Ireland.

Who built the megaliths, those massive stone structures ranging from tombs to standing stones that date back to over 4000 BC? Why were they built? How were the enormous stones transported and erected? Were these strange, sacred stones used as temples or tombs, sculptures or houses? Covering the best-known sites - Avebury and Stonehenge in England, Carnac in France and Knowth in Ireland - and also less famous examples in Scandinavia, Malta, Egypt and Spain, this book considers the special significance - architectural, scientific, religious and cultural - of these enigmatic Neolithic stone structures.

Winner of Current Archaeology’s Book of the Year Discover the iconic standing stones and prehistoric sites of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland—this comprehensive, coffee table travel guide features over 750 must-see destinations, with maps and color photographs The ultimate insiders’ guide, The Old Stones gives unparalleled insight into where to find prehistoric sites and how to understand them, by drawing on the knowledge, expertise and passion of the archaeologists, theorists, photographers and stones aficionados who contribute to the world’s biggest megalithic website—the Megalithic Portal. Including over 30 maps and site plans and hundreds of color photographs, it also contains scores of articles by a wide range of contributors—from archaeologists and archaeoastronomers to dowsers and geomancers—that will change the way you see these amazing survivals from our distant past. Locate over 1,000 of Britain and Ireland’s most atmospheric prehistoric places, from recently discovered moorland circles to standing stones hidden in housing estates. Discover which sites could align with celestial bodies or horizon landmarks. Explore acoustic, color, and shadow theory to get inside the minds of the Neolithic and Bronze Age people who created these extraordinary places. Find out which sites have the most spectacular views, which are the best for getting away from it all and which have been immortalized in music. And don't forget to visit the Megalithic Portal website and get involved by posting your discoveries online. All royalties from this book go to support the running of the Megalithic Portal: www.megalithic.com.

A Guide to New England Stone Structures is a basic field guide to identifying the many different types of stone structures found while hiking through the forest and conservation lands in New England.

These messages in the standing stones combine and transcend spiritual truths from many disciplines and traditions. They explain the true power sources in our world and provide a design for realigning ourselves with them. The Standing Stones Speak unifies the underlying wisdom of Christianity, Buddhism, and the Sufis. It interprets the lives of the great teachers and recounts the dark history of Atlantis. Linking the chakras, crystals, and earth spirits, redefining reincarnation and forgotten realms of existence both here and on other planets, it promises us a future of tranquility and peace-- children born free of karma on a clean Earth-- the New Jerusalem. Natasha Hoffman knew that she'd been called to Carnac in northern France. An artist, healer, and "intuitive," Hoffman felt welcome in the presence of the mysterious giant monuments that stand there-- the megalithic standing stones set up around the same time as Stonehenge. Walking among these alignments with her companion, Hamilton Hill, she first heard the voice. "This is a library," she said, "and we can read it." So began the "receiving" of the revelations encoded in certain of the standing stones. Sneaking past barriers, eluding gendarmes, encountering a goblin, even working by moonlight, Hoffman and Hill sought out particular stones. Natasha "read" the information held in them, using a pendulum for question-and-answer dowsing to check it. Hamilton, also a dowser, transcribed it using rods. The messages were placed for us, as the two discovered, by the Archangels who watch over our planet. After World War I, seeing that the human race had fallen into profound disharmony with the environment and was becoming dominated by materialism and misuse of technology, these higher beings began to leave us guidelines for restoring the balance within ourselves and between humanity and nature. Readers will be struck by the beauty of the message, its clarity, authority, and compassion. "You are addicted to suffering," the Archangels say, "because you have been made to feel guilty about joy." The message leaves us with renewed hope. With notes on the authors' personal pilgrimages and more than a dozen photographs, The Standing Stones Speak is more than a great adventure; it's a text that may become the New Age Bible.

Reconstructs the history of a Native American tribe over eight turbulent decades of domination and dislocation

In this first-person tale of archaeological adventure in the tropical forest, Jeffrey Quilter tells the story of his excavation of Rivas, a great ceremonial center at the foot of the Talamanca Mountain range, which flourished between A.D. 900 and 1300, and its fabled gold-filled cemetery, the Panteón de La Reina. Beginning with the 1992 field season and ending with the last excavations in 1998, Quilter discusses Rivas’ builders and users, theories on chiefdom societies, and the daily interactions and surprises of modern archaeological fieldwork. Writing in the first person with a balance between informal language and academic theory, Quilter concludes that Rivas was a ceremonial center for mortuary rituals to bury chiefly elite on the Panteón. Through use of his narrative technique, he provides the reader with accounts of discoveries as they occurred in fieldwork and the development of interpretations to explain the ancient refuse and cobble architecture his team uncovered. As his story progresses amid the enchantment of the Costa Rican landscape, research plans are adjusted and sometimes completely overturned as new discoveries, often serendipitous ones, are made. Such changing circumstances lead to new insights into the rise and fall of the people who built the cobble circles and raised the standing stones at Rivas, a thousand years ago. The only book in English that focuses on a single archaeological site in Costa Rica, which continues to develop as a destination for archaeological tourism, Cobble Stones and Standing Circles will appeal to laypeople and professionals alike.

Standing stones come in a variety of guises. Some are erected in circles; some make up megalithic tombs; some have intriguing patterns on them, or are steeped in myth. Long-standing questions include why they were erected and how? What do they tell us about Britain’s cultural history? As a standing stones enthusiast, Steve Marshall has travelled the British Isles to inspect these fascinating monoliths and this guide serves as a comprehensive introduction from the Mesolithic to the Iron Ages. Stonehenge and Avebury are possibly the most famous sites in Britain, but the Standing Stones of Callanish on the Isle of Lewis also have a magical quality; and at the Ness of Brodgar, a Neolithic complex has recently been uncovered by archaeologists. With accompanying photographs taken by the author, this accessible guide to standing stones in Britain will tell you all you need to know.

The revelations received by the authors as they read the stones make up a New Age Bible for today.