A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The best known examples include those at the henge monument at Avebury, the Rollright Stones, and elements within the ring of standing stones at Stonehenge. Scattered examples exist from other parts of Europe. Later, during the Iron Age, stone circles were built in southern Scandinavia.
Meayll Hill is a small hill in the exclave of Rushen parish at the southern end of the Isle of Man, just outside the village of Cregneash. It is the site of a chambered cairn called Meayll Circle or Mull Circle. Near the summit of the hill also lie the remains of a World War II Chain Home Low RDF station.
The Senegambian stone circles or the Wassu stone circles are groups of megalithic stone circles that lie in The Gambia north of Janjanbureh and in central Senegal. Spread across a region 30,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi), they are sometimes divided into the Wassu (Gambian) and Sine-Saloum (Senegalese) circles, but this is purely a national division. Containing over 1000 stone circles and tumuli spread across an area 350 km (220 mi) long and 100 km (62 mi) wide, the Senegambian stone circles are the largest concentration of stone circles seen anywhere in the world and an extensive sacred landscape that was used for more than 1500 years. As a result, the sites were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006.
Kilmartin Glen is an area in Argyll north of Knapdale. It has the most important concentration of Neolithic and Bronze Age remains in mainland Scotland. The glen is located between Oban and Lochgilphead, surrounding the village of Kilmartin. In the village, Kilmartin Museum explains the stories of this ancient landscape and the people who dwelt there. There are more than 800 ancient monuments within a six-mile (ten-kilometre) radius of the village, with 150 monuments being prehistoric. Monuments include standing stones, a henge monument, numerous cists, and a "linear cemetery" comprising five burial cairns. Several of these, as well as many natural rocks, are decorated with cup and ring marks.
Achavanich is an unusual megalithic horseshoe-shaped structure near Loch Stemster in Caithness, Scotland. Meaning "field of the stones", 36 of the original 54 remain today, mostly on the western side of the structure. The arrangement of these stones is extremely rare as the slabs are pointing towards the centre of the circle, rather than the typical side-by-side arrangement. The angle of the stones themselves is also strange. In most British stone circles, stones face the center with flat sides, but Achavanich's stones face the row at 90 degree angles. The stone circle remains open like a letter U, and evidence suggests it never was closed. The largest of the 36 remaining stones stands at only 2 meters, with an overall average of 1.5 meters tall. Although the site stood for several decades neglected and overgrown within a fenced off area which visitors were requested not to enter, access has recently been vastly improved with the clearance of the site, the repositioning of fence boundaries and the installation of information boards.
Aldudes is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwestern France.
Breasclete is a village and community on the west side of the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Breasclete is within the parish of Uig, and is situated adjacent to the A858.
Temple Wood is an ancient site located in Kilmartin Glen, near Kintyre, Argyll, Scotland. The site includes two circles. The southern circle contains a ring of 13 standing stones about 12 metres in diameter. In the past it may have had 22 stones. In the centre is a burial cist surrounded by a circle of stones about 3 metres in diameter. Other later burials are associated with the circle. According to the Historic Scotland information marker at the site, the southern circle's first incarnation may have been constructed around 3000 BC.
Boscawen-Ûn is a Bronze Age stone circle close to St Buryan in Cornwall, UK. It consists of nineteen upright stones in an ellipse with another, leaning, middle stone just south of the centre. There is a west-facing gap in the circle, which may have formed an entrance. The elliptical circle has diameters 24.9 and 21.9 metres. It is located at grid reference SW412274.
Boskednan stone circle is a partially restored prehistoric stone circle near Boskednan, around 4 miles northwest of the town of Penzance in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The megalithic monument is traditionally known as the Nine Maidens or Nine Stones of Boskednan, although the original structure may have contained as many as 22 upright stones around its 69-metre perimeter.
The greater Basque Country comprises the Autonomous Communities of the Basque Country and Navarre in Spain and the Northern Basque Country in France. The Prehistory of the region begins with the arrival of the first hominin settlers during the Paleolithic and lasts until the conquest and colonisation of Hispania by the Romans after the Second Punic War, who introduced comprehensive administration, writing and regular recordings.
Brahmagiri is an archaeological site located in the Chitradurga district of the state of Karnataka, India. Legend has it that this is the site where sage Gautama Maharishi and his wife Ahalya lived. He was one among seven noted Hindu saints. This site was first explored by Benjamin L. Rice in 1891, who discovered rock edicts of Emperor Ashoka here. These rock edicts indicated that the locality was termed as Isila and denoted the southernmost extent of the Mauryan empire. The Brahmagiri site is a granite outcrop elevated about 180 m. above the surrounding plains and measures around 500 m east-west and 100 m north-south. It is well known for the large number of megalithic monuments that have been found here. The earliest settlement found here has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BC.
Dartmoor kistvaens are burial tombs or cists from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, i.e. from c. 2500 BC to c. 1500 BC. Kistvaens have been found in many places, including Dartmoor, a 954 km2 area of moorland in south Devon, England. The box-like stone tombs were created when the ancient people of the area lived in hut circles. Cists are often to be found in the centre of a cairn circle although some appear solitary which could be the result of the loss of an original slight mound. There are over 180 known cists on Dartmoor although there could be up to 100 that remain buried underneath unexplored cairns. In the South West there are no cists to be found on the Quantock Hills, only 2 to be found on Exmoor and 58 to be found on Bodmin Moor. The Dartmoor cists are unique in that about 94% have the longer axis of the tomb orientated in a NW/SE direction It appears that Dartmoor cists were positioned in such a way that the deceased were facing the Sun.
In the area of present-day Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, up to 5,000 megalith tombs were erected as burial sites by people of the Neolithic Funnelbeaker (TRB) culture. More than 1,000 of them are preserved today and protected by law. Though varying in style and age, megalith structures are common in Western Europe, with those in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern belonging to the youngest and easternmost—further east, in the modern West Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland, monuments erected by the TRB people did not include lithic structures, while they do in the south (Brandenburg), west and north (Denmark).
Machrie Moor Stone Circles is the collective name for six stone circles visible on Machrie Moor near the settlement of Machrie on the Isle of Arran, Scotland.
The Cat Stane, or Catstane, is an inscribed standing stone near Kirkliston, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, in Scotland. It bears a fragmentary inscription dating to the fifth or sixth centuries and was part of a funerary complex consisting of the stone itself, a cairn and a series of cist burials.
Hirebenakal or Hirébeṇakal or Hirébeṇakallu is a megalithic site in the state of Karnataka, India. It is among the few megalithic sites in India that can be dated to the 800 BCE to 200 BCE period. The site is located in the Koppal district, some 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of the town of Gangavati and some 35 kilometres (22 mi) from Hospet city. It contains roughly 400 megalithic funerary monuments, that have been dated to the transition period between Neolithic period and the Iron Age. Known locally as eḷu guḍḍagaḷu, their specific name is moryar guḍḍa. Hirebenakal is reported to be the largest necropolis among the 2000 odd megalithic sites found in South India, most of them in the state of Karnataka. Since 1955, it has been under the management of the Dharwad circle of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). On May 19, 2021, it was proposed that Hirebenakal be made a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A ring cairn is a circular or slightly oval, ring-shaped, low embankment, several metres wide and from 8 to 20 metres in diameter. It is made of stone and earth and was originally empty in the centre. In several cases the middle of the ring was later used. The low profile of these cairns is not always possible to make out without conducting excavations.
Auchagallon Stone Circle or Auchengallon cairn is the remains of a Neolithic or Bronze Age burial cairn, surrounded by a circle of fifteen stones. It is located near Machrie on the Isle of Arran in Scotland.
Knockmaree Dolmen, or Knockmaree Cist, is a prehistoric site of the Neolithic period, in Phoenix Park just north of Chapelizod, near Dublin, Ireland. Other forms of the name are Knockmary or Knockmaroon Dolmen, or Cnoc-Maraidhe.
