Exactly a year ago, 20th March 2019. the new Sighthill stone circle was officially revealed to the media. Designed, as was the first iteration, by Duncan Lunan, this astronomically aligned stone circle has been constructed as a permanent and unique resource within the emerging new Sighthill just to the north-east of Glasgow city centre. At … Continue reading Great crown of stone
This blog post contains selected extracts from a paper I gave at the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (SPMA) ‘congress’ at the University of Glasgow. More details on the session, The archaeologies of now, organised by James Dixon and Sefryn Penrose, can be found at the end of the post. For a decade now, I have … Continue reading Hyperprehistory
One year ago, on 7th April 2016, the Sighthill stone circle in Glasgow was dismantled and buried. Permanently closed. The first part of my story of the final months of the Sighthill stone circle can be found here. This is the second, and final part of my account, focused on the last 18 days of this … Continue reading The last days of a stone circle Part 2
In prehistory, occasionally, stone circles were dismantled. Perhaps they had come to the end of their useful life. Perhaps they had become taboo or problematic places. Maybe the stones were required elsewhere for another monument. The dismantlement of a stone circle would have been no small task, akin in labour requirements to the construction of … Continue reading The last days of a stone circle Part 1
Oh stones of Scotland! When will we see your likes again? Probably next time there is a lot of money swimming about to find quirky ways to celebrate some kind of important event or date, like the millennium of Scottish independence or something. The introductory bit How quickly can you travel around Scotland? 360 … Continue reading Oh Stones of Scotland!
The recent revival of media interest in ‘Brutalism’, a 20th century architectural style mostly associated with grey, chunky concrete office blocks, high rises and municipal buildings, is an interesting example of the ways that urban fashion can change dramatically, with buildings once seen as futuristic in terms of design and materiality becoming reviled and in … Continue reading This Neo Brutalism
Can urban prehistory help contribute to the improvement of our landscape today and to social well being? Is there a demand for the construction of new prehistoric monuments? Is it possible to re-engage people with their landscape and their past by drawing inspiration from stuff that happened thousands of years ago? I think that the answer to these questions is … Continue reading Playground prehistory
Motivations behind the erection of modern standing stones exist in stark juxtaposition. They are either incredibly banal, casually thrown up in the middle of roundabouts or business parks, largely ignored and made to order. Or they are incredibly poignant, powerful places that become a focus for memorialising something, or someone. The former are easy to … Continue reading Requiescant
Recently I have been thinking about postcards. These low grade cardboard rectangles, measuring typically 105mm by 148mm, with a picture on one side, and space on the other side for a message, address and postage stamp, are an ideal medium to present a bold, tacky and / or representative image, or series of images, of … Continue reading Postcards from the edgelands
As far as I am aware, there was only ever one bit of urban prehistory that crossed the consciousness of the late Margaret Thatcher, the Sighthill stone circle, located near Glasgow city centre. This rather surprising monument has recently been thrust back into public consciousness due to the threat by Glasgow Council to forcibly evict … Continue reading Thatcher’s petrified children
the urban prehistorian 