Large stone next to excavated rectangle area
Researchers found evidence of a ceremonial platform next to the Farley Moor standing stone, which measures roughly 6.5 feet tall. Time Team
Amateur archaeologist George Bird had long been fascinated with an ancient stone standing upright in the woods near his home in England. However, the 24-year-old student had recently started to wonder what other historic treasures the forest might be hiding.
His curiosity paid off. Archaeologists have discovered that the stone is part of a larger Bronze Age ceremonial complex that dates back to around 1700 B.C.E.
The site, which is located near the town of Matlock in the county of Derbyshire, is more than 3,700 years old.
The discovery was featured on a recent episode of “Time Team,” a popular British archaeology series.
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“It’s just fantastic now finding out that this has all been confirmed, [that] those peculiar rocks are in fact a larger monument,” Bird tells BBC News’ Heidi Booth.
Measuring roughly 6.5 feet tall, the Farley Moor standing stone was long thought to be an isolated monument. But at Bird’s insistence, researchers recently explored the area surrounding the stone.
They discovered that the stone had been intentionally placed atop a natural spring. Water from the site feeds into Bentley Brook, which flows into the Derwent River.
Overhead view of two stones near some grass
Five other nearby stones were once standing and formed an oval. Time Team
In addition, they found evidence of a ceremonial platform next to the stone. The platform predates the stone, which suggests “continuous ritual use of this site over hundreds of years, strongly linked to the water and the importance it held for Bronze Age communities,” says Lawrence Shaw, the lead historic environment advisor for Forestry England, the government agency that manages England’s public forests, in a statement.
They also investigated five nearby stones and determined that they, too, used to be standing upright. Together, the stones had once formed an oval measuring roughly 82 feet by 75 feet.
“We knew that this stone was here, but we had absolutely no idea of the potential for the bigger monument that we ended up discovering,” Shaw tells BBC News. As he says in the “Time Team” episode, “It’s just a perfect example of what a small, discrete team of experts can do with a specific question.”
Overview of archaeology site with grass and trees
Amateur archaeologist George Bird had a hunch about the site in Derbyshire. Time Team
Forestry England protects 1,500 public forests and woods across England, which are home to more than 100,000 archaeological sites and monuments. Now, land managers can add the newly discovered stone circle to that list.
The Derbyshire ceremonial site also joins the growing list of Bronze Age stone circles spread across the Peak District in central-northern England. So far, archaeologists have documented 25 stone circles in that part of the country, which “highlights the impact of Bronze Age ritual life far beyond headline sites like Stonehenge,” says Derek Pitman, an archaeologist and anthropologist at England’s Bournemouth University, in the statement.
Next summer, archaeologists hope to return to study the site in greater detail.
“It’s a dream come true to get to work on such a significant prehistoric monument,” Pitman adds.