Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

[893] Rev. celt., xiii, 1892, p. 194. Demeter was worshipped in stone circles in the city of Hermion (Pausanias, ii, 34, § 10).

[894] Cf. Vict. Hist. of ... Cumberland, i, 245, 247, with Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., x, 1884-5, p. 312. Mr. A. L. Lewis (Journ. Anthr. Inst., xv, 1886, p. 479) assumes that in some cases the external object by which the orientation was determined was a mountain.

[895] See Journ. Anthr. Inst., xi, 1882, pp. 3-7, 117-22; xv, 1886, pp. 471-81; xx, 1891, p. 285; xxx, 1900, p. 70; Archaeol. Journal, xlix, 1892, pp. 139, 146; Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornwall, xiii, 1895, pp. 111-2; and Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., xxxiv, 1900, p. 196. Mr. A. L. Lewis, the principal advocate of the solar temple theory, seems to be satisfied with almost any kind of orientation. Thus he tells us that of twenty-one circles which he observed in Southern Britain nineteen ‘had a special reference to the north-east’, that is to the midsummer sunrise: but he maintains that a ‘line due east through the Stannon and Fernacre circles to Brown Willy evidently was meant to indicate the equinoctial sunrise’; and in another case he insists that the object pointed at was the pole star.

Mr. G. F. Tregelles (Vict. Hist. of ... Cornwall, i, 404-5), after making careful investigations with his compass in Cornwall, has arrived at results ‘mainly negative’, and concludes that ‘there is not apparently such evidence of orientation as would satisfy a critical observer’.

Mr. W. C. Lukis, on the other hand (Prehist. Stone Monuments of the Brit. Isles,—Cornwall, p. vi), remarking that circles sometimes occur in groups, asks, ‘if they were temples ... why should the worshippers have been divided into so many different congregations?’ As it is not contended that all circles were solar temples, this argument would obviously apply only to those particular instances; and even with this limitation it is inconclusive. Each circle was probably erected in honour of some one chieftain; and it remains possible that sun-worship may have been practised by his clan. We can hardly suppose that the erection of circles was supervised by a central hierarchy who aimed at economizing labour! See p. 479, infra.

[896] Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vi, 1867, pp. 337-9; xviii, 1884, pp. 319-23; xxix, 1895, p. 302; xxxiii, 1899, p. 363; xxxiv, 1900, pp. 151, 186, 197; xxxv, 1901, pp. 194, 219, 247; xxxvi, 1902, p. 579; xxxvii, 1903, p. 141; xxxviii, 1904, pp. 293-4; xxxix, 1905, pp. 192-5; Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., viii, 1879-81, pp. 291-2, 389-92, 471-2; x, 1884-5, p. 312; J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times,—the Bronze and Stone Ages, pp. 111, 113-4, 116-8; Archaeol. Review, ii, 1889, pp. 313-5; Trans. Devon. Association, xxvii, 1895, p. 442; xxx, 1898, p. 107; xxxv, 1903, p. 142; Journ. Anthr. Inst., xxx, 1900, pp. 57, 67; Trans. Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. and Archaeol. Soc., N. S., ii, 1902, pp. 60-1; Vict. Hist. of ... Cumberland, i, 236 n. 5, 245, 247, 249; Vict. Hist. of ... Derby, i, 183; Vict. Hist. of Cornwall, i, 401; Archaeol. Cambr., 6th ser., vi, 1906, pp. 286-92.

[897] J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times,—the Bronze and Stone Ages, p. 124; Matériaux pour l’hist ... de l’homme, 3^e sér., ii, 1885, pp. 368-70; A. Bertrand and S. Reinach, Les Celtes dans les vallées du Pô et du Danube, 1894, pp. 80-5; W. C. Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland, ii, 507, 644; iii, 720, 728, 753; Comptes rendus ... de l’Acad. des inscr., 1904, pp. 560-4.

[898] See Archaeol. Journal, xlix, 1892, p. 139; Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., xix, 1902, p. 98; and Trans. Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. and Archaeol. Soc., N. S., ii, 1902, p. 60, §§ 5-6.

[899] Mr. G. F. Tregelles (Vict. Hist. of ... Cornwall, i, 404) remarks that ‘the principal English [as distinguished from most Cumbrian and Scottish] circles have never been proved to be’ sepulchral; but neither have they been proved to be non-sepulchral. It is said (Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., xix, 1902, p. 98) that the circle of Sunken Kirk in Westmorland has been subjected to a ‘searching exploration’. Was the whole area excavated? Pitt-Rivers (Excavations in Cranborne Chase, iv, 148), speaking of the fifty two secondary interments which he discovered just outside a barrow at Rushmore (see p. 178, supra) says, ‘They showed no trace whatever on the surface ... and would never have been discovered had it not been for the practice I have established of trenching down to the undisturbed chalk the entire surface of the ground contained within the area of the contoured plan of the Barrow’.

Mr. R. Burnard (Vict. Hist. of ... Devon, i, 359-60) observes that ‘fires seem to have been kindled all over the [Fernworthy] circle, for every scoop of the pick and shovel ... displayed charcoal’, and, remarking that this monument is the ‘predominant feature of a group of sepulchral remains’, conjectures that it was ‘the crematorium or the site of the funeral feasts or both’.