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Between 3000-5000 years ago stone circles and other megalithic structures were built all over the UK and in parts of Europe. Some circles have very complex geometry and the local astronomy of the site was often built into the design. 

Megalithic Sites
In the UK the first Neolithic farmers appeared around 4000BC and by 3000BC the first megalithic (large stone) constructions started. There are several types of stone structures, the simplest being the raising of single, sometimes massive, standing stones called menhirs. Hollow box-like structures made from large stones were used for burials and covered with mounds of soil, these are called dolmens or, in Wales, cromlechs . Cairns are cromlechs covered in stones and barrows are earthen burial mounds. Henges are usually stone or vertical timber circles often surrounded by a ditch and bank.

Most stone circles were constructed in the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age periods. They occur all over the UK except in the southeast where there is no evidence of them, but this does not mean there were none. Many stone circles have been removed and recycled in walls and buildings or cleared for farming. They survive best where there has been little development. Stone circles are also found in parts of Europe.

Early circles, or henges, were made from wood, both Woodhenge and Seahenge are examples of these. Stone was used for permanence and local materials were generally used but sometimes stones were transported great distances. The proximity of circles to burials suggests they were built with some significance to the dead or to hold ceremonies as well as being "calendars" lined up with astronomical features such as solstice sunrises, moonrise and moonset and specific constellations.

Life must have been hard in those days of short life expectancy and disease as well as the difficult conditions they lived in, these structures must have had great meaning considering the vast amount of effort and time that went into the accurate placement of these often huge stones.

 
 

Accuracy
Following detailed surveys of hundreds of sites, Alexander Thom, a professor of engineering at Oxford, concluded that the megalithic builders used a standard unit of measurement. ("Megalithic Sites in Britain" ISBN 019 813148 8) This unit was 2.72 feet (0.83m), the megalithic yard, about the size of a pace except that over all his surveys he shows there is only a deviation from proportions of this dimension of only 0.003 feet! His findings show the builders used whole or half units of megalithic yards in the radii of stone circles. Many structures include extremely accurate alignments with key solar and lunar risings and settings, often using natural features like mountain peaks, notches in hills or the strategic placement of standing stones as precise sightlines. These astronomical alignments were an integral part of the design of many sites. The geometry of the non circular stone circles was not by accident or inaccuracy but was based on complex ellipse or flattened circle geometric construction.

 
  Alignment of stones
Solar symbols are common in megalithic tombs, the role of the sun would have been important to Neolithic farmers as crops and cattle depended on it. Stones placed in a circle were sighted to show the occurrence of the summer and winter solstices. In the winter in the northern hemisphere the sun rises in the southeast and stays low in the sky, setting in the southwest. During the spring and summer these positions shift farther north along the horizon and the sun stays in the sky longer. Some tomb passages were aligned so that the rising sun of the winter solstice would shine down them. This would represent the start of the lengthening of the days and the start of the growing season being a cause for celebration.


Alignment of stones to show the occurrence of the solstices

          
 

 
BC Period Climate Industry Artefacts Construction
12,000 End of Old Stone Age(Palaeolithic)  Cold Hunting Axes Cave burial
11,000 Middle Stone Age
(Mesolithic)		 Warm and dry Hunting   Decorated bones
8000 The dog domesticated Warm and dry      
7500 Britain separated from Continent
4500 New Stone Age 
(Early Neolithic)		 Warm and dry Introduction of farming Pottery, stone axeheads Monumental tombs, Portal dolmens
4300

Earliest causewayed camps and long barrows
3600 Middle Neolithic Warm and dry Stone quarrying Arrowheads Passage graves
3500 Earliest henges Warm and dry      
2900 Late Neolithic Drier and warm   Pottery and grooved ware Henges, timber circles, early individual graves
2800 Stonehenge first phase
2750 Beaker People arrive
2600 Avebury and Silbury Hill
2300 Early Bronze Age Drier and warm Food vessels and urns Copper mining Great Orme Standing stones, Ring cairns, stone circles, round barrows
2100 Stonehenge bluestone circles
2000 Stonehenge sarsen circle
1550 Stonehenge in present form
1400 Middle Bronze Age Drier and warm bronzes Gold mining Kerb cairns
1100 Late Bronze Age Wet and cold     Secondary burials in barrows
1000 Earliest hillforts Wet and cold      
750 Iron Age Wet and cold     Hillforts
400 Middle Iron Age Warmer and drier Thrown pots Salt trade, iron industry Standing stones
AD 43 Roman invasion of England

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