Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University in the UK will be in Canberra next month to deliver a lecture on Stonehenge in the Manning Clark Centre at the Australian National University on Thursday, 15th May, 7.30pm start. All are welcome to attend. The lecture is part of the tercentenary celebrations of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1707-2007) and this particular event is the 2008 Jack Golson Lecture.
Professor Darvill’s lecture is entitled Merlin’s Magic Circles: Stonehenge and the use of the Preseli Bluestones. In this lecture Professor Darvill will show that while Stonehenge’s origins as a ceremonial monument were conventional enough its later history was exceptional. Key to the transformation was the arrival of about 80 pillars of Bluestone rock brought a distance of around 250km from the Preseli Hills of southwest Wales to Salisbury Plain. But why were these stones important? And what did they mean to Neolithic people? Using archaeological evidence from Stonehenge itself and from recent work in the Preseli Hills, and folklore and oral tradition dating back to the 13th century AD, a new picture of Stonehenge is emerging in which the stones themselves can be seen to have perceived magical properties connected with healing. Their re-use in later and ever more elaborate structures at Stonehenge show something of their power and significance and illustrate how the landscape of the Preseli Hills is constructed in microcosm at Stonehenge. People were attracted to the area from continental Europe, and what started out as a local focus became a celebrated place for prehistoric pilgrimage.
This will be Professor Darvill’s first opportunity to speak publicly about the recent excavation at Stonehenge (the first on the ancient site for over 40 years) though he will stop short of revealing exactly what they’ve discovered as the radio-carbon dating of the organic material taken from the site is not yet complete.
