Amazing as is the bulk which has been written about the Druids, their
beliefs, knowledge, and ethics, it seems even more remarkable that so
much should have been said to connect them with the building of the
stone circles which they are credited with having constructed as
astronomical observatories and temples. As has already been indicated,
Stonehenge belongs to an epoch far earlier than any Druidism of which
record remains. This fact rests upon the evidence of both the
archaeologist and the astronomer. It is, therefore, not a little
puzzling that Sir Norman Lockyer, after fixing the date of Stonehenge
at about 1700 B.C., should cite the Druids and their late Celtic cult
in dealing with a monument which, on his own showing, was built in
early Bronze times. There must exist a very wide gap of anything from
seven hundred to a thousand years between the "May Year" Druids of
whom he writes, and the builders of Stonehenge, and an interval
possibly as great or even greater between Stonehenge and Avebury and
those other north-east and south-east temples to which he attributes a
Druidic form of worship. It is even a matter of grave question if the
race who built the Stone Circles was not entirely different to the
late Celtic inhabitants of the plain. Avebury has been classed as a
Neolithic monument, built by the "long-headed" race whose remains are
usually found in the Long Barrows; Stonehenge belongs to a bronze
period, but at a very early date in that culture; its builders would
probably belong to the round-headed type of man whose barrows are
studded very closely round about it.
THE BARROWS OF SALISBURY PLAIN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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