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Welcome to the History Extra Podcast, Fascinating Historical Conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine.

If you've ever visited one of the many pre-histidates, History magazine.

If you've ever visited one of the many prehistoric stone circles that dot the landscape

of Britain and Ireland, you've probably come away with lots of questions. How were they built? When were they built? Why were they

built? And what on earth were they for? Well in this everything you wanted to know

episode we've got the answers for you, or at least some of them.

As Professor Vicky Cummings considers the big questions about prehistoric stone circles

with David Musgrove.

Today I am joined by Professor Vicky Cummings, who is Professor of Neolithic Archaeology

at the University of Cardiff and author with Professor Colin Richards of Stone Circles, a Field Guide, published by Yale University Press.

And today we are going to be talking about Stone Circles.

So Vicky, can we start with the opening question, the obvious one, what is a prehistoric Stone Circle? So a Stone. the

obvious one, what is a prehistoric stone circle?

So a stone circle, quite simply, is a circle of stones.

So for the most part, the stones are quite tall and thin, and they tend to be set upright so they're

standing vertically and they are in a circle it doesn't have to be a perfect

circle it can be an ellipse or egg-shaped, but it is quite simply a circle of stones.

Okay, so the clues and the names there.

However, the most famous stone circle that people know of is stone hench.

...