On Sunday night, the National Geographic Channel broadcast the programme Stonehenge Decoded which I blogged about a few weeks back. It was a two-hour programme, and I said if I didn’t like it, I’d switch over halfway, and watch NCIS.But, after only ten minutes, I decided that Agent Gibbs & co. could wait till NCIS re-runs. It really did give some new ideas on the stones, not just rehashed old ones.

Professor Mike Parker Pearson … who’d make a pretty good TV presenter, if he ever got tired of professing … produced a lucid and plausible, not too fanciful theory. To put it as concisely as I can, he thought Stonehenge was dedicated to the dead, and its near neighbour, Woodhenge to the living. The dividing line between the two domains was the Cursus, a shallow ditch running in a straight line nearby. Nobody really knows its original purpose, but the Professor’s idea is the best one I’ve heard so far.

Even if you don’t subscribe to the theories, I think you’d agree they were well presented. There was some excellent photography, and actors re-enacting how it was thought the stones were brought over 30 miles from the Marlborough Downs, and how they’re thought to have built Stonehenge and worshipped the sun there and at Woodhenge. He also used his recent finds to reinforce his points.

The narration was by actor Donald Sutherland, who gave it just the right mix of gravitas without sounding too schoolmasterly about it.

Of course, I’m not saying the theories are correct; no one can say that. But, they’re the best ones I’ve heard for quite a while.