Aubrey Burl
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Harry Aubrey Woodruff Burl HonFSA Scot (24 September 1926 – 8 April 2020) was a British
archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
best known for his studies into
megalithic monument A megalith is a large Rock (geology), stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterr ...
s and the nature of prehistoric
ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
s associated with them. Before retirement he was Principal Lecturer in Archaeology,
Hull College Hull College is a Further Education and Higher Education establishment based in Kingston upon Hull, England. It provides vocational courses, apprenticeships, Higher Education and adult learning courses, with a focus on equipping young peopl ...
, East Riding of Yorkshire. Burl received a volume edited in his honour. He was called by ''The New York Times'', "the leading authority on British stone circles". Burl's work, while considering the astronomical roles of many megalithic monuments, was cautious of embracing the more tenuous claims of
archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultur ...
. In ''Prehistoric Avebury'' Burl proposed that Circles and Henge monuments, far from being astronomical observatories for a class of "astronomer priests" were more likely used for ritualistic practices, connected with death and fertility rites, and ancestor worship, similar to practices observed in other agricultural cultures (in particular the rituals of Native North American Tribes such as the Algonquin and the Pawnee). Rituals would have been performed at key times of the year, such as the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, to ensure a successful harvest from the land. His approach led him to question what he saw as the over-romanticised view that
Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...
was built from
bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...
s hauled by hand from the
Preseli Hills The Preseli Hills or, as they are known locally and historically, Preseli Mountains, (Welsh: ''Mynyddoedd y Preseli / Y Preselau'' , ) is a range of hills in western Wales, mostly within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The range stret ...
in south west
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
to
Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
. In his view, the stones had been left close to the site by earlier
glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
s and then exploited by the monument's builders Others have argued that the bluestones have been traced to only the Preseli Hills through their chemical signature and that they could not have come from elsewhere. Additionally, it has been claimed that there was no known glacier with a course linking the hills with
Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
or a glacier from anywhere that reached far enough south. On the other hand, research by earth scientists shows that glacier ice reached the
Scilly Isles The Isles of Scilly (; kw, Syllan, ', or ) is an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is the most southerly point in Britain, being over further south than the most southerly point of the ...
on at least one occasion, and that ice which passed through Pembrokeshire did cross the coasts of Somerset and Devon. Burl died in April 2020 at the age of 93.Rings Of Stone: Excavating The Legacies of Aubrey Burl
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Publications


Major archeological books

*Burl, Aubrey. ''The Stone Circles of the British Isles''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976. *Burl, Aubrey. ''Prehistoric Avebury''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. *Burl, Aubrey, and Edward Piper. ''Rings of Stone: The Prehistoric Stone Circles of Britain and Ireland.'' New Haven: Ticknor & Fields, 1980, *Burl, Aubrey, and Max Milligan. ''Circles of Stone.'' The Harvill Press, 1999. . *Burl, Aubrey. ''
Rites of the Gods ''Rites of the Gods'' is an archaeological study of religious belief and ritual practices across prehistoric Britain from the Old Stone Age through to the Iron Age. Written by the prominent English archaeologist and megalithic specialist Aubrey B ...
''. London: J.M. Dent, 1981. *Burl, Aubrey. ''The Stonehenge People'' / Aubrey Burl. London: J.M. Dent, 1987, . *Burl, Aubrey. ''Great Stone Circles: Fables, Fictions, Facts''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999, . *Burl, Aubrey. ''The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, . *Burl, Aubrey. ''A Brief History of Stonehenge''. London: Robinson, 2007. *Burl, Aubrey. ''Four-posters: Bronze Age stone circles of Western Europe''. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1988. . *Burl, Aubrey. ''From Carnac to Callanish. The Prehistoric Stone Rows and Avenues of Britain, Ireland and Brittany''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.


Other books

*Burl, Aubrey. ''Danse Macabre: Franc̦ois Villon, Poetry, & Murder in Medieval France. ''Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub, 2000. *Burl, Aubrey. ''God's Heretics: The Albigensian Crusade''. Stroud: Sutton, 2002. **Translated into Polish as Burl, Aubrey, and Dorota Strukowska. ''Heretycy: krucjata przeciw Albigensom''. Wrocław: Wydawn. Dolnośląskie, 2003. *Burl, Aubrey, and Humphrey Clucas. ''Catullus: A Poet in the Rome of Julius Caesar''. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004 *Burl, Aubrey. ''Black Barty: Bartholomew Roberts and His Pirate Crew'' 1718-1723. Stroud: Sutton, 2006 *Burl, Aubrey. ''Courts of Love, Castles of Hate: Troubadours and Trobairitz in Southern France 1071-1321''. Stroud: Sutton, 2008.


Notes


Further reading


Reviews

*''The Stone Circles of the British Isles'' **Gerald S. Hawkins (1977), ''The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 36 (3): 206–207, . **Sharon Gibbs (1979), ''Isis'' 70: 461, . *''Prehistoric Avebury'' **R.J.C. Atkinson (1979), ''Nature'' 282: 175–176, . **Sarunas Milisauskas (1980), ''American Anthropologist'' 82 (4): 882–883, . **Rory Fonseca (1981), ''The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 40 (4): 326–327, . **Elsebet Sander-Jørgensen Rowlett (1980), ''Technology and Culture'' 21 (4) 644–646, . *''Rings of Stone: The Prehistoric Stone Circles of Britain and Ireland.'' **R.J.C. Atkinson (1980), ''Nature'' 284: 700. *''Circles of Stone.'' **Simon Denison (2001), ''British Archaeology''. *''The Stonehenge People'' **Andrew Fleming (1991), ''American Journal of Archaeology'' 95 (3): 543–544, . **A. Whittle (1988), ''Journal for the History of Astronomy. Supplement: Archaeoastronomy'' 12: S85. **R. Castleden (1987), ''Nature'' 329: 773. *'' The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany'' **Michael Hoskin (2001), ''Journal of History of Astronomy, Archaeoastronomy Supplement'' 32: S89.


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burl, Aubrey 1926 births 2020 deaths 20th-century archaeologists 20th-century British historians 20th-century English male writers 21st-century archaeologists 21st-century British historians 21st-century English male writers Archaeoastronomers British archaeologists Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Prehistorians