109-591: The Nine Ladies is a stone circle located on Stanton Moor in Derbyshire in the English East Midlands . The Nine Ladies 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
218-406: A diameter of 331.6 metres (1,088 ft), making it Britain's largest stone circle. All of the largest circles were found in or near earlier henge monuments. Such gargantuan monuments were rare. Burl calculated that most of the megalithic rings (92%) had an average diameter of 13.7 metres (45 ft), with an average area of 150 m (1615 ft²). The archaeologist Alexander Thom proposed that
327-829: A few miles distant from one another; of these, the Day House Lane Stone Circle is the only example to survive. The stones of the Fir Clump Stone Circle , already flattened in the 1860s, were for instance removed during construction of the M4 motorway in 1969. The area of modern Dorset has a "thin scatter" of stone circles, with nine possible examples known within its boundaries: Hampton Down Stone Circle , Kingston Russell Stone Circle , Nine Stones , and Rempstone Stone Circle remain visible. The archaeologist John Gale described these as "a small but significant group" of such monuments. All are located within five miles of
436-420: A heavily ruined state and in some cases have been destroyed. As noted by the archaeologist Aubrey Burl , these examples have left behind "only frustrating descriptions and vague positions". Most of the known Wiltshire examples were erected on low-lying positions in the landscape. In northern Wiltshire, in the area to the south of Swindon , at least seven stone circles are reported as having existed, often only
545-506: A hollow had formed through the repeated lighting of fires. In many cases, visitors touched and sat on the stones, contributing to their erosion. At the summer solstice in 1990, revels at the site led to the King Stone being broken off at ground level; it was propped up by additional stones before being repaired in 2000. In response to the degradation of the site, in the 1980s English Heritage set about measures to preserve it. First, they removed
654-537: A key role in the discovery of a new henge site along the River Avon that links to Stonehenge . This new site was uncovered through excavation during the Stonehenge Riverside Project and was given the name " BlueStoneHenge " or "BlueHenge" because traces of bluestones were found during the excavation . During 2017 and 2018, excavations by his UCL team led to a proposal that the site at Waun Mawn , in
763-473: A minority of cases, some were also used as cemeteries, with burials being made in and around the circle. Antiquarian investigation into the circles began in the Early Modern period, intensifying after the publications of notable English antiquarian William Stukeley in the 18th century. At the time, scholars understood little of prehistoric Britain, with the megalithic circles typically being ascribed either to
872-472: A nuisance and wished to see the new quarrying projects go ahead. Although not all of the protesters were Pagan, according to Blain and Wallis the region's Pagan community began "claiming the conflict as theirs". Amid the threats caused by quarrying, the Nine Ladies' popularity as a ritual site increased among Pagans. In September 2001, many Pagans from Birmingham , accompanied by a Druid group from Dorset and
981-714: A pioneering part of the post-processualist current within archaeological theory . Parker Pearson became interested in Marxism . In the 1984 anthology Ideology, Power and Prehistory , edited by Daniel Miller and Christopher Tilley, Parker Pearson published a paper in which he examined the pre-state societies of Jutland from a Marxist perspective. At the start of this paper, he noted that it had repercussions for Marxism in that its findings discerned "a certain blurring between capitalism and non-capitalism". From 1984 through to 1990, Parker Pearson worked as an Inspector of Monuments for English Heritage , and in 1989 he received membership to
1090-405: A quarrying company launched an application to re-open two abandoned quarries nearby, at Lees Cross and Endcliffe, with the intent of extracting 2.18 million tonnes of block sandstone over a 42-year period. This quarrying would prove financially lucrative to the landowner, Lord Edward Mannes of Haddon Estates ; in 2004, anti-quarrying protesters estimated that he could receive around £100 million from
1199-416: A report published in 1980, it measured 3 m in width and 0.6 m in height. Various suggestions were made regarding the composition of this bank, with some archaeologists commenting that it was made from earth and others suggesting it comprised both earth and stone. However, an excavation on the eastern part of the circle in 2000 found no evidence of any deliberate embankment. Instead the excavators determined that
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#17328453171651308-1017: A shape can also be "profoundly egalitarian". This transition was, according to historian Ronald Hutton, "as fundamental as that from the Mesolithic had been." Archaeological pollen analysis has shown that it was a period when scrub and weeds were spreading over what had formerly been cultivated fields, and forests that had previously been cleared began to grow back. Chambered tombs were blocked up and abandoned, implying that people were ceasing to use them as cultic sites. Several former causewayed enclosures were converted into defensive structures with gateways and walls, and in some cases they were attacked. Evidence for conflict has been found at Carn Brea in Cornwall, Hambledon Hill in Dorset, and Crickley Hill in Gloucestershire. Various archaeologists have suggested that this
1417-476: A state of disrepair by the 1980s and were demolished in 1985. In 1977, a tenth stone was unearthed at the east of the circle, in an area where prior commentators had suggested a stone had once stood. This stone was initially exposed by a combination of soil erosion and the drought of 1976, before being fully unearthed by persons unknown in August 1977. The local archaeologist J. P. Heathcote reported on this development in
1526-510: A thesis titled "Death, society and social change: the Iron Age of southern Jutland 200 BC – 600 AD" in which he discussed what was known about the bog bodies of Iron Age Denmark; it would remain unpublished. Supervised by Ian Hodder as a post-graduate at Cambridge, Parker Pearson was a contemporary of Sheena Crawford, Daniel Miller , Henrietta Moore , Christopher Tilley and Alice Welbourn; these students were influenced by Hodder's ideas, then
1635-424: A tumulus in which human remains had been buried. 40 metres to the west/south-west of the circle is a monolith (standing stone) known as the King Stone. Oblong in shape, Burl described it as being "slab-like". In total, it measures 1.22m in length, 0.60m in width, and varies between 0.29 and 0.38m in thickness; approximately 58 cm of its length is visible above ground level. Like the other stones at Nine Ladies it
1744-523: A view endorsed by Burl, who noted that their distribution did not match that of any known Neolithic sites. It is possible that they were not all constructed around the same date. The Piggotts suggested that while they may well be Early Bronze Age in date, it is also possible that "their use and possibly their construction may last into the Middle and even into the Late Bronze Age". Their nearest analogies are
1853-463: Is 300m north/north-east of the Reform Tower , while to the west of the stone circle is a cairn cemetery containing three large Bronze Age ring-cairns. Although the moor is largely heathland, the area near to the Nine Ladies is dominated by fescue grasses. The heather has been cleared from the site and the birch trees have been prevented from encroaching on the stones themselves, improving visibility of
1962-704: Is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles , Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial . A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology , he previously worked for 25 years as a professor at the University of Sheffield in England, and was the director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project . A prolific author, he has also written a variety of books on
2071-428: Is incidental. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Nine Ladies attracted the attention of antiquarians like Hayman Rooke and Thomas Bateman . Archaeological excavation took place in 2000. A wall was built around the circle in the 19th century but removed in 1985. Since the late 20th century, the Nine Ladies has been regarded as a sacred site by modern Pagan groups who conduct rituals there. From 1999 to 2010
2180-431: Is much diversity in the design of these circles, both between different regions and within them. According to Mike Parker Pearson, this is "perhaps unsurprising for a thousand-year fashion". The archaeologist and stone circle specialist Aubrey Burl noted that the stone circle builders would have had to undertake "careful planning" before they erected these monuments. There was much that they had to take into consideration:
2289-440: Is of millstone grit. It juts into the ground at an angle, leaning heavily to the south-east. It is possible that this stone was once part of an avenue that connected with the stone circle, although an excavation around it in 2000 found no evidence that any other stones stood in the immediate vicinity. The King Stone may not be a prehistoric feature, and there is no definite evidence that it was ever designed to be linked in any way to
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#17328453171652398-530: Is possible that both wooden and stone features of the circle were contemporary with each other. Like henges, the stone circles are almost exclusively found in the British Isles. The distribution of the stone circles is distinctive as it is broader than that of the henges. They are found in most areas of Britain where stone is available, except the island's south-eastern corner. They are most densely concentrated in south-western Britain and near Aberdeen . There
2507-609: The Derbyshire Archaeological Journal . In 2010, it was noted that the Nine Ladies were one of the most visited prehistoric sites in the Peak District. Among those visitors were modern Pagans , whose presence there had been recorded from at least 1980. In the latter part of the 20th century, the site became well-known among Britain's modern Pagan community, especially those in the Midlands. For many Pagans, Nine Ladies
2616-506: The Goddess movement , and they used the sites as places to conduct their magico-religious rites. During the Neolithic, or 'New Stone Age', there were extensive cultural changes across north-western Europe. The introduction of agriculture ended the hunter-gatherer lifestyle which had dominated in the preceding Palaeolithic ('Old Stone Age') and Mesolithic ('Middle Stone Age') periods. During
2725-561: The Institute for Archaeologists . In 1990, he secured an academic teaching position at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield , where he would work for the next 21 years. In 1991 he was admitted as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London , and in 1996 then became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland . From 2003 through to 2009, Parker Pearson directed
2834-754: The Lake District , the south-west peninsula of England, and the north and south-west of Ireland. Sparser groupings can also be found in Caithness , the Outer Hebrides , the Peak District , the Wicklow Mountains , Wales and Wessex . Their original purpose is not fully known, but archaeological investigation has shed some light on it. It is widely thought that they served a ritual or ceremonial purpose, particularly in relation to solar and/or lunar alignments. In
2943-535: The Late Middle Ages , references to prehistoric monuments in the British Isles were rare, and were usually only to note down practical matters, such as that a judicial court would be held near to one or that a farmer's land lay near to one. A rare exception is found in the fictionalised History of the Kings of Britain (c.1136), in which the chronicle's author Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed that Stonehenge had once been
3052-536: The Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire , had originally housed a 110 m (360 ft) diameter stone circle of the same size as the ditch at Stonehenge The archaeologists also postulated that the circle also contained a hole from one stone which had a distinctive pentagonal shape, very closely matching the one pentagonal stone at Stonehenge (stone hole 91 at Waun Mawn and stone 62 at Stonehenge). Both circles appear, according to some researchers, to be oriented towards
3161-755: The Stonehenge Riverside Project . The project garnered three major archaeological awards: the Andante Travel Archaeology Award (2008), the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries Award (2009), and the UK Archaeological Research Project of the Year (2010). His work in leading the project also led to Parker Pearson being personally awarded the UK Archaeologist of the Year award in 2010. Parker Pearson and his team of researchers played
3270-513: The Wheel of the Year , although also for special events, such as wedding ceremonies known as handfastings . The summer solstice has become a popular time for visitors, especially Pagans; hundreds of people assembled at the Nine Ladies for the summer solstice in 2020, attracting press attention given that this contravened government advice for preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus . Pagan rituals at
3379-489: The chambered long barrows of the Early Neolithic, stone circles are one of the most prominent forms of monument produced in prehistoric Britain. Despite the commonly used term "stone circles", many of these monuments are not true circles, but are instead ellipses or ovals. The stone circles are not always found in isolation from other forms of monument and often intersect with timber and earth structures. For this reason,
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3488-417: The clapper bridge at Tarr Steps and the three-metre Long Stone at Challacombe , which do use locally sourced large megaliths, suggests that larger stones would have been available had the sites' builders desired, and that the use of miniliths was perhaps deliberate. Wessex contains the two best known, though most atypical stone circles, Avebury and Stonehenge . All of the other Wiltshire circles are in
3597-786: The countless stones motif in folklore. The earliest recorded account comes from Philip Sidney 's The 7 Wonders of England , written prior to 1586. Sidney linked the motif to Stonehenge. Subsequently, the antiquary Richard Carew mentioned the story in his book, The Survey of Cornwall , published in 1602, noting that it was applied both the Stonehenge and to The Hurlers in Cornwall. The countless stones motif has been attributed to over five different stone circles, as well as several ruined long barrows such as Little Kit's Coty House in Kent. Mike Parker Pearson Michael Parker Pearson , FSA , FSA Scot , FBA (born 26 June 1957)
3706-585: The druids of the Iron Age or to the Danish settlers of Early Medieval times. In the 20th century, with the development of archaeology , archaeologists could investigate the circles in more detail. They dated them to the Late Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Since the late 20th century, many of these monuments were adopted as "sacred sites" by adherents of contemporary pagan religions such as Neo-Druidism , Wicca and
3815-448: The henge tradition of Eastern England , with the passage tomb tradition of Ireland. Aubrey Burl (counting tentative examples and burial mounds) noted that archaeologists assumed that for every stone circle that survived to the late 20th century, there would have been two lost. From the 1300 surviving examples, Burl calculated that there might have originally been around 4000 stone circles across Britain, Ireland and Brittany. Since
3924-405: The "Valley of Stones", a location at the foot of Crow Hill near to Littlebredy , which is located within the vicinity of many of these circles. With the exception of the circle at Litton Cheney , none display evidence of any outlying stones or earthworks around the stone circle. The archaeologists Stuart and Cecily Piggott believed that the circles of Dorset were probably of Bronze Age origin,
4033-659: The 1950s, archaeologists have been able to use radiocarbon dating of the material around the stones in order to accurately date their original construction. As of 2000, the earliest known radiocarbon dating of a stone circle was from the Lochmaben Stone in Dumfriesshire , which was dated to 2525 ± 85 BCE, whilst the latest examples came from Sandy Road in Perth (1200 ± 150 BCE), from Drombeg in County Cork (790 ± 80 BCE), and from
4142-547: The 28 archetypal monuments in England and Wales included in Pitt-Rivers' Schedule to the first Ancient Monuments Protection Act, which became law in 1882. It was taken into state care the following year. The Nine Ladies were subsequently referenced in J. Ward's contribution on "Early Man" in the Victoria County History volume on Derbyshire, published in 1905, where he noted that the site was "well known." A description of
4251-504: The Antiquities of Derbyshire , where he described the Nine Ladies as a "druidical circle." He included an illustration of the monument, in which the surrounding landscape had been embellished. In 1883, the archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers visited the Nine Ladies, making a drawn record of it and measuring the dimensions of most of the stones. He recorded his belief that the centre of the circle had been dug into. The Nine Ladies were among
4360-505: The British Isles and Brittany The stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany are a megalithic tradition of monuments consisting of standing stones arranged in rings. These were constructed from 3200 to 2000 BCE in Great Britain , Ireland and Brittany . It has been estimated that around 4,000 of these monuments were originally constructed in this part of north-western Europe during this period. Around 1,300 of them are recorded,
4469-483: The British Isles at this time, with communities continuing to construct megalithic stone circles. The archaeologists J.M. Coles and A.F. Harding noted that across western Europe, the Bronze Age was "closely and logically connected" with the Late Neolithic which preceded it, and that the marker that is applied between the two by contemporary archaeologists is "arbitrary". The historian Ronald Hutton noted that, along with
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4578-430: The British Isles, architectural changes were made to the style of chambered tomb, which may have been a forerunner of the later circular design of the stone rings. In the later Clyde tombs of south-western Scotland and the court-cairns of northern Ireland, crescent-shaped forecourts were constructed inside the tombs. This would have enabled more people to enter the tomb and take part in any rites there in sunlight. During
4687-457: The Channel Isles. There are 13 to be found on Dartmoor , including Brisworthy stone circle and Scorhill , and numerous examples to be found in Cornwall such as The Merry Maidens , The Hurlers and Boscawen-Un . In contrast to the over 70 stone circles known from Dartmoor, there are only two known from Exmoor : Porlock Stone Circle and Withypool Stone Circle . The contrast between
4796-422: The Early Neolithic another form of monument was also constructed in the British Isles, now known by archaeologists as causewayed enclosures . These consisted of massive circular ditch-and-bank earthworks. Construction of causewayed enclosures in the lowland regions of Southern England flourished around 3800 BCE, but by 3200 BCE almost all of them had been abandoned by their users. No equivalents have been found in
4905-505: The Early Neolithic in Brittany and the British Isles, the megalithic tradition of building chambered tombs for the dead had waxed and waned. The chambered tomb tradition lasted between about 4000 and 3500 BCE, although an earlier example, at Carrowmore in County Sligo, has been disputably dated to 5000 BCE. The length of this tradition led prehistorian Mike Parker Pearson to note that it
5014-517: The Early Neolithic were no longer built, and had been replaced by circular monuments of various kinds. These include earthen henges , timber circles , and stone circles. Stone circles exist in most areas of Britain where stone is available, with the exception of the island's south-eastern corner. They are most densely concentrated in south-western Britain and on the north-eastern horn of Scotland, near Aberdeen . The tradition of their construction may have lasted 2,400 years, from 3300 to 900 BCE,
5123-508: The Five-Stone ring of Cashelkeety in County Kerry (715 ± 50 BCE). Burl said that, the calibration of these dates indicated that the stone circle tradition existed between 3300 and 900 BCE. The size of the megalithic rings varied, perhaps according to the number of people who would be using it during ceremonies. Burl calculated that the largest stone circle in terms of both diameter and area
5232-574: The Giants' Ring, and that it had originally been located on Mount Killaraus in Ireland, until the wizard Merlin moved it to Salisbury Plain. Many 19th-century antiquarians produced plans of the circles which were "inaccurate and slipshod." In the Mediaeval and Early Modern period onward, much folklore developed around the subject of the stone circles. In Britain, several stone circles have been connected to
5341-411: The King Stone probably caused by animal burrowing. During the excavation, the Nine Ladies were decorated with a pentacle , with Jenny Blain and Robert Wallis suggesting that this was produced by Pagans either to protect the land or to bless the excavation. Parts of Stanton Moor have been used for quarrying and at Nine Ladies, the noise from the quarrying operation at Dale View Quarry is audible. In 1999,
5450-463: The Nine Ladies circle. The King Stone has been scratched with graffiti; it has the name of "Bill Stumps" engraved onto it, alongside a cross and a zero, apparently carved in the 19th century. Bill Stumps is the name of a conman in Charles Dickens ' novel The Pickwick Papers , and it is possible that the graffiti deliberately references him. One possible culprit for the graffiti is Edward Simpson ,
5559-536: The Nine Ladies to a Bronze Age date, with Burl suggesting more specifically that it was probably created in the Early Bronze Age. It is possible that the site underwent multiple phases of construction, for instance being an earthwork structure that only later had stones added to it. The Nine Ladies stone circle measures 10.8m in diameter, and is located on ground which slopes downward towards the east to northeast. A report from 1907 noted that there were nine stones in
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#17328453171655668-449: The Nine Ladies, in 1988 English Heritage hired Trent and Peak Archaeological Trust to conduct surveys of the site. The Trust oversaw a project of spot-height surveys at intervals over nine and a half years, in May 1988, January 1990, November 1990, November 1991, November 1992, August 1994 and November 1997. Concerned at the growing damage, English Heritage organised an excavation of the site in
5777-478: The Orcadian stone circles were cut from a horizontal seam of bedrock that was located just below the surface. These had been eased over a large pit and supported on stone trestles, after which wooden rollers and a sled were likely positioned underneath, allowing the megalith to be moved. One of these stones, which weighed over 10 tonnes, had been left in its original position poised on stone supports, to be discovered by
5886-549: The Peak District, nine was frequently favoured as the number of stones used in a circle. The only large stone circles in the Peak are Arbor Low and The Bull Ring , both monuments which combine a stone circle with an earthen henge and which are located on the sandstone layers. There are also a few smaller stone circles, such as Doll Tor and the Nine Stones Close , that are close to the limestone edge. Archaeologists have attributed
5995-415: The appearance of a bank was caused by undisturbed subsoil having been left in place around the exterior of the stones while being removed from the interior. This led them to suggest that the site was originally of a "dished" shape, "with soils sculpted away both internally and externally to leave the raised rim". This would have provided an appearance akin to a pond barrow . Late 18th century records suggest
6104-472: The archaeological excavators. The number of stone circles is often misinterpreted, as damaged burial mounds, kerb cairns, or ring cairns are often confused for stone circle. The archetypal ‘stone circles’ of the mid-to-late Neolithic are far rarer than commonly assumed, appearing mostly in Cumbria , Cornwall , Wiltshire , and Western Scotland. They are connected morphologically with sites in Ireland, connecting
6213-414: The archaeologist Aubrey Burl stated, "There was a change from the cramped, gloomy chamber of a tomb to the unroofed, wide ring, a change from darkness to light, from the dead to the living, from the grave to the sky." Similar observations were made by the historian Ronald Hutton , who commented that the circular shape of the rings "mirrors the sun, the full moon and the bounds of the horizon" and that such
6322-545: The archaeologist Richard Bradley cautioned against understanding stone circles, timber circles, and earthen henges as distinct "types" of monument. The archaeologist Alexander Thom suggested that the stone circles fell into four broad classes: circles, flattened circles, egg-shaped rings, and ellipses. Some stone circles, such as that at Stanton Drew in Somerset , are approached by a short alignment of paired stones. There are also stone avenues that link different monuments in
6431-587: The area around the site was home to the Nine Ladies Anti-Quarry Campaign, which sought to prevent a nearby quarrying operation. The Nine Ladies stands on the northern end of Stanton Moor , an area of heathland in the Peak District . It is at a height of between 297 and 298 metres OD. The Nine Ladies are located 3 ½ miles south-east of Bakewell . The archaeologist Aubrey Burl described the area of Stanton Moor as "a prehistoric necropolis of cairns, ring-cairns, standing stones and stone circles". It
6540-405: The autumn of 2000. Six trenches were opened, one directly linking to the stone circle, another to the King Stone, and the other four to examine anomalies identified in a geophysical survey. The excavations only recovered a single find believed to be of probable prehistoric origin, a calcined flint from a retouched artefact, perhaps a long side-scraper or knife. This was found in a disturbance near
6649-423: The camp at any one time, a population that sometimes temporarily increased in response to rumours that the camp was to be forcibly disbanded by the authorities. In both 2003 and 2005, unsuccessful attempts were made to evict the protesters using planning regulations. Views of the protest camp among the local settled community were mixed; some supported the protesters and brought them food, while others regarded them as
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#17328453171656758-462: The choice of location, the size of the ring, the transport of the heavy stones, the laying out of the circle or ellipse, and the preparation of stone holes. They may have also had to plot astronomical alignments, making the task more difficult. Most stone circles were constructed upon flat ground, although some were instead built on a slope. At some sites, such as Kiltierney in County Fermanagh ,
6867-551: The choice of material used was important. For instance, at the Ring of Brodgar the stones used in the circle were produced from a variety of different sources. Very little is known about the process of quarrying the stone and transporting it to the sites of the circles. One exception is at Vestra Fiold in Orkney , where Colin Richards led an excavation that determined that the stones used for
6976-399: The circle has been used as a rag tree , with visitors affixing rags, ribbons, and a range of other material to it; they have also etched carvings into a natural rocky outcrop nearby. Much of this activity contributed to the erosion of the ground at the site, especially where fires had been lit within the circle – sometimes close to the orthostats themselves, although mainly in the centre, where
7085-514: The circle, all but one of which stood upright. A recumbent tenth was unearthed in 1977, although it is possible that this had been moved into place from elsewhere at a comparatively recent point in the circle's history. The stones are made from a millstone grit sourced locally, a type of medium-grained sandstone . Burl characterised the stones as being "unremarkable." They vary in their shape and size, some being "blocks of squarish cross-section" and others being "oblong slabs with long axis aligned upon
7194-425: The circle, although it is unclear if this was part of a deliberate earthen bank or the unintended result of other activities. It is possible that either a hollow, a standing stone, or an earthen mound was once located inside the ring. A single monolith, the King Stone, stands to the southwest of the circle; it is unknown if this was placed there in deliberate reference to the Nine Ladies circle or whether their proximity
7303-400: The circle, something which was then included in illustrations of the monument, although other observers simply stated that the ground here was uneven. By the early 21st century, any evidence of an internal mound that had existed was gone. It is possible that this loss was partly caused by people digging into it. Based on allegations of a mound, Burl suggested that within the circle had once stood
7412-725: The circles found on Dartmoor and Exmoor to the west, and the Stanton Drew stone circles to the north. It is also possible that the stone circles were linked to a number of earthen henges erected in Dorset around the same period. On average Dorset's earthen henges are four times larger than the stone circles. In what is now northern England, there was a particularly rich stone circle tradition in Cumbria. Several large megalithic rings were constructed here, such as Castlerigg stone circle , Swinside , and Long Meg and Her Daughters . Stone circles exist throughout Scotland, from Ninestane Rig in
7521-564: The circumference of the circle". The stones are low; the tallest lie on the north-east side and measure 0.9 m in height. Excavation carried out in 2000 indicated that at least one of the orthostats had been packed into its hole with smaller stones. Several archaeologists commenting on the Nine Ladies believed that, as at several other sites of this type in Derbyshire, a low bank surrounded the stone circle. They described this as having entrances on its north-east and south-west sides, and according to
7630-626: The dead". Other archaeologists have suggested that the stone might not represent ancestors, but rather other supernatural entities, such as deities. Aubrey Burl's gazetteer lists 1,303 stone circles in Britain, Ireland and Brittany. The largest number of these are found in Scotland, with 508 sites recorded. There are 316 in England; 187 in Ireland; 156 in Northern Ireland; 81 in Wales; 49 in Brittany; and 6 in
7739-532: The decision, but the classification was upheld in June 2005. This meant that the quarries could not re-open until the Peak District National Park Authority agreed on a set of working conditions for them. In 2008 permission to quarry near the circle was finally revoked. In 2010, the protest camp disbanded. [REDACTED] Media related to Nine Ladies at Wikimedia Commons Stone circles in
7848-416: The dilapidated 19th century walls in 1985, after which they commissioned a contractor to undertake cosmetic changes by filling in patches in the ground around the site. In 1987, the contractor used quarry waste to do this, compromising the archaeological integrity of the site; the added material was then removed under the supervision of archaeologists. Aware that erosion and degradation was likely to continue at
7957-457: The earliest standing stone monuments in the British Isles, the great circles such as Callanish on the Isle of Lewis and Stenness on the Isle of Orkney, were specifically constructed to align with the sun and moon, and the movements of the sun and moon across the local landscape. There has been much analysis and debate about these monuments. No simple explanations have emerged. The original purposes of
8066-450: The east, suggesting that these might have been more common than their stone counterparts. In the area of modern Derbyshire, there are five or six known stone circles although the remains of many ring-cairns, a different style of prehistoric monument, are also common and can look much like the stone rings. Stylistically, those found in this county are similar to those found in Yorkshire . Within
8175-510: The far south to more famous examples in the far north and particularly in the islands (where several form part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site ). The Callanish Stones are one of the best-known examples in the Outer Hebrides , while Orkney is known for its Neolithic monuments , including the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness . In Aberdeenshire , northeast Scotland, there are many recumbent stone circles to be found –
8284-503: The highland areas of northern Britain. Despite having excavated a number of these sites across southern Britain, archaeologists do not know their exact purpose. It has been suggested that they were camps, markets, cattle kraals or occasional settlements, or perhaps ritual centres for the celebration of seasonal festivals or cemeteries. As the transition from the Early Neolithic to the Late Neolithic took place in around 3000 BCE, there
8393-501: The idea of Thom's Megalithic Yard "remain[ed] contentious". Thom also argued that the builders of these circles were accomplished astronomers and deliberately included astronomical alignments in the rings. According to Parker Pearson, however, many of the circles do not appear to be based on any astronomical alignment. Pearson cautioned that Late Neolithic/Bronze Age conceptions of cosmology were likely very different from modern understandings of astronomy. However, it has been found that
8502-458: The journal Archaeologia . The idea that Britain's prehistoric monuments had been built by the druids , ritual specialists present in parts of Iron Age Western Europe, was one that had attracted broad support among antiquarians over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, having been adopted by influential writers such as John Aubrey and William Stukeley . This idea was repeated by the antiquarian Thomas Bateman in his 1848 book Vestiges of
8611-431: The land was flattened especially for this purpose, although in other cases it is clear that the land had been flattened by earlier communities, who had used the land for settlement or agriculture. Aaron Watson has argued that various circles were located in a particular position to give the appearance of occupying the centre of the world, representing a microcosm of the surrounding area. In some instances it appears that
8720-512: The landscape, such as the West Kennet Avenue which links the Avebury henge to The Sanctuary . In some cases, the stone circles survive in such a damaged state that it is not possible to know what they originally looked like. In some examples, timber posts were replaced with stone ones, perhaps with the intention of making the monument more durable and protecting it from decay. In others, it
8829-557: The major phase of building taking place between 3000 and 1300 BCE. These stone circles typically show very little evidence of human visitation during the period immediately following their creation. The historian Ronald Hutton noted that this suggests that they were not sites used for rituals that left archaeologically visible evidence, but may have been deliberately left as "silent and empty monuments". The archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson argues that in Neolithic Britain, stone
8938-641: The media, Parker Pearson has published articles in a variety of different sources, such as on the BBC website, has given interviews to groups such as Pagans for Archaeology and most recently discussed his career in an interview with Papers from the Institute of Archaeology . In 2012, Parker Pearson left the University of Sheffield and began teaching at the Institute of Archaeology , University College London , as Professor of British Later Prehistory. On 16 July 2015, he
9047-402: The middle of the ring in the late 18th century; it is possible that Rooke imagined that a stone had once stood in the hollow and thus claimed that it still did. An alternative possibility is that there was once a stone in the centre and that it was moved, being the stone discovered in 1977. In the 19th and early 20th century, some commentators believed there was evidence for an earthen mound inside
9156-522: The midsummer solstice. and reported in New Scientist on 20 February 2021. Two geological articles published in 2022 proved that there was no link between Waun Mawn and the supposed "bluestone quarries" at Craig Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog, and no link between Waun Mawn and Stonehenge. In a 2024 study published in The Holocene , Brian John re-examined the geological and archaeological evidence from
9265-404: The monument. While the transition from the Early Neolithic to the Late Neolithic in the fourth and third millennia BCE saw much economic and technological continuity, there was a considerable change in the style of monuments erected, particularly in what is now southern and eastern England. By 3000 BCE, the long barrows , causewayed enclosures , and cursuses that had predominated in
9374-433: The number of rings on the two moors may be because Dartmoor has abundant natural granite while Exmoor has none, instead having Devonian slates and Hangman Grits , both of which easily break up into small slabs, resulting in a general shortage of big stones on Exmoor. The two Exmoor stones are made from smaller stones, which archaeologists have termed miniliths . However, the presence of other Exmoor constructions, such as
9483-425: The operation. Concerns were raised by local people, heritage management, and Pagans that quarrying would increase sound pollution , destroy wildlife habitat, and damage the archaeologically sensitive environment of the moor. In October 1999, five anti-quarry campaigners established a protest camp near the site, adopting the name of the Nine Ladies Anti-Quarry Campaign. By 2000, there were around 20 to 30 protesters at
9592-484: The others having been destroyed. Although stone circles have been erected throughout history by a variety of societies and for a variety of reasons, in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages , this particular tradition was limited to Great Britain, Ireland and the neighbouring area of continental Europe now known as Brittany . The rings were not distributed equally across this area, but were concentrated in several highland regions: north-eastern and central Scotland,
9701-480: The past when searching for fossils in his father's driveway gravel aged 4, extending that interest into the human past aged 6 when he read a library book entitled Fun with Archaeology . Deciding to study the subject at the undergraduate level, he attended the University of Southampton , attaining a first class BA with honours in Archaeology in 1979. He obtained his PhD from King's College, Cambridge in 1985, for
9810-473: The presence of a feature in the centre of the circle. In his 1780 sketch of the site, the antiquarian Hayman Rooke depicted what looks like a hollow in the middle of the ring; this was then exaggerated in a watercolour painting based on his initial sketch. However, in 1782 he wrote that there was a stone in the centre, which he depicted in an illustration of the Nine Ladies drawn in 1793. These competing claims make it difficult to determine what really existed in
9919-515: The prominent Druid activist King Arthur Pendragon , visited the stone circle and conducted a ritual to "raise energy" so as to "protect the stones." Others, associated with a group called the Dragon Network, placed images of the "Dragon bind-rune" near the site in an attempt to protect it from the quarrying. In 2004 the High Court classified the two quarries as dormant. There was an appeal against
10028-429: The recumbent is a massive stone lying on its side, generally to the southwest of the circle. In counties Cork and Kerry in southwest Ireland there is a preponderance of axial stone circles . As with the recumbent stone circles of Scotland a stone to the southwest lies on its side but the stone is not particularly large. In some cases, the stones were removed from the rings for use as a building material. In others,
10137-502: The sea. All but Rempstone—which is on the Isle of Purbeck —are located on the chalk hills west of Dorchester . The Dorset circles have a simplistic typology, being of comparatively small size, with none exceeding 28 metres in diameter. All are oval in shape, although perhaps have been altered from their original form. With the exception of the sandstone Rempstone circle, all consist of sarsen boulders. Much of this may have been obtained from
10246-535: The seller of fake antiquities who often stayed nearby. The name of the site, "Nine Ladies," reflects a broader tendency in British folklore to identify such stones as women, a phenomenon also seen at sites called the "Nine Maidens" in Devon and Cornwall . The antiquarian Hayman Rooke noted the existence of the Nine Ladies, which he considered "a Druid temple," in a 1782 article about the heritage of Stanton Moor published in
10355-562: The site has been disrupted by natural causes such as trees, the roots of which have shifted the location of the megaliths. Evidence for the destruction of stone circles first comes from the Late Bronze Age. Following the Christianisation of Britain in the Early Middle Ages , various Christian clergyman denounced those pagans who continued to venerate at stones in the landscape, which in some cases perhaps implied stone circles. By
10464-402: The site have involved chanting, singing, dancing, as well as the pouring of libations. Pagans also sometimes leave material traces, such as tea lights, flowers, or coins, around the monument. Material found buried in the circle in modern times has included crystals, polished pebbles, a plastic comb, and a cigarette packet. Human ashes have also been scattered at the Nine Ladies. An oak tree near to
10573-486: The site then appeared in W. J. Andrew's chapter on "The Prehistoric Stone Circles of Derbyshire" in the Reverend J. Charles Cox's 1907 edited volume Memorials of Old Derbyshire . By the 1870s, a stone wall had been erected around the circle, with another around the King Stone. Guilbert and Garton noted that "for decades, they must have been as familiar a feature of Stanton Moor as the orthostats themselves." These walls were in
10682-538: The site, and concluded that the "lost circle" of standing stones had never existed, and that there was no evidence to demonstrate a link with Stonehenge. He concluded that there had been considerable "interpretative inflation" at the site, driven by a desire to show a Stonehenge connection. From 2006 through to 2009, he served as the Vice-President of the Prehistoric Society . Interacting with various parts of
10791-436: The stone circles were built using a unit of measurement which he called the " megalithic yard ", about 2.72 feet (0.83 m). He came to this conclusion following more than forty years of surveying the monuments, aided by his son Archibald Stevenson Thom. Parker Pearson stated that "the idea of a standard unit of measurement is very plausible" but perhaps not as regular as Thom and others have argued. In 1980, Burl noted that
10900-513: The stone ring monuments has been widely debated by antiquarians and archaeologists for several centuries. These stone circles typically show very little evidence of human visitation during the period immediately following their creation. This suggests that they were not sites used for rituals that left archaeologically visible evidence. They may have been deliberately left as "silent and empty monuments". The archaeologists Mike Parker Pearson and Ramilsonina suggested that in Neolithic Britain, stone
11009-402: The stones represented supernatural entities for the circles' builders. Measuring 10.8 metres in diameter, the stone circle consists of ten millstone grit stones, although for several centuries one of these was buried, providing the impression that there had been nine stones. Whether the tenth was part of the original prehistoric design or a later addition is unknown. The earth rises up around
11118-747: The subject. A media personality, Parker Pearson has appeared several times in the Channel 4 show Time Team in particular in one looking at the excavation of Durrington Walls in Wiltshire . He also appeared in the National Geographic Channel documentary Stonehenge Decoded , along with the PBS programme Nova : Secrets of Stonehenge . Parker Pearson was born in 1957, in Wantage , Berkshire . He would later inform interviewers that he first took an interest in
11227-591: Was Stanton Drew in Somerset, with a diameter of 112.2 metres (368 ft) and an area of 9,887 m (2.44 acres). Second came the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney at 103.6 metres (340 ft) in diameter and 8,430 m (2.08 acres) in area, whilst third was Avebury in Wiltshire, which had a diameter of 102.4 metres (336 ft) and an area of 8,236m² (2.04 acres). However, Burl did not count the outer stone circle at Avebury, which has
11336-403: Was "a relatively short-lived fashion in archaeological terms." In southern England, 84% of chambered tombs were built somewhere between a north-east to a south-east orientation with western directions almost entirely neglected. From these findings it is thus concluded that the east had some special significance regarding death and thus possibly the afterlife for their builders. In some parts of
11445-419: Was a period of particular turmoil within the British Isles, perhaps caused by an overuse of land, the failure of crops, famine, plague, climatic change, or an increase in population that was not supported by the food supply. The start of the Bronze Age in Britain was signalled by the introduction of bronze , an alloy of copper and usually tin . Ideologically, there is no evidence for a change in Brittany and
11554-432: Was associated with the dead and wood with the living. Bradley noted that this interpretation was "consistent with the archaeological evidence from Britain", where evidence for feasting and other human activities have been found at a range of timber sites but not at their stone counterparts. At the latter sites, there has been evidence of human remains. Bradley suggested that the stone circles may have been spaces "devoted to
11663-510: Was associated with the dead, and wood with the living. Other archaeologists have proposed that the stone might not represent ancestors, but rather other supernatural entities, such as deities. Across eastern Britain—including the East Midlands—stone circles are far less common than in the west of the island, possibly due to the general scarcity of naturally occurring stone here. There is much evidence for timber circles and earthen henges in
11772-526: Was much economic and technological continuity. But there was considerable change in the style of monuments erected, particularly in southern and eastern England. By that date, the long barrows , causewayed enclosures , and cursuses which had predominated in the Early Neolithic had ceased to be built. They were replaced by circular monuments of various kinds. These include not only stone circles, but also earthen henges and timber circles . This transition toward circular monuments had symbolic associations. As
11881-418: Was regarded as a sacred site , with Stanton Moor often seen as a sacred landscape. They regarded the stone circle as a place to engage with spirits, deities, or ancestors, with some believing it was on a ley line or spirit-track. Different types of Pagan have conducted rituals there, including Wiccans , Druids , and Heathens . These rituals were sometimes designed to celebrate the seasons in accordance with
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