Creating Prehistory

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