>> However, ask yourself if there is any evidence that Neolithic stones and circles were used for
>> religious purposes at the time of the introduction of Christianity? Is there even any evidence
>> that they were still being used for ritual in the Iron Age?

Well, in Ireland there is the faithful bullaun stone. Thought by most to be from the Iron Age or possibly the LBA, but I know of many that are definitely Neolithic. I know of several that are built into tombs. There are many of them still used in Christian ceremony today, mainly at holy wells, but also in churches/churchyards.

Thanks Peter (sitting here wid me hat on and a scarf round me neck :-)

>We might have three lists - one of definite co-existance like Rudston and Knowlton, another of close association - Avebury and Stanton Drew and then the third where a church has been built using the fabric of an earlier secular building such as Bradwell-juxta-mare in Essex.<

That's an excellent idea, though I'm not sure how we'd set it up. Just seeing 'definite', 'close' and 'reused' sites on a map would be extremely interesting though.

>...ask yourself if there is any evidence that Neolithic stones and circles were used for religious purposes at the time of the introduction of Christianity?<

I don't know if there is any evidence for that but presumably people at the time of the introduction of Christianity <i>were</i> religious. What that religion was (or more probably, what those religions were) is a fascinating question though. As you say, trees, stones and springs <i>were</i> still being venerated at the time so why not circles? (those that were not corrals that is ;-) Or if circles weren't used for obvious religious purposes then perhaps they were used for half-forgotten ceremonies. Half-forgotten ceremonies of a religious nature are still with us today, and surely they would have been much more prevalent some thirteen-fourteen hundred years ago.

We've spoken before about the myth of the Anglo-Saxons 'displacing' the indigenous peoples of these islands and I think now agree that that never really happened - it was much more of an assimilation. It's interesting to ponder, however, how that assimilation might have worked at Avebury. Was there still a 'British' settlement at Avebury when the first Saxons strode up the road? and if there was, what happened? If the 'British' there weren't wiped out they must have co-existed with the newcomers (who at the time were presumably still worshiping the Germanic gods). Was a simple arrangement come to whereby, for example, the Saxons lived on one side of the Winterbourne and the British on the other (with the circle itself being respected by both peoples?).

Not much to go on I know; the words Waden Hill, and the Winterbourne are from Old English, while Kennet, the Sil of Silbury (as well as the Pan of Pan Bridge) appear to be pre-Anglo-Saxon. Was there a period of a couple of hundred years at Avebury where you had two communities living peacefully side-by-side but belonging to different religious traditions? When Christianity did arrive in Avebury the Anglo-Saxon church was built where the Norman church now stands - well away from the circle. That has always puzzled me. Why on earth would people want to build a church and a village <i>outside</> the circle when the building material they needed was right there for them <i>in</> the circle? Where they afraid to build there? Had the community continued religious/festive activities there? Was there a purely practical or political reason for not building there. I don't know - but they're questions worth asking and kinda brings me back to the point of this thread "Everything here is interconnected" :-)