Yes / The northern and western isles of Scotland have proved fertile ground for archaeological investigation over the last 100 years. However, the nature of the landscape with its rugged coastlines and irregular topography, together with rapid peat growth rates, make for challenging surveying. Commonly, an archaeological monument or series of monuments is identified but little is known about the surrounding areas and, in particular, the palaeo-landscapes within which the monuments are located. This situation is exemplified by the standing stones of Calanais in Lewis. Here, surrounding peat bogs have buried a significant portion of the landscape around which the stones were first erected. This project identifies remote sensing geophysical techniques that are effective in mapping the buried (lost) landscape and thus aid better contextualisation of the stone monuments within it. Further, the project demonstrates the most appropriate techniques for prospecting across these buried landscapes for as yet unidentified stone features associated with the lives of the people who constructed the monuments. / Scottish Enterprise / Research Development Fund Publication Prize Award winner, December 2019.

This paper summarises 80 years of 'henge' studies. It considers the range of monuments originally considered henges and how more diverse sites became added to the original list. It examines the diversity of monuments considered to be henges, their origins, their associated monument types and their dates. Since the introduction of the term, archaeologists have often been uncomfortable with it. It was introduced in inverted commas and those commas continued to be used for over 30 years. With the introduction of the term 'hengiform' the strictures of definition that characterised the monument class collapsed and an increased variety of circular and oval monuments were included under the henge aegis. It is suggested here that the term 'henge' has outlived its usefulness as we no longer know what we mean by it. Instead we should adopt an objective viewpoint and recognise these earth circles as just one manifestation of the tradition of circularity that pervades the third and second millennia BC.