So, Top of the Pops
It is the End.
We are eternally
Indifferent beyond words.
EJ Thrubb, 3 1/2

Henry Crow - space/time travel without a rudder

Henry Crow, cheap-deal traveller reporting for the Llugnag Observer (planet Struldbrugg, Laputa nebula), splashes down into the Duddon Estuary. His craft sinks immediately amid a sizzle of steam. He is fortunate to be composed of material with a specific gravity of slightly less than one, and floats at that interface of liquid and gas we call the ocean’s surface. As the storm abates he spies a distant shore lit by a full moon. Struggling with limbs and joints stiff from decades of suspended animation, he doggy-paddles towards the beach.

Making land at last, he morphs silently into the bipedal, erect posture of an Earthling. He winces in pain as a disc in his lower back pops immediately out of whack. ‘Just my luck - primitive body plan’ he reflects ruefully.

He wanders through some woodland, up a hillside and comes across a circular arrangement of stones about 25 thargs across. He has seen no animated life so far, but this is evidence of some sort of civilisation. From what's recorded in his infoplant, that pinpoints his space-time co-ordinates to Sunkenkirk, Cumbria, sometime after 3000 BC.

Finding a stone to sit on, he rummages through his bag for a recording device, and makes his first report as Henry Crow, travel correspondent for the Luggnagg Observer…

A typical stone circle, yesterday

STONE CIRCLES

Make no mistake: they are circular...and made of stones

You might think stone circles are boring. In fact, stone circles are much more interesting than, say, fishing or football. Plus, most people who have travelled around the world to see a dumb-ass red rock in the middle of the Australian desert have probably never even bothered to go and see a stone circle right on their own doorstep.

• If you’ve never taken drugs, shagged or fallen asleep in a stone circle, your life is incomplete.
• On the other hand, if you've never dowsed, searched for ley-lines, or sat cross-legged meditating in a stone circle, you're probably quite a well-balanced individual.

Stone circles are megalithic structures – that is, structures from yonks ago that aren’t Roman or Greek or anything.

• There are particularly high concentrations of megalithic structures in the British Isles, Brittany (but not elsewhere in France), Denmark/southern Sweden, Corsica and Sardinia.
• Other areas of Europe had Roman- and Greek-type civilisations instead - those guys were pretty good at maths, roads, bridges, temples, plays, ethics, science, poisoning, politics, republics, wars and empires, but they were rubbish at stone circles.

So where are they and what are they like?

You’d be mistaken to think stone circles are ubiquitous even in the areas that contain megaliths.

• Woefully mistaken.
• Stone circles are pretty much unique to the British Isles and Brittany.

In megalithic Britain, take away burial structures (barrows, quoits, dolmens, passage graves, etc) and defensive structures from the general set of structures, and you’re essentially left with standing stones, stone circles, and earthworks. These type-of-things basically comprise circles and avenues of standing stones or earth mounds.

• When it comes to stone circles, circles are what you get.
• There are no triangles, rectangles (OK, one or two), squares, dodecahedrons or other geometric figures in the megalithic repertoire of the entire Celtic area. Except for burial structures, and that stone-age settlement at Scara Brae, circles are pretty much all we built for thousands of years.
• One or two are slightly oval, mind.
• Phew!
• If all my facts are right.

In mainland Britain, stone circles are almost all found to the west of a curly line that goes from the Clyde to Portland. Earth circles are generally found east of this line.

• That’s because east of this line, digging is easy in the alluvial earth.
• West of the line, where soil is thinner and the terrain is rougher, big stones are lying around all over the place.
• Makes sense, right?
• Stone Age man was no pushover.
• There were wood circles too, but they were put up by Barrett and have all been eaten by fungus.

The circles exist, in their hundreds, in all areas of upland Britain and Ireland, and on flat bits near the Western seabords.

What were they for?

No easy answer. Many were probably meeting places. Some were places of ritual, druidic or not. Cremated remains have been found in some. Some were probably connected by trade routes. For instance, it has been noted that the great Cumbrian stone circles could have been seasonal meeting places where stone axes from Langdale could have been traded.

• Langdale was the major stone axe factory in the British Isles, and axes from it have been located all over them.
• Interesting rock-climbing aside: the Langdale stone axe fatory is pretty high up near the summit of Pike O'Stickle
• Stone Age man was probably cranking on Gimmer Crag looking for flints way before Rigby, Sandison and Thomas climbed Gimmer Chimney in 1902.

How do stone circles measure up with each other?

The big stone circles are generally the oldest, and have the biggest stones.

• Those big stones weighed a ton and needed a bunch of strong neanderthals and and true to shift them around.
• Those guys could have practiced first, at 1/10-scale.
• But no.
• Never let it be said that Stone Age man was without ambition.

Stonehenge, the most famous stone circle, is by no means typical . Of the really big stone circles, Castlerigg, Long Meg, Swinside/Sunkenkirk, Avebury and the Rollick Stones have far more in common with each other than any of them have with bonkers old Stonehenge.

• Some stones in stone circles have decorations (eg. spiral patterns, cup marks) on the stones. No-one knows what they mean.
• Some stone circles are astronomically aligned, most are not.
• Some stone circles have obvious entrances, most don’t.
• In some areas where there are stone circles, certain configurations are favoured; (eg regular spacing, mostly 10-15 stones is typical in Cornwall; recumbent stones (always the largest) feature in most of the circles in NE Scotland; tiny 5-stone rings are common in parts of Ireland). In most areas, there is no preference.
• It's clear from comparing stone circles in different areas that some characteristic architectural features have been used in locations far removed from their origins, and that therefore Stone-age man travelled around quite a bit.

Some people think stone circles are evidence for extra-terrestrial visitations. But within the upper elechons of proper archaelogy, experts think this sort of thinking is:

• harmless but misguided;
• a load of old toss; or
• utter bollocks.

Terrestrial visitors are another thing: a Greek traveller is thought to have visited Callanish in the 1st century BC...

• Find out more here (from Aubrey Burl, top stone circle archaologist): http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba63/column2.shtml

Seen one stone circle, seen ‘em all?

• No way.
• Don't confuse stone circles with football matches or fish.
• Stone circles are a puzzling enigma wrapped inside several conundrums of a multiple mystery embedded in a baffling riddle of perplexing uncertainty.