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Sacred Sites – Contested Rites/Rights
Pagan Engagements with Archaeological Monuments

Jenny Blain and Robert Wallis

	Paganism is held to be the fastest growing “religion” in Britain today.
	Discusses pagan adoption and guardianship of “sacred sites”.

“Blain and Wallis enter the arena of clashing viewpoints on history, preservation, and sacrality.” Professor Chas S. Clifton, Colorado State University-Pueblo

“This book sets out current issues and dilemmas relating to ‘sacred landscape’ to a range of audiences at home and overseas, including ‘pilgrims’, heritage managers and academics.” Professor Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol

“This volume offers a sophisticated perspective on the complex phenomenon of contemporary pagan relationships with the prehistoric past.” Professor Julian Thomas, University of Manchester

“Anthropologist Blain and archaeologist Wallis explore the discursive construction of sacred sites in Britain – most famously Stonehenge, but many others as well – by pagans and heritage management. Their research is based in perceptions of changing and problematic inscriptions of meaning and rights within a context of the growth of paganism, particularly in Britain and the US, as expressions of spirituality often with a counter-culture bent.” Reference & Research Book News

“This seeks to fill a lacuna in the academic study of alternative interests in archaeological sites. -- The authors stress that ‘sacredness’ is constituted within discourse, that landscape and all its components have ‘agency’, and that for dialogue to occur, everyone involved must abandon the idea of a single ‘truth’. This is an important and highly recommended book.” Michael York, Bath Spa University

Paganism is held to be the fastest growing 'religion' in Britain today. Pagan identities and constructions of sacredness contest assumptions of a 'closed' past and untouchable heritage, within a socio-politics in which prehistoric archaeology – the stone circles, burial cairns and rock art of the British Isles – is itself subject to political and economic threats. Pagans see prehistoric monuments in a living, enchanted landscape of deities, ancestors, spirits, ‘wights' and other non-human agencies engaged with for personal and community empowerment. From all areas of Britain and indeed worldwide, people come to sacred sites of prehistory to make pilgrimage, befriend places, give offerings, act as unofficial ‘site guardians’, campaign for ‘site welfare’. Summer solstice access at Stonehenge attracts tens of thousands of celebrants; threats of quarrying near Derbyshire's Nine Ladies stone circle or Yorkshire's Thornborough Henges lead to protests and campaigns for the preservation of sacred landscapes and conservation of plant and animal species. Pagans can be seen as allies to the interests of heritage management, yet instances of site damage and recent claims for the reburial of non-Christian human remains disrupt the preservation ethos of those who manage and study these sites, and the large-scale celebrations at Stonehenge and Avebury are subject to continual negotiation.
… In this book an anthropologist (Blain) and archaeologist (Wallis) examine interfaces between paganisms and archaeology, considering the emergence of ‘sacred sites’ in pagan and heritage discourse and implications of pagan involvement for heritage management, archaeology, anthropology – and for pagans themselves, as well as considering practical guidelines for reciprocal benefit.

	List of Contents to follow

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