From The Herald Scotland
“A PAIR of “ancient” standing stones situated near a police headquarters were actually erected to mark the first major victory of the Battle of Bannockburn, new evidence suggests.
Radiocarbon dating has revealed the two stones near the entrance to Police Scotland Central Division’s Randolphfield HQ, in Stirling, were erected around the time of the battle in 1314.
It is now thought they mark the spot where Sir Thomas Randolph – Earl of Moray and a commander in Robert the Bruce’s army – routed around 300 English cavalry on the first day of the battle.
It was previously believed that the stones were positioned more than 3,000 years ago in alignment with an ancient burial ground nearby, and possibly used as landmarks in the battle.”
More here...
heraldscotland.com/news/14994252.___Ancient____standing_stones_are_linked_to_1314_battle/?ref=twtrec
Unbelievable what counts as "news" in the Herald these days. This news is hundreds of years old. Even contributors on TMA were reporting this and historical links to this "news" story fifteen years ago. Sorry... 16 years ago. It is now 2017.
Reminds me of a story Robin Williamson once told me in the 1990's. The Museum of Scotland in Chambers Street was being extended. During the digging of the foundations on some old waste site on Bristo Port the builders came on some old stonework. They contacted the archaeological contractors for the build. A careful excavation found evidence of old domestic occupation. Robin explained that he and some other String Band members lived in a flat there in 1965.
Well it's news because it's new scientific evidence not speculation. Perhaps science isn't your thing eh.
So they found battle-aged stuff under the stones. But the people who put them there could have been appropriated prehistoric stones from conveniently nearby, couldn't they? You don't want to go dragging stones in from far away unnecessarily. Perhaps if there was the feeling that large stones mark battlefields, it would be believed that the two stones were already doing so from some past skirmish, so they'd be especially ideal.
I do wonder why there's two of them, you don't need two to mark the Spot of Victory do you, it's just confusing.
They had been described as "The two standing stones in the front gardens of the Police Station at Randolphfield are remarkable survivors of a 6000 year old lunar temple," and "The stones at Randolphfield are likely to be the remains of an ancient stone row, some 50m long. At the northern end of the row, there was a Bronze Age burial ground, discovered in the 1850s . The row is orientated towards a lunar event known as a great standstill which occurs every 17 years." The error in the period between standstills is not the funniest bit .