The Archaeology of Stone Circles

Foreword

Further education is one aspect of life that has been disrupted by the pandemic.

Over the last decade, I have attended night classes at Queens University Belfast to learn about an array of interesting subjects.  These range from creative writing, jazz and classical music, philosophy, languages, art, the origins of our place names and surnames, and Russian culture.  

The course menu offered by the university’s School of Open Learning includes many other enticing topics, including wine appreciation, which I have still to sample.

In March a 10-week series of lectures about the archaeology of Ulster was abruptly ended after 8 classes because of Covid-19.

This was a fact-filled course articulated with such infectious enthusiasm by an expert practitioner that the weekly classes regularly exceeded their 2-hour time limit. The prospectus covered 9-10,000 years of human settlement in Ireland beginning with the Mesolithic era.  Despite its inevitability, the sudden cancellation made the loss of the final two classes disappointing. 

Fortunately I had submitted my course assignment early.  An edited copy follows below.  

As I wrote about stone circles, my subconscious was aware of the dire events imagined by author Robert Harris in “The Second Sleep.” The setting is a post-apocalyptic future that might happen as a result of circumstances that include climate change, a pandemic with no vaccine, nuclear fall-out - with scientism and archaeology deemed heretical. 

In a novel way, the award-winning author was endorsing what we all know, namely that archaeology matters.

STONE CIRCLES

A highlight of life as a university student of town and country planning in Belfast’s dark days of the early 1970’s was a field trip to sunny Greece.  Most of our time was spent visiting classical sites.  

In retrospect, I have to acknowledge the creative brilliance of our lecturers to remove us - aspirant professionals of the built environment - from the ugliness of 1960’s and ‘70’s architecture by stimulating our imagination with the genius of the ancients.

On the approach to Delphi, I asked my English classmate what to expect since he’d visited before.  His cryptic reply - “it’s just a pile of old stones” - was the perfect brief to underwhelm ahead of a life-enhancing experience.  

For the first time in adulthood, I had a sense of awe about a place and about the importance of archaeology.  I could feel why and how the ancient Greeks deemed it as the home of the Oracle, the centre of civilisation or omphalos, this heap of stones.

Practicing in rural planning back in Tyrone, archaeological sites were an occasional topic of interest.  Informatives would attach to planning consents on land adjacent to monuments, putting the onus on the applicant to liaise with the Department’s experts on ancient sites. 

In retrospect, we should have done more to protect archaeological heritage, a thought reinforced by the example of our course’s revelation about the significant middle Bronze Age site of Corrstown in Portrush, excavated in 2002.[i]  

The idea of modern development superimposed over the wider remains of a 3000 year old site is impossible to reconcile with civilised respect for pre-history.

Stone Circles in Munster and Ulster

Apparently there are 900 stone circles in Britain and Ireland.  They were constructed by our Neolithic and Bronze Age predecessors.  

What makes them interesting to unqualified observers like me is that stone circles are among the most prominent, distinctive and mysterious monuments in the archaeological landscape.

Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain is a world-famous stone circle, achieving additional notoriety following an alleged poisonous visit by two alleged Russians to the alleged Skripal home. 

Stone rows and monoliths exist in Carnac, Brittany with 7 parallel lines extending to over one kilometre.  

And Orkney is home to a UNESCO world heritage site which includes the Ring of Brodgar.[ii] This is where Billy Connolly trod a thin line between comic (or cosmic) mockery and spiritual homage with a naked dance around the stone circle.  That was a year or two after my fully clothed visit en famille in 2008. 

Figure 1 The Ring of Brodgar, Orkney August 2009

In Ireland the predecessor skills of megalithic tomb-builders (circa 4000BC) changed in the Bronze Age (circa 2500-800 BC) to constructing monuments like stone circles, stone rows and standing stones.[iii]  

Seán O’Nualláin admits that archaeologists are unsure about their purpose.  

Because, however, “many were found to be associated with burial it has been concluded that they were ritual or ceremonial monuments associated with a cult of the dead.” 

Individual stones, he says, were set apart rather than contiguous to form free-standing circles and rows (or alignments) or set singly as monoliths; and the size/shape of stones along with their number had some special significance – about which, as an academic without evidence, he doesn’t speculate.

According to O’Sullivan and Downey,[iv] Ireland’s notable concentrations of circles are located in south-Munster and mid-Ulster.  Their research reveals that over 100 circles are known in Ulster, that almost 150 are reported in the Sperrins.   

They conclude with the tantalising remark that “the total number is seemingly much higher.”

The Munster series occupy large areas of County Cork and part of south-west Kerry. Principal characteristics are stone circles, stone rows and boulder-burials. The circles vary in area from 8 to 55 feet in diameter and in size from 5 to 17 stones.  The stones are arranged symmetrically with the entrance towards the north-east.   

O’Nualláin says that over 100 such circles are known, half of which are the 5-stone variety; and that a fifth of the larger circles contain a monolith.

He adds that over 170 stone rows are known in Cork and Kerry.  Individual stones vary from 3 to 13 feet in height and are mostly graded with the tallest stone at one end; with rows aligned along a north-east/south-west axis.  

O’Nualláin concludes that this “indicates an alignment of the monuments with the heavens in which the sun rises and sets...both series tend to cluster indicating a winter rather than a summer position for the sun.”  

It may also be, in his estimation, that many of the 600 south-Munster monoliths display a similar plan orientation, in which case this would link them with the region’s stone circles and rows.

The mid-Ulster circles and rows differ from the south-Munster examples.  

O’Nualláin explains that Ulster’s are set in clusters which may also include cairns, cists and monoliths.  

Most Ulster rows, like the accompanying circles, are composed of numerous small stones set close together and seldom exceed 3 feet in height. The rows are mostly set tangentially to the circles and can run to about 100 feet long.  The circles are irregular in outline and rarely exceed 49 feet diameter.

Beaghmore in Co Tyrone is Ulster’s stand-out site. The up-to-date and official designation[v] using metric measurement puts it thus:-

“There is a large impressive series of Bronze Age ceremonial monuments excavated from the surrounding bog between 1945 and 1949 and in 1965.  The main features are six stone circles occurring in pairs, with twelve cairns which held cremation burials and 8 stone alignments running in parallel in a NE-SW direction.  The average height of the stones in these circles is 0.3-0.6 metres.  A further single stone circle, the “Dragon’s Teeth,” is filled with closely-set stones and contains the tallest stone on site at 1.2m.  Running under these features are low banks of small stones, probably derived from clearing fields for arable farming in Neolithic times.  The stone features continue to the north under the bog and there are many other Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in this area.  Finds were sparse from the excavations but two flint hoards were found, one dated by radiocarbon to the late Neolithic and the other to the early Bronze Age.  Study of pollen from a nearby former lake suggests Neolithic activity from 3500 BC, with the main period of the stone monuments in the Bronze Age, 1500-800 BC...”

Figure 2 Beaghmore Stone Circles, County Tyrone (Source DfC)

The monuments on this 5 acre ground were built above an Early Neolithic site.  

O’Nualláin says that one cist contained a polished stone axe head and that two cremated burials were found in a cairn.  

Largely in accord with the official description, he dates the Neolithic activity on Beaghmore as beginning in the fourth millennium BC, adding that the main period of the rows, circles, cairns and cists was the late second and early first millennia BC. 

Given the value of this type of archaeological heritage both to our sense of civic pride and, not least to our economy as a pandemic impacts,  the take of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board[vi] is noteworthy.   

Without citing sources, the body responsible for attracting visitors surmises that “at some stage peat started to form over the (Beaghmore Circles), and it may be that the cairns and rows were erected in a futile propitiatory attempt to restore fertility to the soil by attracting back the fading sun.”

The message is loud and clear.  County Tyrone people have been engaged almost in tandem with the ancient Greeks honing their skills to make Ulster a better place since time immemorial,[vii]  and doing so at Beaghmore for about 5,720 years.

Translating Ulster place names from Irish Gaelic to English can provide further clues about archaeological characteristics and features.  

The anglicised name Beaghmore derives from an old Irish noun An Bheitheach Mhór. This translates into English as the large place of birch. [viii]   In modern Irish, an bheith still means the birch.   

As a native tree (one of seven common species listed[ix]), the clearing of fields may have included removal of a large forest of birch originally to facilitate arable Neolithic farming and the later building of these Bronze Age stone monuments.

On which point, Halpin and Newman[x] say that “palynological analysis has demonstrated tree clearance starting from around 3800 BC...and some of the field boundaries pre-date the circles.   

Consequently, it is suspected that the circles themselves date from between 1500 and 800 BC.  It is possible that the alignments are directed towards the midsummer sunrise...”

Among other intriguing details, Halpin and Newman say that pits inside Circle C contained round-bottomed carinated bowls referred to as Lyles Hill ware; that a cist inside Circle E (Dragon’s Teeth, north end of site) contained part of the trunk of an oak tree; Circle E is filled with over 880 smaller stones arranged in concentric circles and that a cairn inside the circle contained two burials; and that a hearth near the cairn was dated to 2900-2500 BC.

Figure 3 Beaghmore Stone Circles layout (Source; Halpin & Newman)

Future research

There is so much more to learn about our stone circles.  From the foregoing analysis, the following suggestions arise.

·         O’Sullivan and Downey’s assertion that there may be many more stone circles here than are currently known merits further examination.  Geographical connections between stone circles, as well as their purpose, warrant more detailed study. 

·         Additional research, for example, might illuminate O’Nualláin’s suggestion that “despite their differing characteristics and considerable distance apart, the occurrence of circles, rows, cairns, monoliths and small burial chambers in both the Ulster and Munster groups suggests the presence of an underlying unity of tradition.”

·         Similarly, arising from Halpin and Newman’s reference to the uncovering of nine multi-ringed circles (like Beaghmore’s Dragon’s Teeth circle) at Copney Hill 7 miles east of Beaghmore, the question of both alignments being directed to the midsummer sunrise could usefully be elucidated; and

·         Arising from the course’s information about early evidence of written Irish and Ogham (4^th century AD) on standing stones, any potential connection between the Aghascreba[xi] stone and the nearby Beaghmore circles could be revelatory.

Resources for research

All technologies old and new have their uses.

Antony Burl’s comprehensive guide, for example, examines 390 circles across Great Britain, Brittany and Ireland.[xii]  

He includes advice on techniques and equipment needed to inspect and record these monuments.   

Apart from mundane kit like probes, compass, flexi-tape and camera and the application of simple maths and equations, he combines calculations of specific gravity and density relative to water to calculate the number of labourers required to shift a monolith. Good point.  

Almost as an incidental, he reckons that all stones in a circle are local, seldom coming from more than a mile or two away.

The benefits of modern techniques have been illustrated with the recent discovery of new monuments in the vicinity of Brú na Bóinne, Co Meath.  It includes the Neolithic site of Newgrange.   

The Boyne to Brodgar project,[xiii] funded by the German Government, examines connections between Neolithic monuments in the Boyne Valley and the Orkney Islands. 

Figure 4 Newgrange County Meath

University College Dublin’s head of archaeology, Dr Steve Davis, reports that 40 new structures have been discovered “using 21^st century archaeological technologies including satellite-based remote sensing, drones, airborne laser scanning and geophysics.”  

In March this year (just before the pandemic lockdown), news from a UCD sonar study describes further finds[xiv] including an alignment of stones as part of a weir in the River Boyne itself.

The case for funding a Boyne to Brodgar type of project in Ulster is compelling not least because of the quality of our archive of scheduled monuments, “the best in Europe.”  

Just think what could be discovered with the application of new technologies to ancient sites like Beaghmore. 

The oracle has spoken.

  

©Michael McSorley 2020

Postscript:-

This Covid-19 series now comprises of 6 articles to date:-  

Part 1 (24 March 2020) A Test for Elected Leaders[xv] 

Part 2 (11 April 2020) Coping with Contagion, a Survival Strategy.[xvi]

Part 3 (30 April 2020) The New Vocabulary[xvii]

Part 4 (21 May 2020) Following the Science[xviii]

Part 5 (11 June 2020) Beautiful books[xix]

Part 6 (26 June 2020) Stone Circles

---

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[i] V Ginn and S Rathbone (eds) “Corrstown: A Coastal Community. Excavations of a Bronze Age Village in Northern Ireland.

[ii] https://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/Scotland/Orkney-Islands/blog-208661.html

[iii] Seán O’Nualláin “Stone Circles, stone rows, boulder-burials and standing stones” Irish Archaeology Illustrated ed. Michael Ryan

[iv] M O’Sullivan and L Downey Archaeology Ireland Vol 25 No 1 Spring 2011 “Know your Monuments: Stone Circles”

[v]Department for Communities Historic Environment Division “Historic Monuments of Northern Ireland, Scheduled Historic Monuments” May 2019.

 The DfC report also contains a Related Documents section with details, plans & photographs. Monitoring was carried out at the site prior to the installation of a disabled access kissing gate, in the NW corner of the car park. Nothing of archaeological interest, it adds, was noted.

The DfC report references Beaghmore’s monuments into five under  these four headings (Monument type, Grid reference, Council District, Sm number): Cairn H6872 8470 Mid Ulster 20:2; Cairn H6856 8472 Mid Ulster 20:3; Stone circles alignments and cairns Area of H684 842 Mid Ulster 20:4; Round cairn with standing stones: Bradley’s cairn H6830 8401 Mid Ulster 20:13; Cairn and alignment H6863 8431 Mid Ulster 20:23

[vi] https://discovernorthernireland.com/Beaghmore-Stone-Circles-Cookstown-P2949/

[vii] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/time-immemorial

[viii] Kay Muhr, Northern Ireland Place-Name Project December 2003

[ix] https://www.treecouncil.ie/nativeirishtrees

[x] Andy Halpin and Conor Newman “Ireland An Oxford Archaeological Guide OUP 2006

[xi] Achadh scríobach means scraping or scratchy field.  Ogham alphabet spelled tree words – the birch?

[xii] Aubrey Burl “A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain Ireland and Brittany”  Yale UP 1995

[xiii] https://www.irishcentral.com/news/40-new-ancient-irish-monuments-newgrange?fbclid=IwAR2mWwP0UKLjvmBd6aF8YaSqw_Dqy2hceYEG2HUEftDf-GO6Q-Lc-roQPUA

[xiv] Irish Times 1 March 2020 Paul Murphy “Underwater study reveals possible quay at Brú na Bóinne” https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/underwater-study-reveals-possible-quay-at-br%C3%BA-na-b%C3%B3inne-1.4189765?fbclid=IwAR1OV9brldyJLmLTVNY2wQNbQ2CQTW9pvGhQhMh2-uX7kkyXd2TqBpViccI

[xv] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-test-for-elected-leaders.html

[xvi] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/coping-with-contagion-survival-strategy.html

[xvii] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-new-vocabulary.html

[xviii] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/05/following-science.html

[xix] https://michaelcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/06/beautiful-books.html