Mike Pitts – författare

Draws on a lifetime’s study and a decade of new research to address the first question that every visitor asks: how was Stonehenge built? Icon of the New Stone Age, sculptural and engineering marvel, symbol of national pride: there is nothing quite like Stonehenge. These great sarsen and bluestone slabs, arranged with simple, graphic genius, attract visitors from across the world. The monument stands silent in the face of the questions its unlikely existence raises: who built it? Why? How? There has been endless speculation about why Stonehenge was built, inspiring theories ranging from the academically credible to the improbable, but far less investigation into how. In the millennia since its creation, pieces of Stonehenge have been knocked over by heavy machinery, found their way to Florida (and back again), and been exposed to radioactive sodium, but the seemingly impossible endeavour of raising the stones with Neolithic technology has remained inexplicable – until now. In the past decade ground-breaking discoveries, made possible by cutting-edge scientific techniques, have traced the precise provenance of the bluestones in Wales, but can we plot their journeys to the Salisbury Plain? And how might teams of labourers lacking machinery or even pack animals have dragged them 150 miles to the site? How did they carve joints into the sarsen boulders, among the hardest stones in the world, and then raise them into place? Mike Pitts draws on a lifetime’s study to answer these questions, revealing how Stonehenge stood not in austere isolation, as we see it today, but as part of a wider world, the focus of a megalithic cosmology of belief, ritual and creativity. With 109 illustrations

Take a cast of archaeologists and historians who inhabit different worlds. Add a medieval king who died in battle, and was revived by Shakespeare as the ultimate anti-hero. Throw in a forensic quest with almost unbelievable twists, and a theatrical modern burial with no parallel, and you have the material for an irresistible story for our times. In the hands of a leading archaeologist and award-winning journalist, the search for a king’s grave becomes the page-turning, entertaining, informed narrative that makes Digging for Richard III the must-read title on the most sensational archaeological find for generations.

Britain has long been fascinated with its own history and identity, as an island nation besieged by invaders from beyond the seas: the Romans, Vikings and Normans. The long saga of prehistory is often forgotten – but our understanding of our past is changing. Mike Pitts presents ten astounding archaeological discoveries that shed new light on those who came before us, and radically altered the way we think about our history. His compelling, sometimes teasing, archaeological odyssey illustrates the diversity, complexity and sheer strangeness of the lives that represent Britain’s past.With 79 illustrations, 24 in colour

'The true and fascinating story of Easter Island and its amazing statues' KEN FOLLETT'Revelatory... fascinating... [and] wholly convincing' MAIL ON SUNDAY‘Compelling … a magisterial history’ NEW YORK TIMESWhere did they come from? How did they get there? Why did they carve the island’s colossal statues? And what happened to the civilisation that raised them?For centuries, Easter Island – or Rapa Nui – has been cloaked in mystery and speculation.Now, in his revelatory investigation, archaeologist Mike Pitts unearths a powerful new history of the island, its people and the events that led to its downfall. Bringing to light the latest scientific and archaeological discoveries, Pitts also revives the work of pioneering anthropologist Katherine Routledge, whose priceless research has long been ignored.Bold, surprising and utterly gripping, Island at the Edge of the World overturns everything we thought we knew about Rapa Nui and where the blame for its devastation truly lies.