found scattered over the moors and hilltops in the south of England, in Wales and Cumberland, as well as in Scotland, are to be looked upon as the parish churches and chapels of ease. It has been urged by Mr. Fergusson, in his interesting work on Rude Stone Monuments, that these circles are merely tombs. Even if we allow that they originally were tombs in every case, it does not follow that they have not also been temples, for the religious sentiment has in all ages and in all places tended to centre in tombs which ultimately have become places of worship. Many of our Christian churches have originated in this manner, and it is a most obvious transition from the tomb to the temple. The worship of the spirits of the dead at the one would naturally grow into the worship of the Great Unknown in the other. Probably the idea of both large and small circles sprang originally from the stones placed round the base of the circular hut, which was the usual habitation in the Prehistoric period.
Stone circles are to be found over the greater part of Europe and Asia, as well as in northern Africa, and they have been used as places of burial, worship, or assembly by various peoples. Their archæological date in each case can only be fixed by the remains in and around them.[1]
The large standing-stones or menhirs, by no means uncommon where large blocks of stone are easily obtained, may belong to the Neolithic as well as to the Bronze age, and have been objects of worship like the unwrought stone at Hyettos, adored by the Greeks as Herakles, or that taken for the Thespian Eros in
- ↑ For an interesting account of the distribution of circles, see Fergusson, Rude Stone Monuments.
