Timber circle

In archaeology, timber circles are circular arrangements of wooden posts interpreted as being either complexes of freestanding totem poles or as the supports for large circular buildings.

Timber circles in the British Isles date to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. The posts themselves have long since disappeared and the sites are identified from the circles of postholes that they stood in. Aerial photography and geophysical survey have led to the discovery of increasing numbers of the features. Often a postpipe survives in the posthole fill aiding diagnosis.

They are usually more than 20 metres (66 ft), and up to 60 metres (200 ft), in diameter and the posts that constituted them were generally more than 50 centimetres (20 in) wide. Technically, they always consist of at least two concentric circles or ovals of timbers although there are variations on the rule such as the monuments of Seahenge and Arminghall, both in East Anglia which are often described as being timber circles.

Wider gaps between the posts are thought to have served as entrance routes. The builders replaced the posts as they decomposed and in some cases stone circles were adopted instead during later phases.

They appear either alone or in the context of other monuments, namely henges, such as that at Woodhenge and henge enclosures such as those at Durrington Walls. The only excavated examples of timber circles that stood alone from other features are Seahenge and Arminghall in Norfolk and the early phases of The Sanctuary in Wiltshire.

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