Stone Circles in Aberdeenshire

[arianrhod]

Sadly I can't drive but I live near two yeah TWO ;D stone circles.....Aikey Brae and the one near Inverurie (East Aquhorthies stone circle)....I want to visit them as I feel drawn to them

[Craig]

Ach! Henges are not important. They're really just distractions for hapless hippies.

Get out on the land and sit under a Blackthorn, far more magic there

Blessings,

[arianrhod]

I live in an old wood if that helps? LOL LOL LOL

But I feel oddly connected to a stone circle......I think there is something there though......I live in a town or even go to the beach on banff just up the road

[Brochfael]

There's some interesting stuff coming out of theoretical archaeology (notably Mike Parker Pearson) regarding henges, timber circles and stone circles.

Henges are particularly interesting since the ditch is inside the bank (hence Stonehenge isn't a true henge). Defensive ramparts have the ditch outside so one interpretation is that they are built to keep something in (perhaps something nasty!). Alternatively A henge could have served similarly to an amphitheatre with people sat along the bank, separated from the action within by the ditch. A third interpretation is that the bank shuts off teh horizon, creating an artificial one thus setting the space in the middle apart visually from the rest of the landscape.

I'd be very interested as to what all of you think about these theories

[Midori]

Avebury's ditch is inside the bank too, so it wouldn't have been a defensive earthwork, (unless, as Broch says, it was to keep the spirits inside the henge!)

[littleraven]

brochfael said:

There's some interesting stuff coming out of theoretical archaeology (notably Mike Parker Pearson) regarding henges, timber circles and stone circles.

Henges are particularly interesting since the ditch is inside the bank (hence Stonehenge isn't a true henge). Defensive ramparts have the ditch outside so one interpretation is that they are built to keep something in (perhaps something nasty!). Alternatively A henge could have served similarly to an amphitheatre with people sat along the bank, separated from the action within by the ditch. A third interpretation is that the bank shuts off teh horizon, creating an artificial one thus setting the space in the middle apart visually from the rest of the landscape.

I'd be very interested as to what all of you think about these theories

In the trend to try and find spiritual explanations for things (i.e. to keep the spirits in), we tend to overlook the likelihood that people were just as pragmatic and self-interested as we are. In a society that has a level of organisation that can actually build such things, it is without doubt that there is an 'elite' of some kind, warrior or priesthood. It's likely that this elite would not have wanted the average person to be in the centre of things, so they could do the necessary mediation with the Gods.

Personally, I favour the idea it seperates what is happening inside from the general populace outside.