Creating Prehistory - Druids Ley Hunters And Other Archaeologists

Creating Prehistory deals even-handedly and sympathetically with the creation of several different sorts of prehistory during the volatile period between the two World Wars.
Investigates the origins of professional archaeology in Britain during the inter-war period
Brings to life many fascinating and controversial personalities and their creeds, including the archaeologists O. G. S. Crawford, Mortimer Wheeler and Gordon Childe; Grafton Elliot Smith and W. H. R. Rivers (of ‘Regeneration’ fame); Alfred Watkins and The Old Straight Track; and the thunderous George Watson Macgregor Reid, who brought the Druids back to Stonehenge
Examines the production of archaeological knowledge as a social process, and the relationship between personalities, institutions, ideology, and power
Addresses the ongoing debates of the significance of sites such as Stonehenge, Avebury, and Maiden Castle

Adam Stout is a Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Wales, Lampeter. His pioneering study of urban cowkeeping in 1978 marked him out as a historian of the unusual. Other works include The Thorn and the Waters: Miraculous Glastonbury in the Eighteenth Century (2007); What's Real and What Is Not: Reflections upon Archaeology and Earth Mysteries in Britain (2006); Pimlico: Deep Well of Glee (1997); The Old Gloucester: Study of a Cattle Breed (1980); and a series of acclaimed artistic collaborations including Where Two Rivers Meet: The Story of Kennet Mouth (1994).

List of Illustrations.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction: Power and the Past.

Part I: Disciplining the Past:.

1. Manufacturing The Past: The Victorian Background.

2. Establishing the Discipline.

3. Containing the Amateurs.

Part II: Contesting Utopia:.

4. Making Progress.

5. The Politics of Socialism.

6. The Diffusion Heresy: Nurture and the Primitive.

7. Establishing Diffusion.

8. A Clash of Narratives: Diffusion and the Archaeologists.

Part III: The Most Ancient Faith:.

9. The Esoteric Revival.

10. The Universal Bond.

11. Stonehenge: A Mecca of Celtic Idealism.

Part IV: Order and Civilization:.

12. The Aesthetics of Order.

13. The Old Straight Track.

14. The Straight Track Postal Club.

15. Straight Track to Beyond.

16. Visions of Civilization.

Conclusion: Archaeology and Social Transformation.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index