Flagstones: Oldest Prehistoric Circle may be the Blueprint for Stonehenge

Something happened in Britain five and a half thousand years ago, which marked a transition in social and ritual activity we are still piecing together. In a relatively short space of time, the prehistoric peoples of the island decided to go in a different direction with their monolithic building projects.

Out were the long barrows, massive elongated earthworks haunted by the ghosts of dead kings (citation needed). The new thing was circular architecture, and stone and wood and earthen circles began to appear across the landscape of southern Britain. The most famous, of course, is Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

These were certainly not easier to build, nor quicker, and are very large structures in their own right, often exceeding 100 meters across. Untangling this mid-Neolithic transition is the key to understanding the development of ancient ritual, and crucial to our understanding are so called “proto-henges” which represent the very first steps in this new direction.

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In the search for the earliest henges, three sites are of particular importance. These sites are Flagstones in Dorset, the earliest phase of Stonehenge itself, and Llandygái “Henge” A in Gwynedd.

The first of these has been the subject of a new study published in Antiquity. According to the study, this may be the very first monumental circle in Britain, and the prototype for all that came after.

Flagstones is located in Dorset in southwest England and was constructed in an area where the Neolithic peoples already lived. The landscape around is riddled with monumental prehistoric earthworks, some two thousand years in the making.

This new study of the site allows Flagstones to be placed within the chronology of these structures. Using radiocarbon dating of human and animal remains found at the site the team believe that Flagstones was built some two centuries earlier than had been previously thought, around 3200 BC.

This makes it more likely that Flagstones was the first example and led to later henges built in the same style, including a much larger henge in the area built maybe 500 years later, and of course Stonehenge itself. It had been previously thought that Flagstones was built around 2900 BC, given its similarity to the early phase of Stonehenge which is thought to have been built at that time.

The revised dating is based on four burials found during excavations of the site, the cremated remains of an adult and three non-cremated children. Interestingly the burials coincided with the creation of the circular ditched enclosure, but the first earthworks at Flagstones are much older.

Around 3650 BC a series of pits were dug at the site, but all activity here stopped for some 450 years. Only when the site was reoccupied was the circular shape formed. This would allow us to date when they first started building these circles with a degree of accuracy.

So, is this the prototype? Well, it may not be that simple. Now that we’ve redated Flagstones, it may be that we need to look at Stonehenge again too. Perhaps these ancient circles are even older than we thought.

Header Image: The redating of Flagstones means that, for now, it is the earliest prehistoric circle in Britain. Source: Antiquity.