stone circles

Talking About Old Stones

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I had the very real privilege of presenting a paper at The Lithic Gathering organised by the wonderful Scholars of the Stones research group on Friday May 16.

There was a truly inspiring range of multidisciplinary responses, covering ritualistic practices, sensory investigation through sound, film and haptic interpretation, the reframing of narratives surrounding sacred stone structures, and artistic and aesthetic reframing through storytelling and architecture.

Drawing on work in post-processual and cognitive archaeology, my own paper – ’This is Our Place: Narrative and Interpretation at the Callanish Standing Stones’ explored the different narratives and interpretations surrounding the complex at Calanais on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, suggesting that the monuments are a product of cosmological modelling as well as local identity.

A symposium is always a temporary community bringing different scholars and practitioners together through shared themes, but this felt like something broader and deeper – a day as much about time and connection and empathy as it was about stone. It was great to feel among friends and to play a small part in such a thought provoking day.

The Lithic Gathering is part of The Stones Project at Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy’s School of Gothic Studies and is led by Dr Fiona Barber with Drs Beccy Kennedy-Shtyk, Hannah Singleton and Martha Lineham.

The Lithic Gathering

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Shifting Temporalities and Mythologies of Ritual Stone Structures

Anyone vaguely familiar with my writing and work will have correctly guessed that I have more than a passing interest in stone circles, and more widely, our ancient sacred connections to the landscape. So, it might come as no surprise to learn that I’m more than a little excited to be presenting at the upcoming Lithic Gathering Symposium at Manchester Metropolitan University next month.

The symposium is organised by The Stones Project, part of MMU’s Visual Culture research group. The research collective examines how ‘we represent and experience ancient and modern British and Irish standing stones and ritual stone structures in their contemporary contexts, through a sensory and embodied research approach.’

The symposium gathers scholars and artists responding to standing stones in various ways, with presentations that explore how ‘these structures – and/or the materiality of the stone/the lithic itself – merges, redefines or shifts historical and mythological narratives in relation to their manifestations within global visual cultures and artistic practices.’

(The Stones Project, 2025)

My own presentation is based around a paper stemming from my PhD by practice research and an extended visit to Lewis in 2022.

‘This is Our Place: Narrative and Interpretation at the Callanish Standing Stones’ explores the various competing narratives and interpretations that surround the stones, touching on archaeology, folklore, literature and mythology. It argues that the stones represent a model of cosmological belief as well as a symbol of local identity, highlighting the relationships between the monument, the lunar standstill, the surrounding landscape and the use and significance of quartz in the monument’s design.

Tickets for the event, and a full programme of speakers and presentations can be found at the eventbrite link below:

The Lithic Gathering

The Don: A Sacred River

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“Ian Grosz takes the reader on a journey, often on foot, to the half-hidden spiritual locales of the Don. Replete with historical and archaeological resonance, his journey through road, trail, stream and field is an elemental dance of often elusive elements. Spiritual faith as a palimpsest of earth, rock, water and culture remains a central theme as he leads us through histories of Gaelic saints, Pictish stones, cairns and Aberdeenshire stone circles with their distinctive recumbent stone. Places of transformation and spirituality are never far away from the divine river. The ancient goddess endures in a looping and recursive movement that exists differently from linear formulations of time and space.”

Neil Curtis and Jo Jones, Introduction, Four Rivers, Deep Maps, pp. 21-22.

The book Four Rivers: Deep Maps was published by UWAP and had an official launch early in Nov. There will be a second launch in the UK in the first quarter of 2023. The book has a diverse range of creative and scholarly responses to the two regions of Perth, WA, and Aberdeenshire. My own contribution is reviewed here by Neil Curtis in the book’s introduction:

UK stockists may be available next year, but if that’s piqued your interest, you can order the book directly from the publishers. Click on the image to go direct to UWAP for this and their other titles.

Scotland Outdoors

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Back in March 2022 I was invited to talk with Helen Needham of BBC Radio Scotland about place, about time, and my approach to the landscape. We took a walk up an often over-looked hill in Aberdeenshire that has been the focus and the start-point of my writing about landscape and how it shapes us. In this episode you can join us as we explore the hill and its histories, and listen to the conversation that resulted.

Download the podcast here.

Or you can listen to it on BBC Radio Sounds.