What does a scholarly archaeologist with a fascination for prehistory have in common with a ululating eco-warrior in a costume of bed linen? I found out on a recent trip to Wiltshire. They come together at solstice within the circle of Stonehenge.
For more than five millennia Stonehenge has stood, a stark silhouette on the far horizons of history. It was erected, specifically, to mark two moments on our celestial calendar. At dawn in midsummer the sun rises in alignment with the great outlying Heel Stone. In the dusk of midwinter it drops, at the opposite pole of the compass, between the two uprights of the tallest trilithon. And at these twin moments it connects us, with spine-tingling immediacy, with the lives and beliefs of
