Lack of stone circles north of Inverness? | Forum

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thesweetcheat Sep 22, 2011 19:05:46

Replying to thelonious

thelonious wrote:

I was looking at the Modern Antiquarian database on Google Earth just now and it stuck me how few stone circles there are on the mainland, north of Inverness. Looks like about 3 in the whole of north mainland Scotland. This seems so few when you think about the number in north east scotland and the great circles in the outer hebrides and Orkney. any reasons for this do you think?

Quite a lot of chambered tombs on the Black Isle and around there, not sure if there are Clava-type ones though.

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tjj Sep 22, 2011 19:18:32

Replying to thelonious

thelonious wrote:

I was looking at the Modern Antiquarian database on Google Earth just now and it stuck me how few stone circles there are on the mainland, north of Inverness. Looks like about 3 in the whole of north mainland Scotland. This seems so few when you think about the number in north east scotland and the great circles in the outer hebrides and Orkney. any reasons for this do you think?

This is interesting; I've been dipping into a copy of Rude Stone Monuments by James Fergusson (first published 1872). I can't find the exact passage right now but he makes the observation that the significant stone circles of Scotland seem to be on the islands e.g. Orkey, Lewis, Arran - down to the Isle of Man where they join up with the Cumbrian stone circles. We can only speculate but I wonder if the builders of these stone circles were sea-going traders who took their culture south (or vice versa).

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GLADMAN Sep 22, 2011 19:41:00

Replying to thelonious

Yeah, there's not a lot.... the Islands have them. Aside from Guidebest and the small Aberscross off the top of my head.... cairn country.

S

strathspey Sep 23, 2011 19:29:01

Replying to thelonious

thelonious wrote:

I was looking at the Modern Antiquarian database on Google Earth just now and it stuck me how few stone circles there are on the mainland, north of Inverness. Looks like about 3 in the whole of north mainland Scotland. This seems so few when you think about the number in north east scotland and the great circles in the outer hebrides and Orkney. any reasons for this do you think?

Probably because there are many more to add, but relatively few TMA'ers who live North of Inverness - definitely a case of quality over quantity though!

North of the Great Glen fault, land use is distinctly different to the rest of Scotland. Agriculture and civilisation is mainly restricted to the relatively narrow coastal plain (now and in the past I presume) and as Summerlands has pointed out, there are many good examples of stone circles within these small areas.

M

Megalithics Sep 23, 2011 20:50:13

Replying to thelonious

If you think that area of Scotland is bad check out the entire SE of England, that's at least twice the area. There's a good stone circle distribution map in the first pages of the intro of Burl's "The Stone Circles", (a required text for stoneys, so you'll all have copy).

We've always wondered what the distribution of existing circles is telling us. We guess the SE probably had hods of circles, but intensive population for long periods removed them. NW Scotland however, cannot claim that particular blight and we may be seeing an area of virtually zero population when the circles were being built.

Short of the much lusted after time machine, we'd love a map showing all of the circles that were ever built in the UK. Mind you, that map might make painful viewing for folk with our interests......

Maggie & Keith

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onecalledk Sep 30, 2011 18:29:14

Replying to thelonious

hi there,

I would disagree that there is a lack of stone circles north of Inverness, as someone who lives in Caithness there is an abundance of stone circles in this area. There are not on general maps though and local knowledge does need to kick in, thankfully my partner is a local so can point me in the direction of many things that are not on any maps generally.

As usual Orkney is well signposted something that locals in Caithness are forever complaining about, there are vast amounts of information that are hidden in plain view in caithness and the surrounding area.

K

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