Summary of Michael Parker Pearson's Stonehenge - A New Understanding

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The Stonehenge documentary I was involved in in 1998 brought in Malagasy archaeologist Ramilisonina to explain the significance of stone monuments to the locals. He explained that stone is an everlasting material with which one honors and commemorates the dead.#2 An analogy is a comparison that implies an equivalence or a parallel between two things. We use analogies all the time, even at the most basic level of identification. When we decide to call an ancient stone or metal object with a particular type of sharp edge an ax, we are employing the simplest sort of analogy.#3 The use of physical materials to express intangible meanings is not a new phenomenon. Stone has no inherent meaning that associates it with the eternal, the dead, or the ancestors, but its meanings are always historically contingent and subject to change according to social context.#4 The meanings of the materials used to build Stonehenge were not always obvious to the people who built it. Stonehenge was built as a place of the ancestors, but some scholars thought it was just a monument to the establishment of peace and unity.