A monumental legacy: Aubrey Burl and The Stone Circles of the British Isles

This year marks a century since the birth of the pioneering prehistorian Aubrey Burl, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of his landmark study The Stone Circles of the British Isles, which is often considered the foundational work on the subject. To reflect these milestones, Neil Mortimer offers an overview of how the book came into being – and the occasionally unconventional approach of its author.

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Current Archaeology

May 4, 2026

Aubrey Burl at the Devil’s Den, a Neolithic dolmen near Marlborough, Wiltshire. In CA 55 (February 1976), a review of Aubrey Burl’s The Stone Circles of the British Isles hailed the work as ‘scholarly book of the year, at least for prehistorians’ – no small praise, particularly given that Burl (1926- 2020) had not originally intended to study megalithic monuments. While he had been casually interested in prehistory since the 1950s, it wasn’t until 1965 that he embarked on more formal studies, beginning a part-time MA in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. His research had a somewhat rocky start as, during discussions of potential subjects that he could pursue, both Bur

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