A stone circle is a monument of standing stones arranged in a circle. Such monuments have been constructed across the world throughout history for many different reasons.
The best known tradition of stone circle construction occurred across the British Isles and Brittany in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with over 1000 examples still surviving to this day, including famous examples like Avebury, the Rollright Stones and Stonehenge. Another prehistoric stone circle tradition occurred in southern Scandinavia during the Iron Age, where they were built to be mortuary monuments to the dead.
Outside of Europe, stone circles have also been erected, such as the Bronze Age examples from Hong Kong.
The size and number of the stones varies from example to example, and the circle shape can be an ellipse.
Read more about Stone Circle: Dates and Archaeology of European Megalithic Stone Circles, Distribution, Post-Megalithic and Other, Further Reading
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Famous quotes containing the words circle and/or stone:
“Everything here below beneath the sun is subject to continual change; and perhaps there is nothing which can be called more inconstant than opinion, which turns round in an everlasting circle like the wheel of fortune. He who reaps praise today is overwhelmed with biting censure tomorrow; today we trample under foot the man who tomorrow will be raised far above us.”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)
“Here, the churches seemed to shrink away into eroding corners. They seem to have ceased to be essential parts of American life. They no longer give life. It is the huge buildings of commerce and trade which now align the people to attention. These in their massive manner of steel and stone say, Come unto me all ye who labour, and we will give you work.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)