... at King Vortigern’s command to commemorate the massacre of four hundred British chieftains by Hengist in AD 490 The prophet Merlin was brought in to build it and at his suggestion the Giants’ Ring in Killaraus (possibly Kildare?) was transported to Salisbury Plain and re-erected there Since 1135 dozens of alternative theories have been advanced, involving Belgae, Phoenicians, Danes, Romans, Minoans, . 132 Earth lines 133 10 THE OLD TEMPLES OF THE GODS 138 The origins of the stone circles 138 The secret meaning of Stonehenge 150 To the sun, moon and stars? 152 Standing stones, death rites and dancing. mysterious immigrants from the European mainland. The lifestyle of the neolithic or new stone age included many distinctive revolutionary elements, including farming, pottery and the building of elaborate. living along the encroaching shoreline and among the pine and oak woods for some two thousand years before the beginning of the era that forms the focus of this book. In 4700 BC a significantly