The visible relics of prehistoric Britain and Ireland pose questions which can only be tentatively answered, since they are at least 2,000 years old and some are as much as 5,000 years old. Perhaps the most enigmatic are the stone circles, more than 900 of which have been identified in Britain, mostly in the upland areas. Many of these circles have been damaged with only a few random stones now remaining, but a few major sites have survived centuries of indifference, to become centres of controversy in the late twentieth century.
Archaeological investigation has shown that stone circles were being built for 1,800 years, between 3000 and 1200 BC, but except for a few sites where items have been found buried, there is nothing for archaeologists to study other than the layout of the stones and their location. This approach was followed by Professor Alexander Thom, who over several decades surveyed hundreds of stone circles in an attempt to decipher their meaning. He found that not all the circles were in fact circular. Many were laid out as egg shapes, ellipses, or flattened circles, all seeming to show incredible geometrical precision long before the age of Pythagoras. He also identified a standard unit of measurement, 2.722 feet, which he called the megalithic yard. It seemed to Professor Thom that the purpose of all this was to enable the scientists of the time to precisely observe the movements of the sun and moon, and especially to be able to predict lunar eclipses. How they could have achieved this without scientific instruments such as are used today is an involved study, and anyone wishing to explore this further is advised to obtain Thom’s three books, Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967), Megalithic Lunar Observatories (1971) and Megalithic Remains in Britain and Brittany (1978), though a good understanding of geometry will be required by the reader. Stated simply, the method thought to have been employed was to align individual stones in a circle with markers in the surrounding landscape, either artificially erected standing stones, or prominent natural features such as hills and mountains. Professor 'Thorn was often able to identify the markers which he believed had been used in this way. Other types of sites, such as burial chambers and lines of standing stones, were also thought to have been used for astronomical purposes.
When read in detail. Professor Thom’s evidence for the precise construction and use of stone circles and other sites may seem conclusive. But recently some doubts have been raised, regarding the precision of the circles’ construction, and the precision of the observations for which they could have been used. One researcher has shown that a detailed knowledge of geometry was not needed to lay out the stones: it could have been done using pegs and ropes. Also, the megalithic yard does not appear to have been commonly used throughout Britain, but principally in Scotland. Archaeologists also have some doubts about the feasibility of using sites in the way Professor 'Thom has suggested: Are the long-distance sight lines realistic, or do they only serve to support Thom’s theories? All unbiased researchers in whatever field should realise the dangers of holding a specific theory too rigidly - the evidence they note will tend to support their theory because the researchers unconsciously seek out the positive evidence and ignore the rest. Whether these doubts are appropriate in the case of Professor 'I'hom’s research and theories is difficult for the layman to decide, and no doubt the controversy over the amount of astronomical use to which stone circles and other sites were put will continue. However, it would appear that many circles did have some function of this kind, though perhaps of a less precise nature than originally envisaged. Instead of an elite group of scientist-astronomers, able to exert control over the common people by their supposedly magical ability to predict eclipses and other dramatic heavenly events, a more reasonable scenario is now suggested, showing the circles in use as meeting places where ceremonies and rituals were performed, at specific times as plotted by simple astronomical observations.
Lacking any written records from these distant times (though see Chapter 6, which describes what may be written records, if only they could be deciphered), there is little to suggest what kinds of ceremonials were performed. We have only hints of our ancestors’ way of life, from artefacts discovered in burial chambers, from folklore possibly handed down over several thousand years, and from the activities of similar peoples in other parts of the world, for example the American Indians, some of whom still perform ancient dances and rituals.
It seems very likely that in Britain our ancestors behaved in a similar way. Their preoccupations would certainly have been the same - the promotion of fertility in the earth and its creatures, the promotion of favourable weather, and the worship of those elements (or ‘gods’) which seemed to control their lives. Perhaps some of the traditional customs described in Chapter 18 provide a direct link with rituals performed by prehistoric man in stone circles 4,000 years ago.
Callanish standing stones (Letois! Western Isles) at midsummer sunrise, one of the significant events of the year watched for by prehistoric man at his astronomical observatories.
•Although many stone circles were small, some were more elaborate and included enigmatic features. P'or example, among the ‘Places to Visit’ at the end of this chapter is Boscawen-Un (Cornwall), a circle with a large standing stone at its centre. 'Phis stone is now leaning, and may have been erected at this angle. What was its significance? Long Meg and Her Daughters (Cumbria) is another site where a standing stone (Long Meg) accompanies a circle (Her Daughters), though in this instance the stone stands outside the circle. Castlerigg circle (Cumbria) contains a rectangle formed of ten stones, while Callanish (Lewis/Western Isles) has a circle to which lead several rows of standing stones, forming a rough cross with the circle at its centre. The Hurlers (Cornwall) consists of three circles of differing sizes standing in a line, while Stanton Drew (Avon) also has three circles, one of them being much larger than the others, almost 400 feet across and the second largest
Circle in Britain. The so-called ‘recumbent stone circles’ of north-east Scotland, about eighty of them, each have a large stone lying on its side at the southern edge of the circle. These features, and others not mentioned here, may possibly have had an astronomical significance, but it is extremely difficult to be certain, and it is only through detailed research by archaeologists and others that anything at all is known about these sites.
The amount of time and effort which can be expended on a site, both by its builders and by archaeologists researching into it, is best illustrated by Stonehenge, which is certainly the most famous prehistoric site in Britain, and possibly in the world, attracting millions of visitors annually. Despite all the attention that has been paid to Stonehenge, by archaeologists and others with relevant specialist knowledge, its mysteries are still only partially revealed to us, for it is a most complex site which has undergone several phases of construction. It is an example of a henge, differing from the stone circles we have described earlier in being a circular enclosure formed by banks and ditches, inside which may be one or more circles of stones (as at Avebury, Stonehenge, and Arbor Low), or a circle of wooden posts, long since decayed, or shafts containing bones and tools, or large wooden buildings, or nothing at all. There are more than seventy henges known in Britain, and they were built during 1,000 years from the late Neolithic into the Early Bronze Age, roughly in the middle of the period when stone circles were being built. They are thought to have been places where the people gathered together, for domestic events like fairs, or for religious ceremonies, or perhaps for both. Certainly a tremendous amount of effort was expended in constructing these henges, so they were clearly of great importance. Deep ditches were dug, and in the case of Stonehenge, massive stones were somehow transported great distances, eighty of them, the ‘bluestones’, being brought by sea from the Prescelly Mountains in west Wales. They weighed around 4 tons each, but seem small beside the impressive sarsen stones which average 26 tons in weight. These were brought from north Wiltshire, not such a great distance as the bluestones but nevertheless quite a feat of transportation. Whether all this was done in order to construct an observatory, capable of many complex astronomical calculations, as some of today’s computer-addicted scientists would like to think, is still open to conjecture. It may have been simply to build an impressive structure where important rituals could be performed, its role as an observatory being less important and less precise than was once thought.
Modern man will never know the rituals which prehistoric men used and can never fully comprehend their thoughts about the world around them. The gap is too wide, the time between us and them too great and there are too few clues to help us. But we do know that for a period of nearly 2,000 years the men of old built and used stone circles, approximately the same timespan as Christianity has been a religion; and the remains of these ceremonial centres, even eroded by time as we see them today, are a mute witness to the deeply held beliefs of our prehistoric ancestors.
World History
