From a Google Image Search – People.com

In the Pillars of Earth, Ken Follett got us involved in the building of a Gothic cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. Many readers already knew the architectural features of classic Gothic cathedrals right down (or up) to the flying buttresses. It was one of Ken Follett’s finest novels. Obviously, cathedrals were not a primitive undertaking. Societies and population had to reach a certain point before such a building might be needed or even imagined.

In Follett’s newest book, Circle of Days, he weighs in on the speculations of how a place like Stonehenge could have been built before the age of machines. His words draw for us a possible moment in time when tribes of people occupied a fictional Great Plain. He gives us the flint miners, the herders, the farmers, and the Woodlanders. The herders have more time to think about eternal questions like the human spirit and practical matters like seasons, the heavens, and math (counting) all of which affect the herds of cattle they protect. Herders’ duties were not constant burdens as were the survival struggles of the other groups.

Often the fortunes of a tribal group depended on the temperament of the leaders. Follett’s farmers have a cruel authoritarian leader, who does not respect the boundaries of the other tribes and who exercises absolute authority over everyone (especially women).

Herders happen to have a council of leaders who make decisions after discussion by majority agreement. It’s not voting but it’s similar, although only involving a small group of elders. 

Woodlanders are more primitive than other tribes. They love their woods which provide them with all their simple needs. They stay hidden and speak a language of their own. 

The herders have built a circle of tall tree trunks joined by a wooden lintels and arranged in pairs. They have priestesses who know how to count, something others have trouble mastering beyond what they can see on their fingers and toes. The priestesses know how long a year is. They memorize songs which keep their knowledge in a form that can be passed on to new priestesses. They know about equinoxes and solstices, although not necessarily by those words. Four times a year they perform the songs, and they count. The tribes gather and travelers come to trade. The flint miners play a large part in these markets.

But because these are humans, the tribes do not always live in harmony. When there is a years-long drought, those who are cruelest seem to have better survival skills because these leaders have no boundaries and will steal land or cattle or woodlands, exercising a sort of early imperialism. When the farmers (the men only) decide to divert the midsummer market, which is the biggest market, from the monument of the herders with the circle of trees, they burn down the circle to rob the herders of the ceremonies that bring travelers to the village near the circle. 

Because of the moral character of some of the herders (mostly the women) the priestesses refuse to be beaten. Joie, daughter of the wisest woman Ani, has seen a field of giant stones out on the Great Plain. She wants to build the monument circle out of these giant stones so they cannot be destroyed.

Follett tells the story of how he thinks they did it. Are humans with extraordinary talents, born at the right moment, responsible for the progress of human societies? Follett seems to suggest that is true. This project is not as complex as building a cathedral but, considering that the population of the area was much smaller and the social structures so much simpler, we have all wondered and speculated about why Stonehenge would have been imagined and how it could have been built. 

Reading about the state of humans on and around the Great Plain is made interesting by giving the people in the story names, personalities, families, sexual structures that helped prevent inbreeding, and by creating a crisis that brings out the best and the worst in his characters. Even more interesting is Follett’s theory of how this magical circle was built which stays close to our current educated guesses about how such primitive people could produce such a sophisticated monument involving a detailed knowledge of astronomy, in particular the movements of the sun and moon. I found the novel enjoyable. Perhaps you will too.