The megalithic gem of Moel Tŷ Uchaf ('Bare Hill of the Highest House') for today's #StandingStoneSunday
A Bronze Age cairn circle in a fantastic location in the foothills of Y Berwynau mountains overlooking the Dee valley. On a clear day there are wonderful views of Eryri/Snowdonia, but on this visit views were reduced to a hundred metres or so by cold hill fog.
Dunchraigaig cairn in Kilmartin Glen Scotland. Bronze age about 4000 -5000 years old. “Excavations in the 1800s found remains of up to 10 people in one cist. Dug directly into the ground and capped with a massive 3.9m stone”. In 2021 it was revealed that Scotland’s earliest animal carvings had been discovered inside the cairn, of two male red deer’s. #TombTuesday#BronzeAge#PreHistory#cairn
Aviemore cairn and stone circle in the Scottish Highlands. A monument of the 'Clava' type, a kerb of stones enclosing a (now gone) burial cairn, with a surrounding stone circle. It's in a little suburban street now, but has views towards the Cairngorms.
Long shadows for today's #StandingStoneSunday the fabulous Boswens menhir on the West Penwith moors.
The stone is very asymmetrical and looks different from every angle. If you walk along the Tinner's Way below it, the stone appears as a tall figure on the skyline, which turns to watch you as you pass.
It's intervisible with the marvellous Chûn Quoit Neolithic tomb.
This visit on a beautiful autumn day, November 2010.
A 10 mile, 6000 year bimble along the Cotswolds escarpment between Stroud and Dursley today. Three Neolithic long barrows, including the wondrous Hetty Pegler's Tump, a Bronze Age cairn and an Iron Age hillfort, with 4 hills (Tumps) thrown in for added exertion and heat.
Orthostat on top of An Sithean chambered cairn on the Isle of Skye for today's #StandingStoneSunday
Located at the foot of the Red Cuillin mountains, the tomb has an amazing setting and backdrop. The mountain on right, Beinn na Caillich, has a large Bronze Age cairn in its summit.
A terrific stone circle in Dartmoor's inner space for today's #StandingStoneSunday - White Moor (sometimes called Little Hound Tor) stone circle, a spacious ring with a 6 foot outlier.
In #folklore the stones are a huntsman and his hounds, turned to stone for hunting on the Sabbath (makes a change from the usual 'dancing on the Sabbath' tales).
Visited on a scorching hot and thankfully dry underfoot St George's Day, April 2011.
One of the holed stones on Kenidjack Common, West Penwith for today's #StandingStoneSunday offering.
There are five holed stones here (with possible remains of a sixth), upright slabs of hard Cornish granite with a hole bored through by hand tools in the Bronze Age. They stand on the Moor near Tregeseal stone circle.
One of the most well-known megaliths in South Wales for #StandingStoneSunday - the wonderful Maen Llia, in the heart of Fforest Fawr between Fan Nedd and Fan Llia. Portrait, needs a click.
This visit on a traverse of the range from Storey Arms to Glyn Tawe, February 2011.
Ormaig rock carvings near Kilmartin, Argyll, Scotland, ca. 5000 years old.
Kilmartin Glen is described as #Scotland’s richest prehistoric landscape. There is an incredible concentration of #Neolithic and #BronzeAge rock carvings in and around Kilmartin Glen. The most common motifs are cups, surrounded by up to seven rings, but there are also zig-zags, lines and an unusual horned spiral. #archaeology
Archaeologists in Britain have unearthed a “remarkable” Roman villa while working on a housing development. The area near Wantage, Oxfordshire, is described as “artifact-rich,” and the group of scientists have found the remnants of a structure that dates from the first century along with coins, jewelry, axes, and even a floor-heating system. Read more about the find from the BBC.
In the last few days, in between teaching & writing, I visited two more Nuraghic sites near Siddi dating from the Bronze Age, on a slight high plane above the fertile lowlands of Sardinia: one corridor-shaped (not the usual beehive dome style) at Sa Fogaia; one “giant’s tomb” called Sa Domu ‘e S’Orcu (i.e. house of the orcs!). Both practically empty in April & open to visitors to climb around and inside. Extraordinary places! #StandingStoneSunday#BronzeAge#History#Nuraghe#Sardinia#Sardegna
Complete Bronze Age town with elite tombs discovered in northern China (www.livescience.com)
The site is one of the largest ever discovered dating from China's early Shang Dynasty.