Archaeology and legend: investigating Stonehenge

Stonehenge is one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments, built 4,500–5,000 years ago during the Neolithic in a time long before written history. The recent dramatic discovery of a dismantled stone circle near the sources of some of Stonehenge’s stones in southwest Wales raises the fascinating possibility that an ancient story about Stonehenge’s origin, written down 900 years ago and subsequently dismissed as pure invention, might contain a grain of truth. This article explores the pros and cons of comparing the legend with the archaeological evidence

Living with the dead: mummification and post-mortem treatment in Bronze Age Britain

A long-recognised problem in British prehistory is the replacement of formal cemeteries and burials from 1600 bce onwards by deposits with disarticulated human remains, many of them found on settlements. At the Bronze Age settlement site of Cladh Hallan in the Outer Hebrides the human remains include cremation deposits, inhumations, disarticulated bones and body parts of formerly mummified remains recombined as composite skeletons. These mortuary practices, including exhumation, curation and reburial, reveal an intimate relationship between the living and the dead. The burial of mummies beneath house floors and the deposition of other human remains within Cladh Hallan’s roundhouses demonstrate how dwellings were places of spiritual and cosmological meaning as well as practical utility. While later Bronze Age mortuary practices generally provide little indication of the social inequalities apparent in other lines of evidence, the practice of mummification may have served as an indicator of social status

Prospectus, January 29, 1997

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1997/1002/thumbnail.jp

Learning and practicing police craft

Purpose The authors consider current policy debates in the UK about the professionalisation of the police to respond to changing patterns of crime and, specifically, the suggestion that officers be educated to degree level. Drawing on the ethnographic evidence, the purpose of this paper is to focus attention on how officers learn, and continue to develop the applied, that is the craft aspects of the work of uniformed constables. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on a long-term ethnographic project observing officers during the course of their duties. The focus is on the use of discretion and of particular powers. But in the course of the research, the authors also observe the way officers behave and the way they talk about their job. Findings The authors suggest that, while there may be a role for degree qualifications, attention needs to be paid to the practices the authors observe, practices that have long been the core craft skills of uniformed officers. Originality/value The authors suggest that, despite the emergence of cybercrime and other new forms of crime/threat, the evidence suggests that much has not. Not least, crime is not the only focus of police work. </jats:sec