ABSTRACT
In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, written in about 1136, he claimed that Stonehenge was built by Merlin. Stonehenge offers a particularly clear example of how archaeological interests in antiquity crosscut the views and concerns of others and often exist uncomfortably with them. Stonehenge’s massive blocks can be seen for several miles across the rolling terrain of Salisbury Plain, about 129 km west of London. At varying distances from Stonehenge within and around Salisbury Plain are large earthen mounds that largely pre and post-date Stonehenge’s creation. From the late nineteenth century to the present, research based on the principles of culture history has been pursued at Stonehenge and in its environs. Gerald Hawkins was an astronomer with a long-standing interest in the ways in which ancient people arranged monumental constructions, such as Stonehenge, to track and predict the movements of celestial bodies.
