5000 years ago Western Europe was a very different place, a world of Priest-kings, stone circles, temples, heroes and sea-raiders. A heady mix of archaeology, traditional history and folklore gives us a window into that turbulent period, where we find the origins of the Greek and Gaulish gods, the Wagnerian ring-cycle, Robin Hood and even King Arthur himself. Thirty years of scholarship and hands on experience at a construct of a prehistoric farmstead in Southern England gives the author a unique take on some very ancient traditions
About the Author: Tim Concannon has been involved in the world of archaeology and prehistoric legend for more than thirty years. A scion of a well-known family of Gaelic scholars, his forebears had their own bards, some of whose work appears in the following pages. He learned his first Gaelic from his father and uncle. Over the years he has translated a few of the more obscure pieces of Old Gaelic into modern English for the benefit of the anglophone archaeological world, which has sometimes been an uphill struggle. He has been involved in Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire since 1985 and was a close personal associate of the late Dr Peter Reynolds, the founder. Over that period, he has been directly and practically involved with the investigation of models of early farming, including the buildings, livestock and crops. He has told many of the old tales to audiences sitting, in time-honoured fashion, around the fire of a great round house and led theatrical interpretations of ancient rituals, including burning the wicker man. As an English barrister, he has a wide knowledge of the evolution of the common law in Western Europe and the Near East, including its insular derivatives in Ireland and Wales, the concepts of which frequently underlie the stories. This particular work was first published in 1998, but the opportunity has been taken to completely revise and update it to take into account the advances in archaeological thought in the last fifteen years, not to mention the rapid advance of DNA studies. Having had his own DNA analysed, he finds, unsurprisingly, that his mother was descended from an individual named Helena by the researchers, who lived 22,000 years ago in what is now Southern France. Her direct descendants (including his mother) have been in the Gloucestershire area for 12,500 years, which makes him one of the 47% of Britons whose maternal ancestors predate the arrivals of the various warlords described in the following pages by some 10,000 years! On his father's side, he is part of the High O'Brian sept of the Connachta, whose reputed ancestry goes well into the prehistoric period with such illustrious names as Queen Maeve of Connacht and Tuathal Techtmar, who was said to be the Irish Prince who sought the aid of Julius Agricola, the Roman Governor of Britain, against his enemies.