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
Other articles related to "stone circle, stone, stone circles, stones, circle":
... Joanne Parker (editor), Written On Stone The Cultural Reception of British Prehistoric Monuments (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009) ... "Henges and stone circles, ritual and archaeoastronomy archaeological research in Ireland and Great Britain." 1981 ...
... Sheldon Stone Circle is a prehistoric stone circle, located at grid reference NJ822249, to the south-east of Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, Scotland ...
... Achavanich Beckhampton Avenue Bennachie Birkrigg stone circle Boscawen-Un Boskednan stone circle The Bridestones Callanish Castlerigg stone circle Doll Tor Drizzlecombe ...
... lands, they find themselves on a cold, windy, snow-covered cliff top with a ring of standing stones ... Levin gets a message that a body (in very bad condition) has been found in the stone circle ... She is helped up, and then Jack supports her out of the woods and back to the circle ...
... Another stone circle was discovered at Fan Lau, on Lantau Island in 1980 ... This stone circle is a Declared monument in Hong Kong ... The use of the stone circle is unknown, it was possibly used for rituals ...
Famous quotes containing the words circle and/or stone:
“Perchance we may,
Where now this night is day,
And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet;”
—Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (1823–1896)
“I passed a tomb among green shades
Where seven anemones with down-dropped heads
Wept tears of dew upon the stone beneath.”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)