The Down Farm Landscape (where the author's family has farmed for generations) is one of the most carefully studied areas in Western Europe. Much of this work has been carried out by the author himself - who in 1992 won the Pitt Rivers award for independent archaeology. His work has involved five universities and one of the major field units were recently featured in a BBC 2 'Meet the Ancestors' programme. The farm is part of Cranborne Chase, just south of Salisbury (where, coincidentally, the famous General Pitt Rivers began his pioneering work in the 1880s). It not only contains the Neolithic Dorset Cursus, numerous long barrows and Hambledon Hill, but over the last 30 years henges, shafts, plastered houses, land divisions, enclosures and cemeteries have been identified and excavated. The farm has its own museum and for the book the author provided a unique range of illustrations (including full colour reconstructions).
