Of all prehistoric monuments, few are more emotive than the great stone circles that were built throughout Britain and Ireland. From the tall, elegant, pointed monoliths of the Stones of Stenness to the grandeur of Stonehenge and the sarsen blocks at Avebury, circles of stone exert a magnetic fascination to those who venture into their sphere. In Britain today, more people visit these structures than any other form of prehistoric monument and visitors stand in awe at their scale and question how and why they were erected. Building the Great Stone Circles of the North looks at the enigmatic stone structures of Scotland and investigates the background of their construction and their cultural significance.
Part 1 Building the great stone circles of the North
1. Interpreting Stone Circles (Colin Richards)
2. Monuments in the making: the stone circles of Western Scotland (Colin Richards & Joanna Wright)
Part 2 Stone circles in Orkney
3. Wrapping the hearth: constructing house societies and the tall Stones of Stenness, Orkney (Colin Richards)
4. Investigating the great Ring of Brodgar, Orkney (Jane Downes, Colin Richards, John Brown, A. J. Cresswell, R. Ellen, A.D. Davies, Allan Hall, Robert McCulloch, David C. W. Sanderson & Ian A. Simpson)
5. Monumental risk: megalithic quarrying at Staneyhill and Vestra Fiold, Mainland, Orkney (Colin Richards, John Brown, Siân Jones, Allan & Tom Muir)
6. Surface over substance: the Vestra Fiold horned cairn, Mainland, Setter cairn, Eday, and a reappraisal of late Neolithic funerary architecture (Colin Richards, Jane Downes, Ellen Hambleton, Rick Perterson, and Joshua Pollard)
Part 3 Stone circles in the Outer Hebrides
7. The peristalith and the context of Calanais: transformational architecture in the Hebridean early Neolithic (Vicki Cummings & Colin Richards)
8. Erecting stone circles in a Hebridean landscape (Colin Richards, Adrian Challands & Kate Welham)
9. Expedient monumentality: Na Dromannan and the high stone circles of Calanais, Lewis (Colin Richards, George Demetri, Charles French, Robert Nunn, Rebecca Rennell, Mairi Robertson & Lee Wellerman)
10. The sanctity of crags: mythopraxis, transformation and the Calanais low circles (Colin Richards)
11. A time for stone circles, a time for new people (Colin Richards & Seren Griffiths)
12. Constructing through discourse: the folklore of stone circles and standing stones (Tom Muir & Colin Richards)
