Concrete Prehistories
The Making of Megalithic Modernism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v2i1.25729Keywords:
Stonehenge, Avebury, Modernism, Concrete, Prehistory, Modern Architecture, Historic Building Conservation, HeritageAbstract
After water, concrete is the most consumed substance on earth. Every year enough cement is produced to manufacture around six billion cubic metres of concrete . This paper investigates how concrete has been built into the construction of modern prehistories. We present an archaeology of concrete in the prehistoric landscapes of Stonehenge and Avebury, where concrete is a major component of megalithic sites restored between 1901 and 1964. We explore how concreting changed between 1901 and the Second World War, and the implications of this for constructions of prehistory. We discuss the role of concrete in debates surrounding restoration, analyze the semiotics of concrete equivalents for the megaliths, and investigate how concreting became meaningful in interpretations of prehistoric building activities. The archaeology of megalithic concrete illustrates the untimeliness of concrete as a technology that entangles ancient and modern.
References
Agar, E. 1988. A Look at My Life. London: Methuen.
Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers. 1913. The Everyday Uses of Portland Cement (3rd edition). London: Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers.
Barber, M. 2014a. “Restoring” Stonehenge 1881-1939. English Heritage Research Report Series 6/2014. Portsmouth: English Heritage.
____. 2014b. Stonehenge Aerodrome and the Stonehenge Landscape. English Heritage Report Series 7/2014. Portsmouth: English Heritage.
Bergdoll, B. and P. Christensen, eds. 2008. Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Bradley, L. 1983. Bradley: Building on a Name: The History of Edwin H. Bradley & Sons Limited. Swindon, UK: Edwin H. Bradley & Sons.
Chitty, S. 1992. Antonia White: Diaries 1926-1957.
Cleal, R. M .J., K. E. Walker and R. Montague. 1995. Stonehenge in its Landscape: Twentieth-Century Excavations. London: English Heritage.
Cohen, J. L. and G. M. Moeller, eds. 2006. Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Collins, P. 1959. Concrete: The Vision of a New Architecture. London: Faber and Faber.
Croft, C. 2004. Concrete Architecture. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith.
Cunnington, M. E. 1913. “The Re-erection of Two Fallen Stones, and the Discovery of an Interment with Drinking Cup, at Avebury.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 38(119): 1–11.
____. 1929. Woodhenge. A Description of the Site as Revealed by Excavations Carried out There by Mr and Mrs B.H. Cunnington, 1926-7-8. Also of Four Circles and an Earthwork Enclosure. Devizes, UK: George Simpson & Co.
____. 1931. “The ‘Sanctuary’ on Overton Hill, near Avebury.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 45(154): 300–335.
Cunnington, R. H. 1954. “The Cunningtons of Wiltshire.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 55(200): 211–236.
Curran, B. A., A. Grafton, P. O. Long and B. Weiss. 2009. Obelisk: A History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Drury, M. 2000. Wandering Architects: in Pursuit of an Arts and Crafts Ideal. Stamford, UK: Shaun Tyas.
Edmonds, M. and C. Evans. 1991. Excavating the Past: The Place of the Present: Art and Archaeology in Britain. London: Kettle’s Yard Gallery.
Edwards, B. 2000. “Avebury and Other Not-So-Ancient Places: The Making of the English Heritage Landscape.” In Seeing History: Public History in Britain Now, edited by H. Kean, P. Martin and S. Morgan, 65–79. London: Francis Boutle.
Emerick, K. 2014. Conserving and Managing Ancient Monuments: Heritage, Democracy, and Inclusion. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer.
English Heritage. 2001. English Heritage Policy Statement on Restoration, Reconstruction, and Speculative Recreation of Archaeological Sites including Ruins. Available online: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/re-arch/re-arch2001.pdf
____. 2008. Durability Guaranteed: Pulhamite Rockwork – Its Conservation and Repair. Swindon, UK: English Heritage.
____. 2013. Concrete. Practical Building Conservation Series. Farnham, UK: Ashgate and English Heritage.
Evans, C. 2004. “Unearthing Displacement: Surrealism and the ‘Archaeology’ of Paul Nash.” In Substance, Memory, Display: Archaeology & Art, edited by C. Renfrew, C. Gosden and E. DeMarrais, 107–118. Cambridge: MacDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Forty, A. 2006. “A Material Without a History.” In Liquid Stone: New Architecture In Concrete, edited by J. L. Cohen and G. M. Moeller, 34–45. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
____. 2012. Concrete and Culture: A Material History. London: Reaktion Books.
Gillings, M. and J. Pollard. 2004. Avebury. London: Duckworth.
Hatherley, O. 2008. Militant Modernism. Ropley, UK: O Books.
Hauser, K. 2007. Shadow Sites: Photography, Archaeology and the British Landscape 1927-1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haycock, D. B. 2002. William Stukeley: Science, Religion and Archaeology in Eighteenth-Century England. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press.
Haycock, L. 1995. The History of W.E. Chivers & Sons: A Century of Building 1884-1985. Bath: Pipers Publications.
Hill, R. 2008. Stonehenge. London: Profile.
Keiller, A. 1922. The Personnel of the Aberdeenshire Witchcraft Covens in the Years 1596-7. London: privately published by the author.
____. and S. Piggott. 1936. “The Recent Excavations at Avebury.” Antiquity 10: 417–427.
Kendrick, T. D. and C. F. C. Hawkes. 1932. Archaeology in England and Wales 1914-1931. London: Methuen.
Krier, L., 1985. Albert Speer: Architecture, 1932-1942. Brussels: Archives d’architecture moderne.
Lakeman, A., 1918. Concrete Cottages, Small Garages and Farm Buildings. London: Concrete Publications.
Latour, B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Le Corbusier, 1927. Towards a New Architecture. London: Butterworth Architecture.
Lukis, W. C. 1881. “Stonehenge.” The Antiquary 4: 225–226.
Martin, J. L., B. Nicholson and N. Gabo. 1937. Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art. London: Faber and Faber.
Massingham, H. C. 1926. Downland Man. London: Jonathan Cape.
Moeller, G. M. 2006. “Sculptural Form. Reinforced Concrete and the Morality of Form.” In Liquid Stone: New Architecture In Concrete, edited by J. L. Cohen and G. M. Moeller, 156–215. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Murray, L. 1999. Alexander Keiller: A Zest for Life. Swindon, UK: Morven Books.
Nash, P. 1951 Fertile Image. London: Faber and Faber.
Noyes, E. 1913. Salisbury Plain. Its Stones, Cathedral, City, Valley and Folk. London: Dent.
Passmore, A. D. 1922. “The Devil’s Den Dolmen, Clatford Bottom: An Account of the Monument and of Work Undertaken in 1921 to Strengthen the North-East Upright.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 41: 532–530.
Peers, C. 1931. “The Treatment of Old Buildings.” Architectural Journal. 2nd series, 38: 311-320.
Peirce, C. 1998 [1894]. “What is a Sign?” In The Essential Peirce Volume 2: Selected Philosophical Writings 1893-1913, by C. Pierce and edited by the Pierce Edition Project, 4 –10. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Penty, A. 1906. The Restoration of the Gild System. London: Swan Sonnenschein.
Petrie, F. 1880. Stonehenge: Plans, Description and Theories. London: Edward Stanford.
Piggott, S. 1950. William Stukeley: An Eighteenth-Century Antiquary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
____. 1962. The West Kennet Long Barrow, Excavations 1955-6. London: HMSO.
Pitts, M. 2000. Hengeworld. London: Century.
____. 2008. “A Photo by Bill Brandt, and the Intimacy of Perceptions of Stonehenge and Landscape.” Landscapes 1: 1–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/lan.2008.9.1.1
Rawlins, M. 1999. Butcher, Baker, Saddlemaker: Village Life in Avebury from 1920-1974. Privately published by the author.
Renfrew, C. 1973. Before Civilization: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe. London: Pimlico.
Ruskin, J. 1849. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
Secord, J. A. 2004. “Monsters at the Crystal Palace.” In Models: The Third Dimension of Science, edited by S. de Chadarevian and N. Hopwood, 138–169. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Smiles, S. 2002. “Equivalents for the Megaliths: Prehistory and English Culture, 1920–50.” In The Geographies of Englishness: Landscape and the National Past 1880–1940, edited by D. P. Corbett, Y. Holt and F. Russell, 199–223. New Haven: Yale University Press.
____. 2004. “Antiquity and Modern Art in Britain, c. 1930-1950.” Archaeological Review from Cambridge 19(1): 81–98.
Society of Antiquities. 1881–83. [Report of the Stonehenge Committee]. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London 9: 10–16.
Stanley, C. C. 1979. Highlights in the History of Concrete. Slough, UK: Cement and Concrete Association.
Stout, A. 2008. Creating Prehistory: Druids, Ley Hunters and Archaeologists in Pre-war Britain. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/
9781444302912
Swenarton, M. 1989. Artisans and Architects: The Ruskinian Tradition in Architectural Thought. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.
Tarrant, A. S. 2010. Analysis of Concrete Markers at Avebury World Heritage Site. MA Diss., University of London.
Taylor, F. W. and S. E. Thomspon. 1912. Concrete Costs. New York: J. Wiley and Sons.
Thornton, C. G. 2011. “The Edward Thomas Memorial Stone, Shoulder of Mutton Hill, Steep.” The Edward Thomas Fellowship Newsletter 66: 24–32.
Thurley, S. 2013. Men from the Ministry: How Britain Saved its Heritage. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tuhy, J. E. 1983 Sam Hill: The Prince of Castle Nowhere. Portland, OR: Timber Press.
Ulm, F.-J. 2006. “What’s the Matter with Concrete?” In Liquid Stone: New Architecture In Concrete, edited by J. L Cohen and G. M. Moeller, 218–221.
Walker, I. 2007. So Exotic, So Homemade: Surrealism, Englishness and Documentary Photography. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Weary, J. 2009. Edison’s Concrete Piano: Flying Tanks, Six-Nippled Sheep, Walk-On-Water Shoes and 12 Other Flops from Great Inventors. Toronto: ECW Press.
Woodward, C. 2001. In Ruins. London: Chatto & Windus.
Yablon, N. 2010. Untimely Ruins: The Archaeology of American Urban Modernity 1819-1919. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers. 1913. The Everyday Uses of Portland Cement (3rd edition). London: Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers.
Barber, M. 2014a. “Restoring” Stonehenge 1881-1939. English Heritage Research Report Series 6/2014. Portsmouth: English Heritage.
____. 2014b. Stonehenge Aerodrome and the Stonehenge Landscape. English Heritage Report Series 7/2014. Portsmouth: English Heritage.
Bergdoll, B. and P. Christensen, eds. 2008. Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Bradley, L. 1983. Bradley: Building on a Name: The History of Edwin H. Bradley & Sons Limited. Swindon, UK: Edwin H. Bradley & Sons.
Chitty, S. 1992. Antonia White: Diaries 1926-1957.
Cleal, R. M .J., K. E. Walker and R. Montague. 1995. Stonehenge in its Landscape: Twentieth-Century Excavations. London: English Heritage.
Cohen, J. L. and G. M. Moeller, eds. 2006. Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Collins, P. 1959. Concrete: The Vision of a New Architecture. London: Faber and Faber.
Croft, C. 2004. Concrete Architecture. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith.
Cunnington, M. E. 1913. “The Re-erection of Two Fallen Stones, and the Discovery of an Interment with Drinking Cup, at Avebury.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 38(119): 1–11.
____. 1929. Woodhenge. A Description of the Site as Revealed by Excavations Carried out There by Mr and Mrs B.H. Cunnington, 1926-7-8. Also of Four Circles and an Earthwork Enclosure. Devizes, UK: George Simpson & Co.
____. 1931. “The ‘Sanctuary’ on Overton Hill, near Avebury.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 45(154): 300–335.
Cunnington, R. H. 1954. “The Cunningtons of Wiltshire.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 55(200): 211–236.
Curran, B. A., A. Grafton, P. O. Long and B. Weiss. 2009. Obelisk: A History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Drury, M. 2000. Wandering Architects: in Pursuit of an Arts and Crafts Ideal. Stamford, UK: Shaun Tyas.
Edmonds, M. and C. Evans. 1991. Excavating the Past: The Place of the Present: Art and Archaeology in Britain. London: Kettle’s Yard Gallery.
Edwards, B. 2000. “Avebury and Other Not-So-Ancient Places: The Making of the English Heritage Landscape.” In Seeing History: Public History in Britain Now, edited by H. Kean, P. Martin and S. Morgan, 65–79. London: Francis Boutle.
Emerick, K. 2014. Conserving and Managing Ancient Monuments: Heritage, Democracy, and Inclusion. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer.
English Heritage. 2001. English Heritage Policy Statement on Restoration, Reconstruction, and Speculative Recreation of Archaeological Sites including Ruins. Available online: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/re-arch/re-arch2001.pdf
____. 2008. Durability Guaranteed: Pulhamite Rockwork – Its Conservation and Repair. Swindon, UK: English Heritage.
____. 2013. Concrete. Practical Building Conservation Series. Farnham, UK: Ashgate and English Heritage.
Evans, C. 2004. “Unearthing Displacement: Surrealism and the ‘Archaeology’ of Paul Nash.” In Substance, Memory, Display: Archaeology & Art, edited by C. Renfrew, C. Gosden and E. DeMarrais, 107–118. Cambridge: MacDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Forty, A. 2006. “A Material Without a History.” In Liquid Stone: New Architecture In Concrete, edited by J. L. Cohen and G. M. Moeller, 34–45. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
____. 2012. Concrete and Culture: A Material History. London: Reaktion Books.
Gillings, M. and J. Pollard. 2004. Avebury. London: Duckworth.
Hatherley, O. 2008. Militant Modernism. Ropley, UK: O Books.
Hauser, K. 2007. Shadow Sites: Photography, Archaeology and the British Landscape 1927-1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haycock, D. B. 2002. William Stukeley: Science, Religion and Archaeology in Eighteenth-Century England. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press.
Haycock, L. 1995. The History of W.E. Chivers & Sons: A Century of Building 1884-1985. Bath: Pipers Publications.
Hill, R. 2008. Stonehenge. London: Profile.
Keiller, A. 1922. The Personnel of the Aberdeenshire Witchcraft Covens in the Years 1596-7. London: privately published by the author.
____. and S. Piggott. 1936. “The Recent Excavations at Avebury.” Antiquity 10: 417–427.
Kendrick, T. D. and C. F. C. Hawkes. 1932. Archaeology in England and Wales 1914-1931. London: Methuen.
Krier, L., 1985. Albert Speer: Architecture, 1932-1942. Brussels: Archives d’architecture moderne.
Lakeman, A., 1918. Concrete Cottages, Small Garages and Farm Buildings. London: Concrete Publications.
Latour, B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Le Corbusier, 1927. Towards a New Architecture. London: Butterworth Architecture.
Lukis, W. C. 1881. “Stonehenge.” The Antiquary 4: 225–226.
Martin, J. L., B. Nicholson and N. Gabo. 1937. Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art. London: Faber and Faber.
Massingham, H. C. 1926. Downland Man. London: Jonathan Cape.
Moeller, G. M. 2006. “Sculptural Form. Reinforced Concrete and the Morality of Form.” In Liquid Stone: New Architecture In Concrete, edited by J. L. Cohen and G. M. Moeller, 156–215. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Murray, L. 1999. Alexander Keiller: A Zest for Life. Swindon, UK: Morven Books.
Nash, P. 1951 Fertile Image. London: Faber and Faber.
Noyes, E. 1913. Salisbury Plain. Its Stones, Cathedral, City, Valley and Folk. London: Dent.
Passmore, A. D. 1922. “The Devil’s Den Dolmen, Clatford Bottom: An Account of the Monument and of Work Undertaken in 1921 to Strengthen the North-East Upright.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 41: 532–530.
Peers, C. 1931. “The Treatment of Old Buildings.” Architectural Journal. 2nd series, 38: 311-320.
Peirce, C. 1998 [1894]. “What is a Sign?” In The Essential Peirce Volume 2: Selected Philosophical Writings 1893-1913, by C. Pierce and edited by the Pierce Edition Project, 4 –10. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Penty, A. 1906. The Restoration of the Gild System. London: Swan Sonnenschein.
Petrie, F. 1880. Stonehenge: Plans, Description and Theories. London: Edward Stanford.
Piggott, S. 1950. William Stukeley: An Eighteenth-Century Antiquary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
____. 1962. The West Kennet Long Barrow, Excavations 1955-6. London: HMSO.
Pitts, M. 2000. Hengeworld. London: Century.
____. 2008. “A Photo by Bill Brandt, and the Intimacy of Perceptions of Stonehenge and Landscape.” Landscapes 1: 1–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/lan.2008.9.1.1
Rawlins, M. 1999. Butcher, Baker, Saddlemaker: Village Life in Avebury from 1920-1974. Privately published by the author.
Renfrew, C. 1973. Before Civilization: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe. London: Pimlico.
Ruskin, J. 1849. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
Secord, J. A. 2004. “Monsters at the Crystal Palace.” In Models: The Third Dimension of Science, edited by S. de Chadarevian and N. Hopwood, 138–169. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Smiles, S. 2002. “Equivalents for the Megaliths: Prehistory and English Culture, 1920–50.” In The Geographies of Englishness: Landscape and the National Past 1880–1940, edited by D. P. Corbett, Y. Holt and F. Russell, 199–223. New Haven: Yale University Press.
____. 2004. “Antiquity and Modern Art in Britain, c. 1930-1950.” Archaeological Review from Cambridge 19(1): 81–98.
Society of Antiquities. 1881–83. [Report of the Stonehenge Committee]. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London 9: 10–16.
Stanley, C. C. 1979. Highlights in the History of Concrete. Slough, UK: Cement and Concrete Association.
Stout, A. 2008. Creating Prehistory: Druids, Ley Hunters and Archaeologists in Pre-war Britain. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/
9781444302912
Swenarton, M. 1989. Artisans and Architects: The Ruskinian Tradition in Architectural Thought. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.
Tarrant, A. S. 2010. Analysis of Concrete Markers at Avebury World Heritage Site. MA Diss., University of London.
Taylor, F. W. and S. E. Thomspon. 1912. Concrete Costs. New York: J. Wiley and Sons.
Thornton, C. G. 2011. “The Edward Thomas Memorial Stone, Shoulder of Mutton Hill, Steep.” The Edward Thomas Fellowship Newsletter 66: 24–32.
Thurley, S. 2013. Men from the Ministry: How Britain Saved its Heritage. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tuhy, J. E. 1983 Sam Hill: The Prince of Castle Nowhere. Portland, OR: Timber Press.
Ulm, F.-J. 2006. “What’s the Matter with Concrete?” In Liquid Stone: New Architecture In Concrete, edited by J. L Cohen and G. M. Moeller, 218–221.
Walker, I. 2007. So Exotic, So Homemade: Surrealism, Englishness and Documentary Photography. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Weary, J. 2009. Edison’s Concrete Piano: Flying Tanks, Six-Nippled Sheep, Walk-On-Water Shoes and 12 Other Flops from Great Inventors. Toronto: ECW Press.
Woodward, C. 2001. In Ruins. London: Chatto & Windus.
Yablon, N. 2010. Untimely Ruins: The Archaeology of American Urban Modernity 1819-1919. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Published
2015-09-02
Issue
Section
Research Article
How to Cite
Wickstead, H., & Barber, M. (2015). Concrete Prehistories: The Making of Megalithic Modernism. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 2(1), 195–216. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v2i1.25729
