STONES, STANDING, or STONE CIRCLES, are found in numbers throughout Great Britain, to a less extent in Norway and Sweden, and a few in France and northern India. The typical stone circle of Scotland, England and Ireland consists of rough, un hewed stone set up at comparatively equal dis tances in the form of a circle. These circles vary in size from a diameter of 20 feet to more than 100 feet, and are composed of stones of heights ranging from less than six feet to 19 feet, and of varying thicknesses. The stones are set up at distances of from five feet to six yards apart and the site of the circle is usually a level plain, although the gentle slope of a hill has sometimes been used. The stones used are often in the form of huge loaf-shaped boulders set up on end and wedged in with smaller rocks at their bases; sometimes the standing stones are set into a slight excavation in the soil. In a num ber of the stone circles found in Scotland the space between two of the upright pillars, usu ally the two at the southwest side of the circle, is filled by a large flat rock set up on edge and extending from pillar to pillar. The loca tion of this distinguishing feature at the south west seems coincident with the general plan of structure and location of the supposed altar stone in the structure of Stonehenge (q.v.). Some of the stone circles contain a second smaller circle within them, which circle is often composed of stones larger than those in the outside circle; and some of the examples show a ditch around the circle of pillar stones, or else an earth wall. In either case whether it is ditch or wall, the entrance over or through it is invariably to the northeast. The ditches are in some instances as wide as 30 feet with a depth of six feet; the walls rarely exceed five or six feet in height, and the en trances over the ditches are usually half as wide as the ditch proper. In one notable in stance, that of a small circle of large stones near the Great Circle of Stennis, in Orkney, Scotland, both the ditch and the rampart occur, the latter within the former, and the entire interior area of the circle is raised about three feet higher than the surrounding level.
Besides the circles of standing stones and great boulders, there are also found in the same territory and in Algeria, Syria and north ern Arabia, continuous circles of smaller stones bedded in the ground or resting on the surface. Explorations of the interior area of these cir cles has established the fact that they were used for burying grounds, and from the nature of the contents, the burial urns and the imple ments found beside the graves, Sir John Lub bock has concluded that they belong to the Bronze Age. (See STONEHENGE). But it is to the circles of standing stones that the chief interest attaches; and while it has never been proven that these areas were intended for burying grounds, there seems to be sufficient reason for belief that they were connected with the burial rites of the people who erected them. This theory is borne out by the presence of burial mounds or barrows (known as cairns in Scotland and Ireland) in close proximity to all the larger circles. Indeed in some cases the cairns were surrounded by the circle of stones; as is seen in the great chambered cairn of New Grange in Ireland and in the smaller ones of Clava, near Inverness. Although it is more often the case, the contents of the cairns, particularly of the larger ones, do not always show interments of the Bronze Age. In this latter case there is no incinerary urn contain ing the deposits or over them, and the remains show that there has been no cremation. In like manner many of the stone circles, indeed the great majority of them, show no evidence of tool-work in their building, while the im posts of the outer circle and outer ellipse of give conclusive proof of it.
As a rule the cairns which covered the cre mation interments of the Bronze Age are smaller than those of the preceding period, and the custom of placing the burnt hones in a cavity in the soil, covered only by an in verted urn of clay, dispensed with the cairn altogether, while it retained the circle of stand ing stones as a visible mark or fence of the graveground. In about 20 instances in which there has been systematic excavation of stone circles in Scotland, the examination of the interior 'space has disclosed burials of the Bronze Age mostly after cremation but occa sionally unburnt. The cremated remains were deposited with cinerary urns placed either in an inverted position over the burnt bones or upright and containing the burnt bones, at the bottom of a shallow pit excavated in the sub soil. These cinerary urns exhibit the forms and ornamentation characteristic of the age of bronze. Sometimes the burials have been placed in fists of unhewn slabs of stone, cov ered by small cairns of loose stones, under neath the surface level; at other times the burnt bones of many burials have been found placed in shallow cavities excavated in the soil of the interior area of the circle near the bases of the upright stones. It seems from these circumstances that the common variety of stone circles, as found in Scotland, are ceme teries of the Bronze Age, and while, on the one hand, the difference in the size of the circles of Avebury and Stennis and in the structure and size of Stonehenge may point to a difference in purpose and use, on the other hand, the great size of the circle sur rounding the chambered cairn at New Grange and the objects uncovered by the repair ex cavations at Stonehenge in 1901, seem to show that a great circle also was associated with a sepulchre.
The largest of the Scotch stone circles is that of Stennis, in Orkney. It has a circum ference of 340 feet, enclosing an area of two and one-half acres, and is surrounded by a ditch 30 feet wide. It originally consisted of about 60 pillars, set about 17 feet apart, of an aver age height of about 13 feet. Of these 13 still stand and 10, though prostrate, are intact. The largest stone circle in England is that of Ave bury, in Wiltshire, which consisted of a large outer circle of probably 1,000 stones of from 15 to 17 feet in height and 40 feet in circum ference; this circle was about 1,000 feet in diameter and contained two smaller circles of 350 and 325 feet in diameter respectively. The inner circles each consisted of a double row of stones, a stone pillar 20 feet high occupied the centre of one, and a bowing-stone, or crom lech, that of the other. Surrounding the whole were a broad ditch and a high earth-wall, traversed by an avenue of approach which led toward the southeast for over 1,400 yards. This structure and Stonehenge are considered the most remarkable examples found in England of monuments of megalithic stones. In Nor way and Sweden the few stone circles sys tematically explored have been found to be bur ial places of the Iron Age. They are usually simple circles composed of 8 to 13 stones; occasionally there are two concentric circles, one within the other, the inner circle being sometimes composed of small stones set close together in a ring. Sometimes there is a single pillar stone in the centre of the circle. As a rule they are not remarkable either for the size of the circles themselves or for the massive ness of the stones of which they are composed. Circles of standing stones are rare to the south of the Baltic. See bibliography under SToNE Ezricz. Consult also Dawkins, (Early Man in Britain' (1880).