Stone Circles and Henges One has to wonder why our ancient relatives were so insistent on building circular rock monuments. We keep finding them all over the place. They seem to be in many different places in the world. We know they are in England, because who could not know about Stonehenge? While this may be the most famous, there are many stone circles all over England. There are some in Cumbria, Wiltshire, Somerset, Cornwall, Shropshire, Oxfordshire and Northumberland to mention some. While they are not as grand as Stonehenge, they are all stone circles never the less. Why were the ancient people of England so intent on building these circles? It seems to me there was some religious belief which drove them to these constructions. Some of them must have taken a Herculean effort to accomplish such as the moving and lifting the huge stones at Stonehenge. What was this strange religion, if it was a religion? It probably had something to do with nature and the heavens. It could have even be a predecessor to the Druids. It is believed Stonehenge was under construction for many years and built in stages and the construction began about 5,000 years ago. Others think it is more like 9,000 years old. We find stone circles in the strangest of places and because of this we get clues to the age of these circles. Take for example the discovery of a stone circle under Lake Michigan in the United States. That circle is believed to be even older than Stonehenge by dated back to at least 10,000 years. There are intricate carvings on it. If we determine the circle had to be built before the lake was there, we are back in the Ice Age and that is where we get our very ancient date from. It is reasonable to believe the ancient people who built it, didn’t have underwater breathing equipment. There is a difference between a stone circle and a stone henge. Most people don’t know the difference and will call a circle a henge. It is said a henge has a well defined bank and ditch, with two entrances. Stone circles are round but the stones in them could be standing or laying down. At times the differences could be very subtle. Archeologists have made what they consider an exciting find and I believe an unexpected one. They were digging in the deserts of Oman when they couldn’t believe what they found. They discovered a mysterious monument. It didn’t take long before they named it the Arabian Stonehenge. The builders are unknown at this point. They also found other things on the site such as stone tools. These tools were dated from 300,000 years to 1.5 million years old. Other ancient sites in the general area have been discovered. There is something I am wondering about. It has to do with stone circles and crop circles. Obviously, both are round. Could our ancient ancestors be copying crop circles they saw, or more likely circles cut into the grass and attributed this to the gods and built stone circles to pay homage to these gods? Sort of like the cargo cult in modern times? Just in case you don’t know what I am talking about, during World War II the Americans used different islands as landing areas for supplies and the natives that lived there got the benefit of canned food and supplies, but when the war ended the flights stopped, so the natives built copies of planes out of the bush, hoping this would attract the planes back. There is a place that is full of stone circles, but it has been determined they are all natural and were formed by ice needles moving the stones. The circles are all about the same size being about 3 meters in diameter. The circles can be found in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, which is part of Norway. The stones they are made of are usually small and the circles are all amazingly similar to each other. Why is it so many stone circles exist in Britain, Ireland and Brittany? It has been estimated there are over 1,300 known ones so far. It seems these people had to believe they were doing god’s work by building them. Stone henges are much less plentiful and the estimate for the number of them, in the same area, is about 120. The biggest stone circle is in Avebury. The ditch around it is about 4,300 feet in circumference. It has stones forming the large outer ring and also forming two smaller inner rings. The United States has quite a few ancient stone circles. Some are not original however and are replicas of other famous stone circles. There is a Stone Henge known as America’s Stonehenge. It has been dated at about 4,000 years old and is quite elaborate and composed of chambers, walls and even meeting places. We don’t know who built it, but it is believed it was built by native Americans. When researchers examined the site, they came to the conclusion it was an astronomical calendar. This is exactly what is now believed about Stonehenge in England. Ancient writing has been found at sites such as Ogham, Phoenician and Iberian Punic. This has to mean other civilizations must have come to the site from other parts of the world. This might mean the native Americans of the time were trading with other civilizations. It had to be asked. The question is, are there stone circles in Egypt? If we go to the Nubian desert bordering Egypt, which is about 500 miles from Cairo, we would find one of the oldest stone circles in the world. It is called the Nabta Playa complex and predates the founding of ancient Egypt. It is believed this is where the very first astronomical site was built and is far older than the pyramids and Stonehenge. The site has been dated as being 7,000 years old. I would like to add it should be said this is the oldest astronomical site found, but maybe not the oldest, because who knows what we might find in the future? There are far older ancient sites which have been found and while they might not be stone circles which are astronomical, we could still discover they might have something to do with astronomy which we have not discovered yet. There is another thing we might consider, rocks can not be carbon dated, so other methods are used to guess the dates of structures such as material found under or between the rocks which can be dated. We could be wrong on many of our dates and it is possible some circles could be far older than we suspect and others younger.
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