Sacred Sites - Contested Rites/Rights: Pagan Engagements with Archaeological Monuments

Paganism is held to be the fastest growing 'religion' in Britain today. Pagan identities and constructions of sacredness contest assumptions of a 'closed' past and untouchable heritage, within a socio-politics in which prehistoric archaeology -- the stone circles, burial cairns and rock art of the British Isles -- is itself subject to political and economic threats. Pagans see prehistoric monuments in a living, enchanted landscape of deities, ancestors, spirits, 'wights' and other non-human agencies engaged with for personal and community empowerment. From all areas of Britain and indeed worldwide, people come to sacred sites of prehistory to make pilgrimage, befriend places, give offerings, act as unofficial 'site guardians', campaign for 'site welfare'. Summer solstice access at Stonehenge attracts tens of thousands of celebrants; threats of quarrying near Derbyshire's Nine Ladies stone circle or Yorkshire's Thornborough Henges lead to protests and campaigns for the preservation of sacred landscapes and conservation of plant and animal species. Pagans can be seen as allies to the interests of heritage management, yet instances of site damage and recent claims for the reburial of non-Christian human remains disrupt the preservation ethos of those who manage and study these sites, and the large-scale celebrations at Stonehenge and Avebury are subject to continual negotiation. In this book an anthropologist (Blain) and archaeologist (Wallis) examine interfaces between paganisms and archaeology, considering the emergence of 'sacred sites' in pagan and heritage discourse and implications of pagan involvement for heritage management, archaeology, anthropology -- and for pagans themselves, as well as considering practical guidelines for reciprocal benefit.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Politics of Location; 'Sacred Sites'? Paganisms, Representation and Imaginings of the Past; Avebury; Stonehenge; Derbyshire and Yorkshire: Stanton Moor and Thornborough Henges; Spirits of Moor and Glen: Pagans and Rock Art Sites in Britain; The Rollright Stones and the Rollright Trust; Reburial, Museums, Pagans and Respect; Towards a Conclusion: Strategies for Dialogic and Future Directions; Index.

About the Author :
Jenny Blain is senior lecturer in Applied Social Sciences, Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University, where she leads the MA/MSc Programme in Social Science Research Methods. Her research interests include paganisms, shamanism and consciousness, gender and sexuality, discourse theory and constructions of political and social inclusion and exclusion. Robert Wallis is Associate Professor of Visual Culture at Richmond University London, where he is Associate Director of the MA in Art History. He is also an Associate Lecturer with the Open University. His research interests include prehistoric and indigenous art in shamanistic and animistic contexts, as well as the representation of the past in the present.

Review :
"(This Book) seeks to fill a lacuna in the academic study of alternative interests in archaeological sites. -- The authors stress that 'sacredness' is constituted within discourse, that landscape and all its components have 'agency', and that for dialogue to occur, everyone involved must abandon the idea of a single 'truth'. This is an important and highly recommended book." -- Michael York, Bath Spa University.