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Wiggy wrote: Probably stuff yr all familiar with here, really, but very entertaining none the less.
A gentle gallop through 32,000 years of spiritual belief (and the evidence to support it's existence) in the British Isles, starting with "The Red Lady of Paviland" (now thought to be the oldest ceremonial burial known to us anywhere in The World) and finishing with a few thoughts on how the variety within our Pagan tradition is very uncommon elsewhere, and how this offers modern British society some unique advantages when compared to other parts of Europe (have to say I disagree as Greek pagan history, for example, is far less homogenous than Hutton has us believe).
Hutton is suggesting that the old division of time by the available technologies ("stone age" etc) is outdated, and that we would be better to date by the kind of ceremonial practices that appeared to be current("The age of Chambers", "The age of Circles", "Water-Hordes" etc), which might also be a bit simplistic as Hutton himself makes the point that things were not the same everywhere, but it's still an interesting alternative.
The Prof painted a really vivid picture of life in these Islands over the years, and I learned a few things too, eg:
"Stonehenge was jerry built, and might not have even been finished", and that Irish and Welsh literature relating to "the Dark Ages" and further back is looking more and more unreliable by the day (for instance the number of Irish heroes depicted as riding chariots when not a single piece of evidence for chariots has ever been found there - it's more likely that the monks writing this stuff down were familiar with ancient Greek writing/heroes, hence the chariots).
Anyway, all in all it was a good evening, so worth seeing him "live" if you haven't before.
Thank you very much Wiggy, I am really sorry I had to miss the lecture but had to travel in the other direction to Oxford yesterday so getting to Bristol and back in the evening would have been a journey too far (I don't have a car). It sounds like a very interesting talk indeed; personally I am fascinated but noncommital about 'old religions' as they are a jigsaw with many pieces missing. All you can do is look at bits and pieces of folklore, legend, and ancient customs taking what is helpful to yourself from them.
I recently read a library book by Marian Green called 'A Witch Alone' - she dedicated it to Ronald Hutton with great deal of appreciation, so that spoke for itself; it was an enjoyable read containing lots of 'old' knowledge.
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