'The Rollright Stones' by author Aubrey Burl - British archaeologist best known for his studies into megalithic monuments and the nature of prehistoric rituals associated with them.
"Harry Aubrey Woodruff Burl FSA HonFSA Scot (24 September 1926 – 8 April 2020) was a British archaeologist best known for his studies into megalithic monuments and the nature of prehistoric rituals associated with them. Before retirement he was Principal Lecturer in Archaeology, Hull College, East Riding of Yorkshire. Burl received a volume edited in his honour.[ He was called by The New York Times, "the leading authority on British stone circles"."
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"the name of Aubrey Burl stands paramount. Before 1976 there were few published works of any consequence on stone circles, but the publication of his Stone Circles of the British Isles that year changed everything. It certainly kindled my enthusiasm, as it did for many.
Aubrey Burl became a patron of the Rollright Trust in the late 1990s and was our guest of honour at the opening of our site extension in 2005. The whole of the long first chapter of Burl’s Great Stone Circles (1999) was devoted to the Rollright Stones: “Some forty strides across, the ring consists of a few tall standing stones and many stumps and lumps of leprous limestone”. Regarding the famous myths, he wrote “There may be frailties of truth in such whimsies, folk-memories fragile as cobwebs, so faint that they are almost undetectable, faded distortions of associations with water, of seasonal assemblies, celebrations”. He went on to review the evolving views of the Rollright Stones from medieval times up to the present day. He had a (rather dubious) theory that the King Stone was a signpost for people coming up from Long Compton. Burl highlighted Rollright’s similarity to other ‘Cumbrian’ circles such as Swinside (to which he devoted the final chapter of the book). He kindly allowed us to reproduce the Rollright chapter as a booklet (somewhat customised), and this became one of our first items of merchandise at the Stones. In the early days we also sold large numbers of his little ‘Shire’ books Prehistoric Stone Circles and Prehistoric Astronomy and Ritual.
Dr Aubrey Burl FSA was modest and quite shy, and he preferred to stay out of the limelight. There appear to be no recorded interviews or broadcasts with him, and few photographs. Educated at London and Leicester, he was formerly Principal Lecturer in Archaeology at Hull College of Further Education, taking early retirement in 1980 to devote his time to megalithic studies. Friendly and approachable, he enjoyed meeting fellow enthusiasts. Unlike many of his peers, he was happy to talk to ley-line hunters, dowsers, and pagans, though he didn’t necessarily agree with their beliefs. He rejected the fashionable ‘observatories for astronomer-priests’ theory and speculated freely on the nature of the rituals that were more likely to have taken place at these sites. Burl’s scepticism of the ideas of his contemporary Alexander Thom has been supported by subsequent work, though his firm belief that the bluestones were transported to Stonehenge by glaciation has not. The archaeological community paid their respects by publishing a volume of essays in Burl’s honour, Prehistoric Ritual and Religion, in 1998.
Musicians, artists, and film-makers have written tributes to Burl, and indeed Burl himself once said that “I believe, heretically, that archaeology is not a science but a branch of the humanities, and that poetry is every bit as important to the prehistorian as physics”. In his 70s his interests and writings spread widely, covering Roman poetry, Welsh pirates, French heretics, and Shakespeare’s mistress.
His full name was Harry Aubrey Woodruff Burl, and one can’t help wondering why he chose the ‘Aubrey’. Aubrey was an old name for Avebury, and the first serious student of stone circles (in the 17th century) was John Aubrey....
Aubrey Burl spent his final years in a care home and died there on 8th April 2020 at the age of 93, with remarkably little notice outside the world of prehistorians and megalith enthusiasts. He leaves a son, Geoffrey. He will be much missed, not least by those of us at the Rollright Trust."
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