Scottish stone circle isn’t so ancient after all, archaeologists say

Enlarge (credit: Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology)
The strange saga of a supposedly prehistoric monument in a Scottish farmer’s field came full circle this week. Archaeologists announced two weeks ago that they’d discovered a 3,500- to 4,500-year-old stone circle standing in a farmer’s field outside the town of Alford, 40km (25 miles) west of Aberdeen. In a surprising twist this week, the circle turned out to actually be the work of the local farmer who owned the land in the 1990s.
“It is totally OK to laugh at this story. We all have!” archaeologist Neil Ackerman of Aberdeen Council Archaeology told Ars Technica in an email. “While on the surface this is a humorous story about us getting it initially wrong, it is an example of how archaeological research is carried out and that initial interpretations end up changing as new information comes along.”
If it seems too good to be true...
The ten large stones—each about a meter (3.3 feet) tall—stand in a 7.7-meter-wide circle overlooking the surrounding countryside. They certainly look like the work of the ancient Celts, somehow remarkably untouched after thousands of years. On the southwest side of the circle, one large stone lies on its side between two standing stones, a design common to stone circles in the area, known as recumbent stone circles. Archaeologists are still debating the reason for that alignment, but it’s unique to northeast Scotland and southwest Ireland.
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