Publisher's Synopsis
This is an account of society in Britain over almost two millennia, beginning in the late Neolithic and taking the story well into the Bronze Age. The author charts the emergence of a group of ceremonial and highly ritualized peoples, and throws new light on the origins and purpose of the great monuments they created, Stonehenge and Avebury among them.
John Barrett questions many current assumptions about the nature and early history of these peoples, including their relation to the hunter–gatherers of the fifth millenium. He also makes a significant and controversial contribution to several key debates among archaeologists – notably, on the gathering and use of material evidence, on the nature and causes of social and cultural change, and on the place of social theory in interpreting and understanding prehistory.
