“Blain and Wallis enter the arena of clashing viewpoints on history, preservation, and sacrality.” Professor Chas S. Clifton, Colorado State University-Pueblo

“This book sets out current issues and dilemmas relating to ‘sacred landscape’ to a range of audiences at home and overseas, including ‘pilgrims’, heritage managers and academics.” Professor Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol

“This volume offers a sophisticated perspective on the complex phenomenon of contemporary pagan relationships with the prehistoric past.” Professor Julian Thomas, University of Manchester

“Anthropologist Blain and archaeologist Wallis explore the discursive construction of sacred sites in Britain – most famously Stonehenge, but many others as well – by pagans and heritage management. Their research is based in perceptions of changing and problematic inscriptions of meaning and rights within a context of the growth of paganism, particularly in Britain and the US, as expressions of spirituality often with a counter-culture bent.” Reference & Research Book News

“This seeks to fill a lacuna in the academic study of alternative interests in archaeological sites. -- The authors stress that ‘sacredness’ is constituted within discourse, that landscape and all its components have ‘agency’, and that for dialogue to occur, everyone involved must abandon the idea of a single ‘truth’. This is an important and highly recommended book.” Michael York, Bath Spa University

“Strands of contemporary paganism in the UK have a long ancestry – tracing their routes back to the eighteenth-century legacy of the antiquary William Stukeley – but it is in the last three decades that interest has soared and diversified: pagan traditions now include various shades of Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, and Goddess Spirituality, among others. Sacred sites is written by two academics who are also practising pagans: Blain is an anthropologist, and Wallis an archaeologist of visual culture. The volume is the outcome of a project that set out to explore the discourses around pagan spiritual engagements with sites identified as sacred, and the conflicts and negotiations that have thus ensued with other, ‘official’ agencies and narratives. While for pagans sacred sites can include ‘natural’ landscape features, the focus here is on the relationship with those that are conventionally defined as prehistoric (mostly Neolithic and Bronze Age) ceremonial monuments, and especially stone circles, henge monuments, and rock art.
… With current calls from some pagan groups for the reburial of prehistoric human remains held in national and regional museums, this is a very timely book, and one that opens up much-needed research into modern religious engagement with prehistoric sites. At one level, the work is an exploration of contested ‘heritage’ as it faces the burgeoning diversity of alternative interests; at another it is an ‘anthropology-at-home’ ethnography of pagan practice and politics.
… The volume’s introductory chapters set the theoretical scene, engage with issues of tradition and authenticity, and the constitution of pagan identity and belief. The stance is recursive and postmodern, tethered around the fluid, subjective construction of knowledge, practice, and discourse. But, as the authors acknowledge, it is dealing with a very postmodern condition. Pagans are presented as bricoleurs par excellence. With the text embracing animist ontologies, shamanism, nature worship, anti-modernism, and romanticism, we are guided through the way in which pagans have created their spirituality through reinterpreting pre-Christian polytheist and indigenous religions, Norse myths and sagas, the Mabinogi, personal spiritual experiences, and so forth. The detail of this performative practice makes fascination reading.
… The core of the volume comprises a series of chapter-length case studies. These include detailed accounts of the politics of engagement at Avebury and Stonehenge; the role of pagan protest in the campaigns to preserve threatened prehistoric landscapes at Stanton Moor and Thornborough; shamanic tourism and prehistoric rock art; the pluralist policy of preservation and access at the Rollright Stones; calls from pagan groups for the reburial of prehistoric human remains; and a concluding chapter on strategies for dialogue between pagan, academic, and heritage communities.
… A dominant theme, especially in those sections dealing with Avebury and Stonehenge, is the tension between active engagement with archaeological sites by pagans (through various forms of gathering and celebration) and the preservation ethos of heritage management, with its visual bias and demands that monuments be appreciated with minimal ‘visitor’ intervention. As the chapters repeatedly illustrate, the diversity of groups, religious understandings, academic and heritage demands involved ensures that such politics are not easily reconciled. While the authors steer a measured course through these choppy waters, there is a sense of contradiction between their support for the pagan critique of the preservation ethos paradigm at Stonehenge and tacit acknowledgement of the important role played by pagans in the preservation of other sites (e.g. Stanton Moor and Rollright). The solution they offer is a site-specific ‘situated pragmatism’, which, given the considerable number and diversity of prehistoric monuments that can be regarded as pagan sacred sites, might offer any heritage body a considerable management headache!
… The final chapter advocates meeting and negotiation between pagans, archaeologists, and heritage managers as the route through current contestation: ‘respect and dialogue are key issues’ (p. 204). The authors’ ‘stepping stones to common ground’ include deconstructing stereotypes, collaborative dialogue over ethics and rights, and joint stewardship of sites. The latter has worked very successfully during recent solstice celebrations at Avebury, and is embodied in the sensitive management of the Rollright Stones. One of the great strengths of the book is that it opens up such dialogue, and offers a more nuanced account of pagan involvement that is far from the stereotyped image of counter-culture protest and conflict often portrayed, As such, it should be essential reading for all involved in the understanding and management of archaeological monuments.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute