Conclusions​…Stone circles, are we learning much? lock

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Sanctuary S
Sanctuary Oct 14, 2013 11:27:54

I guess like many on TMA I have been researching stone circles since a very early age but still find myself literally still going around in circles (pun intended).
What is it with them that we just can't get to grips with? Okay, so they are a few thousand years old and erected by people who I doubt were much different to what we are still today, but they appear to have been 'everydayish' then based on the huge number still with us plus the many many more that have been lost through one reason or another. Yet, we still know so little about them. We are slowly learning about the people but not it seems anything solid about what the circles were really used for. Plenty of guesses of course, the usual 'ceremonial' or 'ritual' use, but is that really the best we can do? We seem to know more about the dinosaurs millions of years earlier than we do from far more recent times, so, would anyone like to throw some more sensible new ideas about as to what they think the main purpose of stone circles could have been, either large or small?

I'll get my coat :-)

L Littlestone
Littlestone Oct 14, 2013 12:12:35
Replying to Sanctuary

Maybe we should just recognise that (many at least) were multifunctional – ceremonial as well as purely functional (non-ceremonial) ...

E Evergreen Dazed
Evergreen Dazed Oct 14, 2013 12:14:18
Replying to Sanctuary

It's fun to speculate. Pointless, for so many reasons (as i'm sure you are aware) but it's certainly fun. I would guess most of us here, and the majority of people involved in a professional capacity were drawn in by the mystery of the subject and we should never let ourselves lose that sense of wonder. I enjoy reading both academic texts & some of the more fanciful ideas about these monuments, and I often find that the academic texts, rather than being what some might consider dry, actually fuel that sense of wonder more than the wilder ideas grabbed out of the ether with no real basis. When it comes to this subject, and especially the Neo/BA I feel the truth maybe stranger than fiction.

But it is a great pleasure to be able to simply visit these places, 'feel' them and imagine what they were for and what the people who constructed them were like.

So - Stone circles.

Haven't a bloody clue.

Given the difference in size, shape, materials, location and date they may have meant different things to different people.
If we say a circle in Cumbria was built around 3000BC, can we say a circle built in Perthsire over a thousand years later was used for the same purpose? A lot of generations in between, surely some shifts in belief? (If belief had anything to do with it, of course)
Was the original idea or purpose (if there ever was one) lost or changed or discarded even?
What do we pay attention to? The shape of a stone? The colour? Possible alignments? The soil?

Considering the full sweep of possibilities makes me feel exhausted on a Monday morning. Friday night with 3 glasses of wine inside me is a far better time. :)

J jonmor
jonmor Oct 22, 2013 17:39:00
Replying to Sanctuary

Difficult isn't it?

If we could say with certainty what one (preferably early) set of monuments were for, we might have a much better idea what the rest were for.

Unfortunately, the number one candidate (Stonehenge) is almost certainly a unique monument.

I ironstone
ironstone Oct 25, 2013 14:13:17
Replying to Sanctuary

Ahhh, we could be here for hours....my take on the 'purpose' of stone circles, however trite it may appear, is that they were sort of 'community centres' which encompassed a variety of functions from meeting/trading place to the more favoured 'ritual' use. Right from the outset of my interest I've always been a bit guarded about, not to say very much put off, by the more 'hippy-dippy' explanantions based on astronomical alignments, always preferring the notion of particular settings within the landscape over those linked to the solar system/universe. The plain fact that some of them have these alignments shouldn't define their roles whilst equally the fact that the majority don't must indicate more mundane uses than always for particular ceremonies at special times of the year. I agree that the huge spread of time over which they were constructed must have influenced their usage though of course technology/ideas would have evolved much less rapidly in those days than they do now. Much of my enjoyment of them lies in not knowing what they were for or why they were built; they just 'are' and generally for me their sheer antiquity (and survival) is enough to celebrate.

E Evergreen Dazed
Evergreen Dazed Nov 4, 2013 16:48:57
Replying to Sanctuary

Something we have learned only relatively recently, and which seems hugely important regarding what we know about stone circles, is the geophysical survey at Stanton Drew. If those pits held posts, they were huge, and there were 9 rings of them!
Similarities with Woodhenge & Durrington, but what does it mean? Did the majority of circles start as wooden structures? Have surveys of that type been carried out at any other large circles?

Pits were also found in the centre of the NE circle at Stanton Drew, but seem to have been interpreted as possible further stone pits rather than posts.

W Wiggy
Wiggy Nov 6, 2013 18:51:53
Replying to Sanctuary

I'm guessing we can learn a lot from anthropologists working today with people from other cultures/sacred landscapes etc.

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Nov 9, 2013 21:59:32
Replying to Sanctuary

Any thoughts on why some circles are made up of a random bunch of standing stones of all shapes and sizes, yet others are well matched with regard to both circumference and height? Then you get the not so perfectly round circle compared to the perfect one. Does this mean that the precision of the circumference is of little importance?
Is the diameter of the circle indicative of its 'use', or because many people use it at one time? Down here on Bodmin Moor the large circles are seen as being 'ceremonial', but is there any reason why the smaller ones couldn't have been used for the same purpose whether ceremonial or not?
Why do some have centre stones, others have off-centre stones and 'most' none at all?
Questions, questions....

H head-first
head-first Nov 10, 2013 21:45:51
Replying to Sanctuary

This is a good question, and I can heartily recommend Ronald Hutton's new book by way of an answer. The title is 'Pagan Britain', and it evaluates much recent research in a very accessible way:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pagan-Britain-Ronald-Hutton/dp/0300197713/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384119746&sr=1-1&keywords=hutton+pagan