He said that archaeologists have detected, via satellite photos, what appear to be cairns and stone circles in other areas, including the deserts of Jordan and Israel. This particular stone structure has three chambers and was probably the burial place for “the most important person.” In the front of the tomb are the remains of a stone circle. Beaghmore (Bheitheach Mhór), meaning ‘big place of birch trees’ was once a dense woodland before being cleared by Neolithic farmers. Work started on this super stone circle around 5,000 years ago in the late Neolithic Age – but it took over 1,000 years to build, in four long stages! Some say that it is the last remaining standing stone from a stone circle, and was undoubtedly erected some 5,000 years ago. 4500 BC. Dr. Mason has a strong background in geology, and knew immediately that these could not be natural features. The circle can be found in a field close to the village of Mynachlog-ddu in the Preselli Hills, and can be accessed via a footpath. Other stone circles and monuments scattered around suggest similar phenomena, with the great tomb at Newgrange, in Ireland, only allowing light into the center during the winter solstice. He said that stone structures are found throughout the world, pointing to the dolmens found in East Asia. It is thought that in Western Europe megalithic construction involving the use of stone only dates back as far as ca. Mason explained that local flint is white or dark red, but the material they found is “very good quality brown chert.”. This was a time when communities had already settled into a … Banning said that while burials have been found in Neolithic settlements, “Those burials are not high enough in number to account for the number of people who must have died in those settlements. This one, about 1.9 miles (3 km) from Stonehenge, had strange pits that were once thought to be natural landscape features. However, he admits that most of these things have not received a lot of archaeological investigation. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Prof. Banning also said that Mason’s site may not be entirely unique in the Near and Middle East. DAVID NIELD. The Whispering Knights project - Neolithic Echoes, is an ephemeral, ever-changing environmental and aesthetic project near the Whispering Knights Dolmen & Rollright Stone Circle in Oxfordshire. The monk who travelled with him sensed that this high outcrop would have been of great importance to the people who lived here. The earliest circles were erected around five thousand years ago during the [[Neolithic]] period and may have evolved from earlier burial mounds which often covered timber or stone mortuary houses. These probably represented a development of the earlier monuments, with some of them representing a religious focus for many miles around – sites like Stonehenge perhaps even drew people from hundreds of kilometres away. This particular stone structure has three chambers and was probably the burial place for “the most important person.” In the front of the tomb are the remains of a stone circle. New research into Neolithic stone circles on the Scottish islands of Orkney has revealed they were the party hotspots of the end of the Stone Age – places where people met to find partners, celebrate the summer and winter solstices, and pay tribute to the dead. “We’ve found something that’s never been found in the Middle East before.”. That situation is about to change. “It’s such an important hypothesis if it’s right that it’s worth telling people about now,” said Mason. They didn’t live in settlements larger than a village.