Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead by Roger Lockhurst

Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead by Roger Lockhurst

Was Stonehenge “a sacred place for visiting the dead?” asks Roger Lockhurst in Graveyards . The famous English standing stones have been claimed for many purposes, including astronomy and Druidic rites, and remain, the author contends, as “sites for fantasy and the projection of contested meanings.” But it might be no coincidence that Stonehenge sits amidst 300 burial mounds.

In his enjoyably erudite account, the British historian doesn’t confine his thoughts to the UK but ranges across the world to understand the many ways the dead have been cared for and remembered. Burial sites may have begun with our hominid ancestors, some 600,000 years ago, albeit Lockhurst is always careful to distinguish speculation from known fac