The Best Stone Circle in the World - Ever?

 

Not surprisingly, I'm quite a connoisseur of prehistoric monuments.  I like my henges, and my standing stones, and I'll go out of my way to visit all those long barrows and round barrows and pond barrows and bowl barrows and cairns of infinite variety which populate the landscape.

After visiting quite a few, I'd be reluctant to put my hand on my heart and declare a favourite.  But I came very close on Monday, when we paid a visit to Castlerigg Stone CIrcle on the way back north after our holiday. 

The setting of Castlerigg is spectacular in almost any weather.  But on Monday, the monument looked particularly awesome.  Here it is looking roughly southwards towards the Central Fells.

 

These monuments remain enigmatic.  The old theory that they function as sophisticated astronomical observatories has been called into question, but they undoubtedly could be used as a simple calender (something along the lines of, 'plant your wheat when the sun comes up over the big stone over there'). 

The fact that monuments like this form just one component part in a much larger 'ritual landscape' is generally accepted now -  at certain times of year, monuments to the dead are used as foci in processions that link various points in the landscape.  The latest theories about Stonehenge and its associated monuments have, I think, provided the most sensible, believable and invigorating explanations yet.  I'll blog about them in more detail in another post.  

 

Recent work in the Orkney Islands has suggested that the stones are the physical manifestation of ancestors.  The dead may not be buried here, but they are commemorated in these locations.  I think the shot of Castlerigg which is included below is particularly interesting, however; if you look at the line of the hills in the background, the stones mirror them almost exactly.  This may be co-incidence, or it may reflect dodgy reconstructions in the recent past, so I wouldn't be too keen to proclaim this possibility too loudly! 

 

Castlerigg's location must have been very carefully chosen.  It occupies high ground which overlooks all the major routes which run westwards to the Irish sea, and south into the heart of the Fells.  In a landscape where every feature was endowed with meaning, the view below would probably have been extremely significant - the  forbidding bulk of Helvyllen in the background overlooks a nearby copper source.  A bronze flanged axe recovered in the area was roughly contemporary with the monument, and found close to the site of the old copper mines.

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I was given some exciting information by an expert in Scottish prehistoric pottery today.  The cremations associated with bucket urns have indeed been subject to carbon dating and their origins are, as I suspected, Middle Bronze Age, and perhaps even slightly earlier...  I have to re-write my paper slightly, but this suits me fine, as it fits in better with what I'd suspected all along.

I love it when a plan comes together!!
 

The Best Stone Circle in the World - Ever?

 

Not surprisingly, I'm quite a connoisseur of prehistoric monuments.  I like my henges, and my standing stones, and I'll go out of my way to visit all those long barrows and round barrows and pond barrows and bowl barrows and cairns of infinite variety which populate the landscape.

After visiting quite a few, I'd be reluctant to put my hand on my heart and declare a favourite.  But I came very close on Monday, when we paid a visit to Castlerigg Stone CIrcle on the way back north after our holiday. 

The setting of Castlerigg is spectacular in almost any weather.  But on Monday, the monument looked particularly awesome.  Here it is looking roughly southwards towards the Central Fells.

 

These monuments remain enigmatic.  The old theory that they function as sophisticated astronomical observatories has been called into question, but they undoubtedly could be used as a simple calender (something along the lines of, 'plant your wheat when the sun comes up over the big stone over there'). 

The fact that monuments like this form just one component part in a much larger 'ritual landscape' is generally accepted now -  at certain times of year, monuments to the dead are used as foci in processions that link various points in the landscape.  The latest theories about Stonehenge and its associated monuments have, I think, provided the most sensible, believable and invigorating explanations yet.  I'll blog about them in more detail in another post.  

 

Recent work in the Orkney Islands has suggested that the stones are the physical manifestation of ancestors.  The dead may not be buried here, but they are commemorated in these locations.  I think the shot of Castlerigg which is included below is particularly interesting, however; if you look at the line of the hills in the background, the stones mirror them almost exactly.  This may be co-incidence, or it may reflect dodgy reconstructions in the recent past, so I wouldn't be too keen to proclaim this possibility too loudly! 

 

Castlerigg's location must have been very carefully chosen.  It occupies high ground which overlooks all the major routes which run westwards to the Irish sea, and south into the heart of the Fells.  In a landscape where every feature was endowed with meaning, the view below would probably have been extremely significant - the  forbidding bulk of Helvyllen in the background overlooks a nearby copper source.  A bronze flanged axe recovered in the area was roughly contemporary with the monument, and found close to the site of the old copper mines.

 

On a slightly unrelated note, I was given some exciting information by an expert in Scottish prehistoric pottery today.  The cremations associated with bucket urns have indeed been subject to carbon dating and their origins are, as I suspected, Middle Bronze Age, and perhaps even slightly earlier...  I have to re-write my paper slightly, but this suits me fine, as it fits in better with what I'd suspected all along.

I love it when a plan comes together!!