| About the Author Anthony Johnson is an archaeologist. He began his career 40 years ago as what is often colloquially known as a ‘circuit digger’, considered by those who know to be ‘the best apprenticeship in archaeology known to humanity’. This ‘pick and shovel’ route is still regarded as the toughest but by far the best way of gaining essential field experience (and yes, they also use trowels). Beginning in the late 1960s, and after some six years working on many varied sites, he went on to study at University College Cardiff, graduating in 1977 with an Honours degree in archaeology. For the last 20 years he has been field director of Oxford Archaeotechnics, a company specializing in the magnetic location and mapping of archaeological sites, he is also a part time tutor in archaeology at the University of Oxford. His CV includes seven years service with the auxiliary maritime rescue service of HM Coastguard. In his youth he also worked as guard on the London Underground, on building sites, car factories, and as farm worker and tractor driver. This wealth of practical experience makes him exceptionally well qualified to look at the world not only through the eyes of an academic, but as a man who thoroughly understands the dynamics of the wider world. Former students may recall his comment ‘you can’t possibly understand the past unless you have a grasp of the present!’. Archaeology, he says ‘' is not simply a technical subject, but one wherein you have to come terms with all the vagaries and capricious nature of human endeavor, you have to truly understand people, not just what they left behind '’. He is unimpressed by those who claim to be ‘too busy’ to talk archaeology over an evening pint or two in one of Oxfords many delightful pubs, to which he adds '’wherein such pleasant informal discussions have traditionally resolved as many questions as the library or lecture room'’. It was an early interest in computing and archaeological prospection that was to shift his focus from excavation to topographic and geophysical survey work, subsequently investigating and reporting on over 300 sites. Asked about the shift from digging to geophysics, he replies '' When I discover a new archaeological site - that is now my 'artefact' , what unfolds on the computer screen is no less an exciting experience as when the blade of the trowel reveals the wall trench, coin or potsherd. I feel very privileged to have found many new sites, from prehistoric enclosures - to Roman villas, and even whole ancient settlements that have remained unknown and unsuspected in the British countryside''. He explains that ''there's still a huge amount to be discovered, its a little like Stonehenge - people assume its been 'thrashed to death' but we are only just beginning to understand the monument, the real block has been the obsession with astronomy and alignments, there is no archaeological evidence to support the idea, it's no more than speculation''. Writing ‘Solving Stonehenge’ brings to fruition a deep and lifelong fascination with the structure that began as a student in the 1970’s (during a field trip to Stonehenge in the company of the late Professor Richard Atkinson). He says that it also brings to a close three decades of frustration - at seeing endless utterly nonsensical theories about Stonehenge, which he adds have been '‘mostly written by people who don’t have the first clue about the the truly complex nature of the site, its buried archaeology or its protracted history. They don't go back to the primary evidence and simply repeat the same old errors'’. So that’s just part of the story. If you ever get to meet him, don’t say you ‘always wanted to be an archaeologist’. Why? there are many reasons, but not least because he has one ambition left - to run a practical field training school employing the most experienced tutors from the circuit. And the prospective students? Well, in his own words ‘to take the ‘best of the best’ and ‘make them even better’. Archaeology? Sounds like a Boot Camp to me, '‘you bet’', he says and no apologies. |
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