Cremlyn South Standing Stone

Britain and Ireland are rich in standing stones; the Atlas records many hundreds. Together with Brittany they hold about 50,000 examples across the Atlantic fringe of Europe, and many stand singly in fields. In Ireland they are usually in farmers' fields and are heavily worn by weather and by livestock rubbing against them. The stones are usually difficult to date. They were put up in many periods of prehistory as part of the wider megalithic cultures, and any single stone may be Neolithic, Bronze Age or later. Theories about their purpose remain speculative: rituals, territorial markers, or markers in a system of belief. The regional background, “British and Irish standing stones”, is given below.

No scientific date has been published for this site. Monuments of this type in United Kingdom are generally dated 2800 BCE to 1800 BCE; the site itself may fall inside or outside that range.

Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.