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Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli.
The Ring of Brodgar is a Neolithic henge and stone circle about 6 miles north-east of Stromness on Mainland, the largest island in Orkney, Scotland. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.
Woodhenge is a Neolithic Class II henge and timber circle monument within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in Wiltshire, England. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Stonehenge, in Durrington parish, just north of the town of Amesbury.
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches would have served defensive purposes poorly, henges are not considered to have been defensive constructions. The three henge types are as follows, with the figure in brackets being the approximate diameter of the central flat area:
- Henge. The word henge refers to a particular type of earthwork of the Neolithic period, typically consisting of a roughly circular or oval-shaped bank with an internal ditch surrounding a central flat area of more than 20 m (66 ft) in diameter. There is typically little if any evidence of occupation in a henge, although they may contain ritual structures such as stone circles, timber circles and coves. Henge monument is sometimes used as a synonym for henge. Henges sometimes, but by no means always, featured stone or timber circles, and circle henge is sometimes used to describe these structures. The three largest stone circles in Britain are each within a henge. Examples of henges without significant internal monuments are the three henges of Thornborough Henges. Although having given its name to the word henge, Stonehenge is atypical in that the ditch is outside the main earthwork bank.
- Hengiform monument. Like an ordinary henge, except the central flat area is between 5 and 20 m (16–66 ft) in diameter, they comprise a modest earthwork with a fairly wide outer bank. The terms mini-henge or Dorchester henge are sometimes used as synonyms for hengiform monument. An example is the Neolithic site at Wormy Hillock Henge.
- Henge enclosure. A Neolithic ring earthwork with the ditch inside the bank, with the central flat area having abundant evidence of occupation and usually being more than 300 m (980 ft) in diameter. Some true henges are as large as this, but lack evidence of domestic occupation. Super-henge or superhenge is sometimes used as a synonym for a henge enclosure. However, sometimes the term is used to indicate size alone rather than use, e.g. "Marden henge ... is the least understood of the four British 'superhenges' ".
Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.
Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England. It lies 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, just north of Amesbury in Wiltshire. The henge is the second-largest Late Neolithic palisaded enclosure known in the United Kingdom, after Hindwell in Wales.
The Thornborough Henges are an ancient monument complex that includes the three aligned henges that give the site its name. They are located on a raised plateau above the River Ure near the village of Thornborough in North Yorkshire, England. The site includes many large ancient structures including a cursus, henges, burial grounds and settlements.
The Aubrey holes are a ring of 56 chalk pits at Stonehenge, named after seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey. They date to the earliest phases of Stonehenge in the late fourth and early third millennium BC. Despite decades of argument and analysis, their purpose is still unknown, although an astronomical role has often been suggested.
Ochil and South Perthshire is a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first-past-the-post system of election.
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.
Balfarg is a prehistoric monument complex in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. It is protected as a scheduled monument. With the development of Glenrothes new town in the latter half of the 20th Century an adjacent residential area was developed around the complex carrying the same name.
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray are "twa bonnie lassies", the subject of one of the Child Ballads, based on a true story. The two young women sought refuge from the plague in 1645 in a remote spot away from habitation. The story has been much embellished in a poem and ballad that were written many years later.
Strathallan is the strath of the Allan Water in Scotland. The strath stretches north and north-east from Stirling through Bridge of Allan, Dunblane and Blackford to Auchterarder in Perth and Kinross.
Finlarig Castle is an early 17th-century castle standing on a mound on a peninsula between the River Lochay and Loch Tay, just over 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) north of Killin in Stirling, Scotland.
Mayburgh Henge is a large prehistoric monument in the county of Cumbria in northern England. The henge is in the care of English Heritage and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is 400 metres from King Arthur's Round Table Henge.
Ballymeanoch is a complex of neolithic structures located in Kilmartin Glen, Scotland.
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.
Doll Tor is a stone circle located just to the west of Stanton Moor, near the village of Birchover, Derbyshire in the English East Midlands. Doll Tor is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circles' builders.
The Stonehenge Riverside Project was a major Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded archaeological research study of the development of the Stonehenge landscape in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. In particular, the project examined the relationship between the Stones and surrounding monuments and features, including the River Avon, Durrington Walls, the Cursus, the Avenue, Woodhenge, burial mounds, and nearby standing stones. The project involved a substantial amount of fieldwork and ran from 2003 to 2009. It found that Stonehenge was built 500 years earlier than previously thought. The monument is believed to have been built to unify the peoples of Britain. It also found a previously unknown stone circle, Bluestonehenge.
Nine Stones Close, also known as the Grey Ladies, is a stone circle on Harthill Moor in Derbyshire in the English East Midlands. It is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of the monument is unknown.
References
- ↑ Gordon J Barclay "Sites of the third millennium bc to the first millennium ad at North Mains, Strathallan, Perthshire", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland vol 113 (1983), 122-281. "Online version". AHDS. Retrieved 5 May 2011.
- ↑ "Item SC 342842". RCAHMS. 1977. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
- ↑ "Interview: Kathleen Jamie, author of Sightlines".
- ↑ "The Woman in the Field, Sightlines, Book of the Week - BBC Radio 4".
56°19′38″N3°44′12″W / 56.32722°N 3.73667°W
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