[Stones] stonehenge

[Andy Norfolk]

Webmaster at ancienteurope.info wrote:
> No I'm not talking about the campaign as such, I'm really talking 
> about how we have got used to focussing on the monument rather than 
> the landscape, and I'm by no means saying we are all guilty of this, 
> probably many on this list have no issues with seeing the landscape in 
> this way, but most site interpretations I've seen, either from 
> archaeologists or amateurs tend to be very monument focussed. How many 
> Stonehenge sites show you anything but the stones for example?
I got into all this stuff by being inspired by John Michell's "View over 
Atlantis" and Guy Underwood's "Pattern of the Past". I did a landscape 
archaeology evening class in the1970s when I was doing a landscape 
architecture course at what was then Leeds Poly. For me it's always been 
about how the sites fit into the landscape. I'd guess anyone from an 
earth mysteries background is going to  look at the bigger picture as a 
matter of habit. These days as part of my work I do a lot of "landscape 
and visual impact assessments", which means using landscape 
characterisation techniques. I find it hard to understand just how site 
focussed some folk are - and I don't think many local authorities really 
understand the L&VIA process or even landscape characterisation. The 
whole planning process is very site focussed and that's part of the 
problem we will always face.

Andy N