From Sickles to Circles: Britain and Ireland at the time of Stonehenge

Submitted by dianacoles on Monday, 08 August 2005 Page Views: 4554

**Sickles & Circles** submitted by MickM : See review (Vote or comment on this photo)

From Sickles to Circles
Edited by Alex Gibson and Alison Sheridan.

This collection of essays on the Neolithic and Bronze Age was produced as the Festschrift to mark the retirement of Professor Derek Simpson, who sadly died earlier this year. It comprises a series of essays by 22 prehistorians on widely diverging aspects of research within this period, from Aubrey Burl’s intriguingly titled "From Madhouse to Megalith" which returns to one of the themes that Burl has explored before, the Breton influence in British monumentality, to Dawn McLaren’s article, "An Important Child’s Burial from Doune, Perth and Kinross, Scotland", which explores how the grave goods of a particular burial can be seen to shed light on attitudes towards children in the Bronze Age.

Because of the wide ranging nature of the articles presented, this book lends itself to dipping into rather than reading from cover to cover. The student of prehistory will inevitably find themselves drawn to certain topics and attracted by particular styles. For those with particular specialist interests the detailed discussion of pottery or lithic work in several of the articles may be of special interest. This writer was particularly interested in Eimear Nelis’ writing on Neolithic Flintwork from the North of Ireland which both gave a lucid and concise description of the artefact types and put them within a context.

Most fascinating, however, was Roy Loveday exploring in Spiralling Outwards – the problems and possibilities of a late Neolithic leitmotif, the origins of the spiral motif found at a small number of scattered Neolithic sites, most famously Newgrange but also on Orkney. His explanation for its origin involves a new and startling theory for the development of Orcadian culture. This is the sort of article documentaries are made from (hint to TV producers here!).

This is a book which contains far too much that is new to be absorbed at one reading with contributions from such eminent prehistorians as Graham and Anna Ritchie, Colin Burgess, Audrey Henshall and J.G. Evans et al writing on such topics as Neolithic burial monuments and their contents to Bronze Age megaliths and the associated artefacts. It is a book to be read in small parts and to be returned to and used as a reference text. This is a most valuable addition to the library of anyone with a serious interest in prehistory.

Review by Diana Coles.

Tempus 2004. Available from amazon.co.uk

Contributor Bio for dianacoles: Based in london, contributing since 2005. Favourite site: cave cairn. Occupation: student.

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