How to Build Stonehenge

Draws on a lifetime’s study and a decade of new research to address the first question that every visitor asks: how was Stonehenge built? There is, you might think, nothing like it: the simple, graphic genius of these great, arranged blocks. The stones seem to rise from the ground in some antediluvian heave of the Earth: lintels, great horizontal slabs, roughly squared, the grey rock now covered in subtle lichen green. There really is nothing like Stonehenge. Who made this? When? Why? How? It sounds obvious perhaps, and the most common question: how was Stonehenge built? Yet it’s the least researched aspect of the site, and no modern archaeologist has ever written this book. With a unique focus on the monument itself, How to Build Stonehenge sets out to do just that: describe Stonehenge as it is today, what we know about the different types of stone and where they came from, how they were brought to the site, how they were carved and positioned to create the ultimate in megalithic architecture, and how this was taken down and left to ruin until the decay was arrested in the 20th century with substantial restoration works. A book like this couldn’t have been written fifty years ago. Mike Pitts explores the latest research understanding of the site, interrogating the key questions: the sources of the various stones, how they were transported and how it was all put together. The book will consider the first significant study of sarsen, the stone most of Stonehenge is made of, in detail for the very first time and bring it into the wider context of other megalith builders around the world, as well as placing Stonehenge at the centre of a network of European Bronze Age cultures.