147November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics GreG Michaelson Department of Archaeology, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen r01gm20@abdn.ac.uk Abstract Popular accounts of prehistory usually reflect prevailing archaeological understanding. However, cartoons about prehistory are based on a small number of well-established tropes, that seem resistant to new evidence and changing interpretations. In an ongoing study, over 850 cartoons about prehistory, published in Punch between 1841 and 2002, are being interrogated. Of these, 96 concern Stonehenge, an internationally renowned monument, whose origins, purposes, and symbolic status are regularly contested. From expert publication, public dissemination, and educational and popular accounts, it might be expected that Stonehenge cartoons would expose Druid, Bronze Age or Neolithic origins, astronomical, mortuary, religious or ritual use, and wider British exceptionalism. However, while timelessness is a pervasive theme, origins and use are jumbled, and explicit nationalism is rare. Rather, the cartoons offer multiple readings, reflecting recurrent concerns and whims. The cartoons suggest a longstanding disjunction between humour about Stonehenge, and expert debates. This offers opportunities for informed, yet entertaining, interventions. Introduction Stonehenge is one of the few monuments that truly deserve the sobriquet ‘iconic’. Internationally recognised as of central significance for the Western European transition from Neolithic to Bronze cultures, Stonehenge has been the subject of vast numbers of scientific and popular accounts, over many decades. Visiting Stonehenge has Stonehenge in Punch Cartoons 1860-1999: A Leaky Pipeline from Experts to the Public 148 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 steadily grown in popularity since it was acquired for the state in 1918, and there have long been far more visitors than its facilities can cope with. However, the monument’s wider status rests on interpretations in popular media like magazine articles, mass market books and television programs. How, then, might public understanding of Stonehenge be assessed? And how might that understanding have changed, as archaeological interpretations have changed? In the absence of longitudinal studies, one approach is to seek proxies, and cartoons are a promising candidate. As Geipel (1972) observes, “cartoons represent a priceless primary source of information about the fleeting modes and mores of the passing generations’’, offering insights into the “’unofficial attitudes and reactions of ordinary folk” (p10). That is, for cartoons to work, they must reflect their audiences’ conceptions. Cartoons are humorous drawings, often augmented with text, whose effects depend on dissonances amongst their elements. They are intended to be glanced at, not pondered over, which requires the rapid recognition of elemental tropes, of which readers must have some prior understanding (Gombrich 1963, Geipel 1972, Hewison 1977). Thus, if such tropes can be identified, their origins worked out, and their changes traced, this may give insights into prior and changing reader understandings. In the later 20th century, several archaeologists observed that cartoons catch the zeitgeist. (Bray 1973, Bray 1981, Daniel 1992a, Gamble 1992, Sillar 1992a&b). Based on very small numbers of cartoons, they suggested that there was a disconnect between archaeology and public understanding, and that cartoons deserved further investigation. This study offers a way to explore this for the case of Stonehenge. From experts to the public 149November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics Figure 1 shows the model of the pipeline from expert interpretation to cartoon readers that underpins this study. From the bottom up, prehistoric people make material culture which is interpreted by experts. An expert is usually an academic or a professional practitioner, whose expertise is peer acknowledged. So, an interpretation is usually within an academic domain, as a scholarly or technical book, paper, report or presentation, typically peer reviewed. Popularisers then make popularisations of interpretations, that is presentations of interpreted material for a wider, lay audience. These are non-technical, principally in textual, broadcast and on-line media, and museum and site displays and exhibitions. A populariser is not necessarily expert, though experts may be popularisers. In particular, an artist is a populariser, and a cartoon is a popularisation, informed principally, though not entirely, by other popularisations. These are separated out here, because the central foci Figure 1. Flow of interpretations from experts to laypeople 150 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 of this study are the contexts for the creation of cartoons, and for lay people seeing them. This apparent one-way flow is patently a simplification. In particular, as Moser (2003) notes, knowledge is a dynamic social construction “created through an interaction between scholarly discourse and popular culture” (p4). Furthermore, an individual may embody multiple actor roles at the same time, for example where an expert produces popularisations. As Moser (2003) further observes, experts were once lay people, and were influenced by popularisations as children, and as students (p4). And a source of information may have multiple functions. Thus, Galanidou (2008) refers to texts that “sit uncomfortably on the fence between archaeology and education” (p182). Nonetheless, this model provides an organising principle. Punch as a source In a wider exploration of cartoon presentations of prehistory, broadly conceived of as covering the Palaeolithic to the Early Medieval periods, over 850 cartoons were collected by exhaustive inspection of over 300 volumes of Punch covering 1841 to 2002. While cartoons about “cavemen” predominate, 96 cartoons depict, or mention, a megalith. These form the cohort for this study. Punch, or the London Charivari, was a British humorous magazine that appeared weekly from 1841 to 1992, and then from 1996 to 2002. It was distinguished by a high cartoon content; indeed, the term ‘cartoon’ originated with Punch. While initially radical, Punch quickly became an influential establishment voice, fondly, if irreverently, promoting British imperialism and colonialism, and reactionary views of gender, ethnicity and class. Spielmann (1895) is a canonical account from 1841 to 1894. Price (1957) extends the history to 1957. Prager (1979) continues to 1979. Punch is a valuable source as its extent covers the emergence 151November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics of modern archaeology from antiquarianism, through the New Archaeology, to the start of Post-Processualism (Trigger 2006). In so far as cartoons about Stonehenge reflect contemporary archaeological thinking, this should show up in Punch. Further, Punch sustained a wide if fluctuating circulation: from 40,000 in 1850 to 200,000 in the early 1950s, declining to 82,000 in 1979 (Orme 1985a, 1985b). Orme (1985b) notes that Punch’s readership far outstripped its sales (p36). Thus, substantial numbers of people will have seen Punch’s Stonehenge cartoons Approach The Stonehenge cartoons were classified using categories derived from the literature, explored below, to identify their components. The semiotic practice (Williamson 1978), of distinguishing denotations and connotations is followed. Loseke (2013) terms these manifest and latent content (p92). Denotations concern what images portray. To locate them, the “narrative structure” of each cartoon is analysed, interrogating how their components interact (Eco 1981). The close analysis in Rossholm (2016), of late Victorian Swedish cartoons about gendered bourgeois behaviour, offers an excellent model. Connotations concern what the cartoons may imply to a contemporary reader, beyond their immediate elements. Gombrich (1963) notes that it is difficult to appreciate old cartoons, because analogies that were once topical are no longer understood; allusions in images depend on how much the artist and audience share “a common stock of knowledge” (p133). Thus successful cartoons depend on how the artist combines “the topical and the permanent, the passing allusion and the lasting characterisation.” (p138). Finally, aspects of gender, ethnicity and class will also determine a cartoon’s different readings (Berger 1972). 152 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 Typology The starting point is that humour about Stonehenge will more or less follow contemporary, that is period, understandings, noting that, for all the twists and turns, there is close agreement between late Victorian and early 21st century interpretations. Flinders Petrie (1880), in Stonehenge. Plans, Description, and Theories, set out four theories about its purpose: “(1) Sepulchral, (2) Memorial, (3) Religious, or (4) Astronomical; or combinations of some or all of these.” (p31). And Travis Elborough (2016), in discussing the 1929 concrete Stonehenge simulacra in Washington State, says that “current thinking variously fingers the landmark as a burial place, a lunar temple, an astronomical clock, a place of healing and, most improbably of all, as a landing pad for UFOs.” (p83). There has been a strong popular association of Stonehenge with the Druids since William Stukely (1760), which was reinvigorated by the early 19th century reinvention of the Order (Piggot 1968). This is augmented by late 20th century New Age beliefs (J. and C. Bord 1974). Both are reinforced by annual mass media coverage of midsummer celebrations at Stonehenge. Similarly, astronomical interpretations were given new impetus in the 1960s, following the work of Gerald Hawkins (Hawkins and White 1965) and Alexander Thom (1967). Indeed, Jacquetta Hawkes’ (1967) much cited “Every age has the Stonehenge it deserves - or desires.” (p174) is from her rebuttal. Finally, Barclay and Brophy (2022) have suggested that British nationalism has been a major component of archaeological narratives about Stonehenge. These, then, are all aspects of archaeological interpretations that might be found in cartoons about Stonehenge, depending on which theory or theories are in the public ascendancy in any period. A key question concerns the relationship between representations 153November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics of the past and experiences of the present. Do things change through time, or do they remain much the same? Is there some notion of teleological progress, from prehistory to contemporary society? Thus, will there be othering, where, for example, earlier people have restricted competences compared with contemporary people, or are competences unchanging? In particular, how are the people in the cartoons, ‘them’, related to the people reading the cartoons, ‘us’. Are ‘we’ invited to laugh at or sympathise with ‘them’, or indeed both? Are ‘they’ depicted as being like ‘us’, or are ‘they’ very different, that is like ‘themselves’ and other than ‘us’? If ‘they’ are like ‘us’, is that because ‘they’ have our sensibilities, despite living in the past, or are ‘they’ actually ‘us’ projected into that past? Or are ‘they’ simply ‘us’? Throughout this period, there are gross imbalances in favour of men in illustration of prehistory, as Moser (1993), Gifford Gonzalez (1993), Solometo and Moss (2013) and Galinadou (2007) all identified. Comparable gender representations in cartoons might be expected. Finally, cartoons may be ‘Whacky’, where the humour depends on improbable juxtapositions. A longstanding prehistoric example is the presence of humans and dinosaurs in the same period. Prehistoric people with future knowledge or understanding, or deploying future technology, also come into this category. This is related to the broader ‘zany’ or ‘crazy’ cartoon humour, where the cartoon follows its own logic but remains grounded in reality (Hewison 1977) (p45). In summary, the typology used here has 9 categories, based on these criteria, and firmed up by a first pass through the cartoons: • Context – is the megalith Relevant or Incidental? • Megalith – is the depicted megalith a Dolmen, a Single stone, Stonehenge or some other arrangement of Stones? • Type – is the cartoon Them Like Us (TLU), Us Like Them (ULT), 154 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 Them Like Them (TLT), Us Like Us (ULU), Nothing Changes (NC) or Whacky? • Time – is the cartoon set in Deep Time, Biblical time, Lithics use time, Druid time or Roman time, or is it Contemporary? • People – does the cartoon depict Children, Male, Female, Druids or Roman people, or a Crowd? • Speaking – which people are speaking, and to who? • Builder – if the cartoon shows the megalith being constructed, is it by Aliens, Ancient Britons, Druids or Lithics using peoples? • Topic – what is the cartoon about? • Use – what use of the megalith is depicted? Note that boundaries between Topic and Use are flexible. The intention is to gain an overall feel for how the sense of cartoons changes. Despite the longstanding deployment of problematic ethnic analogies, which often served to distance prehistoric peoples as primitive, characters in all cartoons appear to be undifferentiated European. Only a small number of cartoons refer to class, and then indirectly. Few cartoons reflect any overt sense of Britishness. Image coding and processing The cartoons were hand coded by identifying visual and textual aspects that reflected the above typology. Each cartoon embodies multiple categories. Key considerations were: when and where the cartoon was set (Context, Megalith, Time); what the characters looked like (People), what they were doing (Construction, Use, Topic), and how they interacted (Speaking, Topic); and the relationship between cartoon characters and audience (Type). Coding was organised using NVivo 12 Pro under Windows 10 Home, to generate .xlsx reports, associating images and code. NVivo does not adequately support time sequence analysis, so, to generate code occurrences by year and period, the reports were processed as 155November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics .csv files by a C program, running under Ubuntu on Windows 10 Home, written by the author. Excel was then used to structure the .csv file this program generated, to produce Figures 2 and 10. Cartoon characterisation Figure 2 shows the distribution of occurrences of the 96 cartoons found between 1860 and 1999. The apparent increase may be because Punch steadily grew in size. It would be disingenuous to discuss cartoons spanning 140 years as if they were a single cohort. Readers who saw earlier cartoons will not have seen any markedly later ones. Later artists may well have seen the work of their predecessors, but later readers are unlikely to have seen markedly earlier cartoons. With these in mind, cartoons are placed in their historical contexts of publication, drawing on contemporary popular accounts of cartoon subjects. Given relatively low numbers of cartoons across the timespan, for conciseness, cartoon characteristics are presented in periods of twenty years. It is fortuitous that the boundaries align well with major events like the two World Wars, and with changes in interpretations of Stonehenge, as well as wider archaeology. It is worth considering Figure 2. Occurrences of Stonehenge cartoon by year 156 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 overall trends where there are substantive differences between occurrences of characteristics, so some whole cohort characteristics are also presented. To illustrate coding, one cartoon from each period is discussed, exemplifying the interplay of different categories. Cartoons are cited as [artist year.volume.page] and [artist year.volume.month.day.page] after 1983, reflecting changes in Punch indexing practice. It is salutary to note that analysing cartoons loses what little humour they may hold for a casual reader. Figure 3 [Moyr Smith 1878.74.70] from 1878 is the first in a panel of 12 vignettes depicting The History of British Courtship: From the Earliest Period To The Present Time. Each shows a couple in stereotypical period dress, in one of the supposed stages of courtship, culminating in a Victorian marriage. Stonehenge is incidental to the Ancient Briton context, which combines the types Them Like Us and Nothing Changes. Topics are Figure 3. 1. Early British. Admiration. J. Moyr Smith, Punch, 1874, Volume 74, p.70. 157November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics gender as well as courtship, driven by the myth of how a man woos a woman. The tattooed man, with a severed head tastefully covering his genitals, is very like John White’s 1585 depiction of a Pictish Man (Moser 1998 Plate 7). In contrast, the woman is wearing what could be a contemporary fabric skirt, with a large bow at the back. While Stonehenge is a minor element, it connotes Britishness, which in turn is signified by the titles for the individual vignette and overall panel. Figure 4 [Reed 1894.107.34] from 1894 shows one of Edward Tennyson Reed’s Prehistoric Peeps (Reed 1896), long acknowledged as a pioneering series about prehistory (Horrall 2017). Here, Stonehenge is relevant, with a trilithon forming a gargantuan stumps and bail for Figure 4. Prehistoric Peeps. A Cricket Match. “How’s That, Umpire!” E. T. Reed, Punch, 1894, Volume 107, p.34. 158 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 the cricket match. This, like most of Reed’s Peeps, is Us Like Them, with contemporary people conducting contemporary activities projected back into the past. The cartoon is also Whacky, with the improbable cricket match disrupted by a genial plesiosaur. Here the use is leisure. The people are Reed’s classic cavemen, that is Europeans wearing furs and wielding stone and wooden tools. The cartoon may reference international cricket tours of 1893 and 1894. It includes caricatures of well known cricketers, for example W. G. Grace. As in many Peeps, women are absent. The combination of Stonehenge and cricket connote Britishness. Figure 5 [Morrow 1919.156.481B] from 1919 is one of a Nothing Changes sequence of Scenes From Our Great Film: “Audacity Down The Ages”. Stonehenge, here a curve of trilithons, is incidental to this Roman Figure 5. Roman Commercial Traveller Trying To Sell Safety Razors To The Druids. G. Mor- row, Punch, 1919, Volume 156, p.481. Under licence from Topham Partners LLP. 159November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics Figure 6. He. “That’s prehistoric, that is.” She. “Looks even older than that to me.” K. Beau- champ, Punch, 1932, Volume 183, p. 447. Under licence from Topham Partners LLP. 160 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 Figure 7. “Temple my foot! It’s some kind of native game.” G. Morrow, Punch, 1946, Volume 210, p. 466. Under licence from Topham Partners LLP. Figure 8. “Quick! Dismantle it! Romans are coming!” W. Miller, Punch, 1965, Volume 249, p. 387. Under licence from Topham Partners LLP. 161November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics time jest. The cartoon, populated by Them Like Us Druids and a Roman man, is further Whacky, as the safety razor was not invented until the 18th century, and one druid has his beard in a trolley. Nonetheless, travelling pedlars will have been commonplace for contemporary readers, as well as in a Roman context. Figure 6 [Beauchamp 1932.183.447] from 1932 is a contemporary cartoon. Here Stonehenge is relevant to the barbed conversation that puns the ages of the monument and the woman posing on the sarsen, driven by stereotyped female rivalry. This Us Like Us cartoon is about social class as well as gender, visually mocking the parvenu visitors. Figure 7 [Morrow 1946.210.466] from 1946 is a complex cartoon. At first glance, a relevant Stonehenge is portrayed in Roman time. Here, Them Like Us soldiers discuss the monument’s use for leisure, through a Whacky reference to cricket: five stones form stumps and bails, recapitulating Reed’s cartoon in Figure 1. The pedlar selling souvenirs recapitulates Morrow’s earlier cartoon in Figure 5. However, this cartoon also inverts a much older tradition of showing naïve or ignorant British tourists visiting Roman remains. Furthermore, the cartoon appeared a year after the end of World War Two, when British occupation troops in Italy may have wondered at Roman monuments, just as Roman occupation troops may have wondered at British monuments 2000 years earlier. Perhaps this irony of the conquerors conquered also connotes something about shared humanity across time and nation. The cartoon in Figure 8 [Miller 1965.249.387] from 1965 is also complex. Stonehenge is relevant to this Roman period jest, showing its Whacky use for Them Like Us leisure: the people, who might well be Druids, are clearly enjoying themselves, just as contemporary folk might. The steam train, a 19th century stereotype, is referencing contemporary international interest in monorails as a potential form of urban transport, with a widely publicised system installed in Seattle for 162 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 the 1962 Century 21 Exposition (Seattle Centre Monorail 2022). However, the alarm at the approaching Romans may also connote Cold War fears of regional blocs acquiring each other’s technologies, as, for example the USA removed advanced equipment, along with experts, from a shattered Germany after World War Two (Gimbel 1990). Note that the cartoon predates the later 1960s New Age theories that the ancients had advanced technologies now lost to us. Finally, the stripped back Them Like Us cartoon in Figure 9 [Hobart 1984.287.8.22.15], from 1984, shows lithic time, male megalith builders. While a relevant Stonehenge is not directly depicted, it is denoted by the sarsen on the rollers. The puzzlement about what constitutes a henge connotes a wider lack of knowledge of why the monument was constructed, reflected in several other cartoons about contemporary visits. Cohort analysis Trends between 1860 and 1999, in twenty year groups, are considered next. Figure 10 shows summary graphs of occurrences of cartoons by individual categories. It is not feasible here to present occurrences of combined categories. These are alluded to when significant. Topics and uses with less than three occurrences have been amalgamated as Other. All the cartoons depict megaliths. In 18, the megalith is incidental, establishing the context for the rest of the cartoon. 86 cartoons show Stonehenge itself, and it is relevant in most of these. Overall, most cartoons are set in a contemporary period (45), with the proportion increasing towards the present. 16 cartoons are set in Lithic time and 14 in Druid time. Most of these appeared between 1960 and 1999. 163November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics The cartoon type is particularly interesting. Only 10 cartoons depict othering of past peoples (TLT), with six appearing between 1960 and 1999. In contrast, 41 cartoons set in the past depict people behaving as contemporary folk might (TLU), whereas only two cartoons show contemporary people projected into the past (ULT). As a plurality of cartoons are contemporary (45), it is not surprising that 37 show contemporary people being themselves (ULU). Six cartoons are about the timelessness of human experience (NC). Overall, the cartoons are about contemporary concerns, explored in both the past and present. Only 25 cartoons are Whacky, with most occurrences between 1960 and 1999. This may reflect Punch editorial policy. In contrast, The New Yorker, which started publishing in 1925 and was aimed at a comparable readership, had predominantly ‘crazy’ cartoons (Price 1957) (p237). Men (79) appear far more frequently than women (31), with the exception of the period from 1920 to 1939 when occurrences approach Figure 9. “What exactly is a ‘henge’, anyway?” N. Hobart (Nick), Punch, 1984, Volume 287, 22nd August, p. 15. Under licence from Topham Partners LLP. 164 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 parity. Given the overall disparity, it is not surprising that men speak most frequently to other men (34). When women and men appear together, men speak more frequently to women (12) than women to men (9), and women speak rarely to other women (2). There is a little variation in the balance of speaking across the timeline. The poor representation of women, and their relative passivity, corresponds to the disparities in wider illustrations of prehistory noted above. Druids (19) appear more often than lithics using people (16), with most such cartoons appearing between 1960 and 1999. Similarly, Druids (8) are shown slightly more often in the building of Stonehenge than lithics using people (7), again with most appearing between 1960 and 1999. Druids are typically shown designing or using Stonehenge, and lithics folk hefting stones, giving a class connotation. It is notable how long the association with prehistoric, as opposed to modern, Druids persisted, despite their progressive repudiation in mainstream archaeology (Piggott 1968). The lithic time construction of Stonehenge commonly depicts sarsens being moved on rollers, and manipulated from ramps into foundation pits using levers and ropes. This is strongly in accord with illustrations of the construction of Stonehenge in educational literature, from at least 1920 onwards, for example (Quinnell and Quinnell 1922, Airne 1932, Davies and Steel 1937). Perhaps 1960 to 1999 artists had seen such books when younger. The most frequently occurring topics are the circumstances of megalith construction (8), gender (6), impact on the environment (4), ownership (4) and purpose (4), often by visitors, with doubt, or unlikely theories, being raised. The most frequently occurring use is for visiting (20), with peaks in 1920 to 1939 and 1960 to 1979, which both saw increasing post-war mobility and leisure time. There are only 11 occurrences of religious use, mostly after 1920, and four of astronomical use, all after 1940, which is striking given their central roles in archaeological discourses about Stonehenge. In contrast, there are 11 occurrences of leisure 165November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics F ig ur e 10 . O cc ur re nc es o f c od es b y 20 y ea r p er io d. 166 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 use and five of military use, the latter corresponding to late Victorian manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain, and the Second World War. There are few cartoons about modern Druids after 1879, and none showing later 20th century New Age use, despite the growing controversies over the Stonehenge Festival, which began in 1974 (Fowler 1990). This may again reflect Punch editorial policy: Bender (1998) includes a number of newspaper cartoons concerning contested access and state suppression of travellers. Similarly, while there was a later 20th century fad for ancient extraterrestrial interventions in prehistory (Von Daniken 1968), aliens only appear once. Conclusion Analysis of Stonehenge cartoons has failed to identify any persistent underlying archaeological tropes, beyond its prehistoric construction and association with Druids, and maleness. Overall, the cartoons suggest a genuine lack of understanding of Stonehenge, at least by the cartoonists, and, by implication, their audiences. Perhaps Stonehenge serves to represent an undifferentiated prehistory. The findings confirm the intuitions of the archaeologists mentioned above, that cartoons demonstrate a disconnect between interpretations and public understanding, at least for these cartoons. Several also expressed pessimism about realigning cartoon representations with interpretations. Bray (1981) distinguished “archaeology as perceived by archaeologists, and archaeology as perceived by the man in the street.” (p221). He claimed that “there are no new jokes” and “certain long term trends stand out”, suggesting a ”progressive trivialisation of archaeology”(p222) represented by a mythic ‘Archaeologyland’ (p224). Sillar (1992b) also thought that cartoons have not changed with the archaeology. Particularly pertinent, Daniel (1992b) observed that “it is clear that Stonehenge and megalithic architecture are now so much a part of the general public’s awareness of the prehistoric past that any joke will pass” (p63). 167November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics However, as Moshenska (2017) comments: “ The reality of popular culture archaeology is more complicated than Bray [(1981)] suggests” (p152). As the above analysis indicates, the cartoons do not only project current concerns into the past, as Bray (1981) and Sillar (1992b) presume. Cartoons offer multiple if interconnected readings. Cartoons may serve as an intervention as well as a record. Clark (2009) observes that cartoons both ‘’respond to, and can shape, public understandings of science in important ways’’ (p573). Sillar’s suggestion (1992b) that archaeologists should deploy cartoons to “make people reconsider their ideas about the past” (p208) deserves further exploration. There have been fruitful collaborations between archaeologists and cartoonists. Thus, Bill Tidy lampooned a wide range of archaeological concerns, but as text illustrations, for example (Bahn 1996, Bahn and Tidy 1999), or for informed audiences, for example in British Archaeology (Pitts 2023). There is a current impetus for archaeologists and artists to work together in making comics to promote archaeological ideas more widely (Kamash et al 2022). Perhaps new collaborations might produce pithy Stonehenge cartoons aimed at generalist audiences. The study in McDowall (2023), which is contrasted with that in Wood and Cotton (1999), suggests that public understanding of prehistory is evolving beyond cavemen and dinosaurs. However, establishing new tropes requires considerable public traction. The problem with Stonehenge is precisely its iconic status, which occludes its situated and cultural contexts. Further, Reed’s longstanding tropes underpin ongoing humorous representations of prehistory as impoverished. Comprehensive major exhibitions like Symbols Of Power At The Time Of Stonehenge (Clarke et al 1985) and The World Of Stonehenge (Garrow and Wilkin 2022) are vital for presenting contemporary interpretations, but these are very infrequent and of restricted reach. In the meantime, annual live reporting of the midsummer sunrise further reproduces Stonehenge’s mysterious centrality. 168 Archaeological Review from Cambridge / Vol 38.2 Punch humour was originally predicated on puns, and Stonehenge offers considerable scope for concocting new ones. How might browsers, rather than archaeologists, come to recognise the archer who gets lost at Avebury, the cursus seekers at the circus, or the guitarist in search of blues tones? Cartoons are a specialised form of popularisation, and on their own can have little impact. They should be deployed as part of a multi- faceted popularisation of the wider Neolithic/Bronze Age context for Stonehenge, emphasising the richness and diversity of everyday culture, alongside ongoing evaluation of public understanding. Acknowledgements Cartoons [Morrow 1919.156.481B, Beauchamp 1932.183.447, Morrow 1946.210.466, Miller 1965.249.387, Hobart 1984.287.8.22.15] are subject to copyright, and shown under licence from Topham Partners LLP (https:// www.Topham Partners LLP.co.uk/). I’m pleased to thank: • my supervisors Jeff Oliver and Elisabeth Niklasson, for stimulating discussion about the approach in this paper; • the anonymous referees, and the editors, as well as my supervisors, for sage suggestions for improving the paper; • the staff of the University of Aberdeen Library, University of Edinburgh Library and the National Library of Scotland, for access to bound volumes of Punch, and the University of California and the University of Michigan, for online access via the Hathi Trust and the Internet Archive. 167November 2023 / Archaeology and the Publics References Airne, C. W. 1932. The Story Of Prehistoric and Roman Britain Told In Pictures. Manchester: Sankey, Hudson & Co. Bahn. P. 1996. Archaeology. 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