Standing Stones of Britain

Stonehenge

Built around 3,000 B.C. by the earliest inhabitants of Britain, Stonehenge is the most impressive structure surviving from Neolithic Europe.  From above it is clear that originally it was a circular ring of stone pillars, and, although the exact purpose of the structure is unknown, it was surely a temple of some sort associated with religious rites.  At the time of the summer solstice the rays of the sun enters the center of the ring through two stone columns and over a stone (the head stone) placed some distance away.  Although some have suggested that the structure is a sophisticated computational device capable of predicting eclipses, most scholars consider the evidence for this is, at best, inconclusive.

Avebury

Although the most impressive, Stonehenge is not the only standing stone monument in Britain.  Indeed, such structures are common in both Britain and Ireland.  Only a short distance away from Stonehenge (short by modern standards) is the stone circle of Avebury.  From the images above it can be seen that this is a more primitive example of Neolithic stonework.  Here the stones have not been finished into rectangular slabs, as at Stonehenge, but simply set into the ground more or less "as is".  Although not as sophisticated in appearance as Stonehenge, Avebury was built somewhat later, somewhere around 2500 B.C.  Whether or not the stones were placed with astronomical alignments in mind is not known.