Stone circle

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Swinside stone circle, in the Lake District, England.

Stone circles are ancient monuments. They are not always circular and often form an ellipse, or a setting of 4 stones laid on an arc of a circle. The number of stones can vary between 4 and 60^[1] purposely erected standing stones, and often contain burial pits or chambers.

1 Earliest dates
2 Distribution
3 Stone circles in the United Kingdom & Ireland
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Earliest dates

Stone circles usually date from the British late Neolithic / early Bronze Age, that is, c. 3000-1500 B.C.^[2] Archaeological evidence, coupled with information from astronomy, geology and mathematics^{[citation needed]}, suggests that the purpose of stone circles was connected with prehistoric peoples' beliefs, and their construction can be used to infer about ancient engineering, social organisation, and religion. Their precise function however, is unknown, and will probably always remain open to debate.

They are different from henges or isolated monoliths, although all these features are often encountered in a single location. Nor should they be confused with earlier rings, such as the Goseck circle in Saxony-Anhalt, that may have served similar religious/calendrical/astronomical purposes, though at a much earlier epoch.

[edit] Distribution

Prehistoric stone circles are found as megalithic monuments in Ireland and the United Kingdom,^[3] with two confirmed examples in Brittany on the island of Er Lannic and two more suggested at Carnac.

The Petit Saint Bernard circle lies further afield, in the French Alps. They are also known as harrespil in the Basque country, where villagers call them mairu-baratz or jentil-baratz that means "pagan garden (cemetery)", referring to mythologic giants of the pre-Christian era.

A unique form of circle, the recumbent stone circle is to be found in North East Scotland, where the largest stone is on its side. These recumbent stones are almost always in the SW quadrant of the circle, and are aligned on the major moonrise. Typically the heights of the circle stones are also graded, with the smallest stone being opposite the recumbent.

Stone circle at the Knocknakilla complex, County Cork, Ireland

In Scandinavia, there was a tradition of making stone circles during the Iron Age and especially in Götaland. The appearance of these circles in northern Poland is considered to be a characteristic of the migrating Goths (see Stone Circle (Iron Age) and Wielbark Culture).

There was a separate period of stone circle building from the eighth to the twelfth century in West Africa. The best known are the Senegambian stone circles, built as funerary monuments, with more than a thousand known. Other stone circles can be found on the Adrar Plateau in Mauritania. Stone circle construction has become popular since the 1970s, built either for purely monumental purposes or to serve a particular mystical purpose. The new stone circles typically lack henges or other auxiliary features and are not on a particular alignment. Notable examples include the Swan Circle at the Glastonbury Festival, while Stonehenge at Maryhill (ultimately built of concrete rather than stone) is an early example, being completed in 1918.

[edit] Stone circles in the United Kingdom & Ireland

The French archaeologist Jean-Pierre Mohan in his book Le Monde des Megalithes described the unusual concentration of stone circles in the British Isles as follows:

British Isles megalithism is outstanding in the abundance of standing stones, and the variety of circular architectural complexes of which they formed a part...strikingly original, they have no equivalent elsewhere in Europe - strongly supporting the argument that the builders were independent.

Often oriented on sight lines for the rising or setting sun or moon at certain times of the year, it seems likely that for their builders the cycle of seasons was very important. The crudeness of the stones means that they could not have been used as advanced astronomical calculators however, and their positioning is more symbolic than functional.

Stone circle at the Carrigagulla complex, County Cork, Ireland

The earliest circles were erected around five thousand years ago during the Neolithic period and may have evolved from earlier burial mounds which often covered timber or stone mortuary houses.

During the Middle Neolithic (c. 3700-2500 BC) stone circles began to appear in coastal and lowland areas towards the north of the United Kingdom. The Langdale axe industry in the Lake District appears to have been an important early centre for circle building, perhaps because of its economic power. Many had closely set stones, perhaps similar to the earth banks of henges, others were made from unfounded boulders rather than standing stones.

Lisseyviggeen stone circle, County Kerry, Ireland. Also known locally as the Seven Sisters

By the later Neolithic, stone circle construction had attained a greater precision and popularity. Rather than being limited to coastal areas, they began to move inland and their builders grew more ambitious, producing examples of up to 400 m diameter in the case of the Outer Circle at Avebury. Most circles however measured around 25 m in diameter however. Designs became more complex with double and triple ring designs appearing along with significant regional variation. These monuments are often classed separately as concentric stone circles.

The final phase of stone circle construction took place in the early to middle Bronze Age (c.2200-1500 BC) and saw the construction of numerous small circles which, it has been suggested, were built by individual family groups rather than the large numbers that monuments like Avebury would have required.

Many fine examples are to be found within Dartmoor National Park, Devon - the site of 18 recorded stone circles (and 75 stone rows) dating mainly from the late Neolithic to mid-Bronze Age. Grey Wethers, a double circle on an isolated plateau, is among the most significant sites.

By 1500 BC stone circle construction had all but ceased. It is thought that changing weather patterns led people away from upland areas and that new religious thinking led to different ways of marking life and death. Stone circles have often been associated with the druids, but they were abandoned long before druidism came to Britain, and there is no evidence that they were ever used by the druids.