Table of Contents

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)

About the Author

Colin Richards is Professor of World Prehistory in the Deaprtment of Archaeology at the University of Manchester where he mainly specialises in Neolithic archaeology, architecture and monumentality and ethnoarchaeology, with specific interests in Orkney and Easter Island.

Reviews

"The book provides a detailed account of the stone circles of Scotland, demonstrating their importance for a wider understanding of the British Neolithic. It is extremely well written and an engaging read. It skilfully weaves together the results of fieldwork and excavation, with complex theoretical discussion. To my mind, this is an exemplary example of archaeological writing at its best. And it is well illustrated with a wide selection of both drawings and photographs...This is a wonderful book and whilst it may not replace Burls' encyclopaedic work on stone circles, it stands comfortably alongside this earlier work as a significant contribution to the study of these most enigmatic of prehistoric monuments" -- Gary Robinson Landscape History an important and engaging study. -- British Archaeology British Archaeology seen as one of the most significant recent books on Scottish prehistory, and probably the best book yet written on stone circles. -- Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society