A marvelous survey of the chalk hill figures of Britain, from the Neolithic to the Victorian. Many side trips into local folklore as well, from the Obby Oss to Lady Godiva's ride. Absolutely fascinating and well written. My only complaint is the lack of photographs, especially color and aerial. ( )

The chalk downs of southern England form a relatively poor soil – a few feet of turf over chalk bedrock. A cutting or trench in the turf exposes the brilliant white chalk beneath, and if the cutting happens to be on a hillside – where the turf would be thinner anyway – the mark can be seen for some distance. It’s thus fairly easy to make large figures, visible for a considerable distance, by cutting turf on a hillside. I’ve seen one myself – to my embarrassment I can’t remember which one – but it was a white horse somewhere around Stonehenge.


It’s not clear how many chalk figures exist; the cuttings have to be periodically “scoured” to keep them clear of overgrowth and some have disappeared. As author Paul Newman discusses in Lost Gods of Albion, the origin and meaning of the chalk figures is often mysterious. It’s popular to attribute great age to them, but dating is difficult. Although some of the figures are in ancient landscapes – amidst barrows, hill forts, stone circles, trackways and miscellaneous other prehistoric features – that is no guarantee of great age by itself, and datable artifacts associated with the cuttings are very rare (and, of course, only prove that the figure existed at a particular date, not that it was cut then). The only one reasonably well dated – the White Horse of Uffington – appears to be late Bronze Age:


http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/hillfigs/uff/uffair.jpg


but others are demonstrably more recent:


http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/5AFD822B-9AC0-4B8F-8E80-838BD6492FEA/0/BulfordKiw...


The archaeology of the chalk figures is complicated by the need to scour. “Scouring” is usually a local tradition, done periodically – every seven years seems common – and accompanied by markets, games, festivities, and general larking about. However, the act of scouring changes the figure every time it’s done; for example, the Uffington White Horse has “walked” uphill over the centuries (it’s impressive that “scouring the horse” has been going on for at least 3000 years). Sometimes more dramatic changes get made; historic drawings of the Cerne Abbas Giant show a navel, but it became incorporated into another body part during one of the scourings:


http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/images/cerne1.jpg


Newman takes a light-hearted approach, focusing on the mythology and folklore of the figures rather than archaeology; and there’s plenty of that. The figures have been attributed to Phoenicians, Celts, Druids, Romans, Saxons, monks, Uther Pendragon, St. George, King Arthur, Alfred the Great, disaffected villagers satirizing some local squire or another, and - of course - space aliens. (Why space aliens would need to navigate using chalk figures is unclear, but most of the figures were covered during WWII to keep the Luftwaffe from doing it, so who knows?) Ley line enthusiasts and crop circle fans enthusiastically fit them into their mythologies. Amateur archaeologists have busied themselves doing bar soundings and digging test pits and, naturally, dowsing; sometimes have discerned elaborate multi-figure hillside murals that somehow don’t show up under more professional techniques like ground-penetrating radar or resistivity surveys. Newman treats all with good-natured respect, if not with credulity, and is an engaging and amusing writer.
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An excellent discussion of the most famous chalk hill figures of Britain, including the Cerne Giant and the Uffington Horse. Newman treats the various theories regarding the figures' history and origin evenhandedly and in excessible yet scholarly language. My only complaint is the lack of interior photographs of the figures; there are a lot of sketches, but a few good, full-color arial photographs would have been an excellent addition to the text. ( )