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Personally, I found The Dawn of Everything compelling (I stole the title) because of its
originality and the way it provided a convincing social context for Stonehenge. They
of course go further and push complexity back well before Neolithic times.

Geography isn’t destiny
To return to Stonehenge, if it is a kind of prehistoric cathedral, then it ushers in what
became a recurring theme of British history: the dichotomy in religion between the
inner, personal experience, and the an outer, public display. The megalithic scale of

monuments like Stonehenge suggests large gatherings, theatrical rituals, processions,
possibly involving the tracking and celebration of astronomical alignments and key
points in the seasonal calendar. But archaeology and anthropology also suggest that
prehistoric people held deeply personal spiritual beliefs and practices, with no clear
division between the secular and the religious worlds, involving funeral rituals,
nature-spirits and ancestor worship.

One intriguing aspect of prehistoric religion are the Druids, briefly mentioned by
ancient Greek and Roman writers as a powerful priestly, shamanic class. Julius Caesar
encountered them while invading Gaul. When the army of Suetonius attacked
Anglesey, they were met by Druid women shrieking curses at them. Caesar claims
that they originated in Britain. Is there anything in this? No other source supports it.
There were strong links between the Belgae of northern Gaul (modern Belgium) and
south-eastern Britain (modern Kent). Were the offshore islanders perhaps not quite
as remote and isolated from wider cultural developments as we assume? There is
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however no link between Druids and Stonehenge; this was invented in the 17 and
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18 centuries by two antiquarians, John Aubrey and William Stukeley.

The duality between the inner and the outer expression of religion is a constant
thread throughout our history. For example, the early Christian church was torn
between looking to Rome with its urban churches and worldly bishops (cathedral

means a bishop’s throne in Latin) and the saintly, unworldly Irish church, based on
rural monasteries and run by abbots. Similarly, the early English mostly constructed
modest, wooden churches, while later the Normans went in for mega-sized stone
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cathedrals designed to provoke awe and wonder. Later still, in the 16 and 17
centuries the Puritans would challenge all established churches, Roman or English, in
favour of an intense and deeply personal relationship with God, more akin to ancient
Irish monasticism. This duality was summed up in 1887 by the then Archbishop of
Canterbury, Edward Benson. Witnessing East End crowds cheering Queen Victoria, he
reflected of the English that “They are not a church-going race, but there is a solemn,