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 periodBrings 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 StonehengeExamines the production of archaeological knowledge as a social process, and the relationship between personalities, institutions, ideology, and powerAddresses the ongoing debates of the significance of sites such as Stonehenge, Avebury, and Maiden Castle