Location – Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides. Near Stornoway (58° 12' 12" North, 6° 45' 25" West)

Description - (Standing Stones, Circle, Cairn NB213330*)

This site dates from about 4,000 B.P, but precise dates and proven functions have been hard to establish. Callanish I consists of a 13.1 x 11.3m (43 x 37 ft) circle of 13 gneiss stones. In the middle is another stone (4.75m/15 ft 6 in). Four  avenues lead away, with single rows of stones to the east, south and west, and a double row just east of north. Had all the rows been completed, their axial alignments would have converged at the centre stone. The Stone is all local Lewissean gneiss. It is probable that the Circle was meant to be a concentric, and similar to the despoiled ‘Broomend of Critchie’ in Aberdeenshire.

Inside the circle are the remains of a chambered round cairn of Neolithic type, within which human bones were found, but archaeologists are undecided whether this was built before or after the stone circle and stone rows.

The stoneswere buried in peat up to about 5 ft high before they were cleared in the year 1857. There are several elements to the site. A ring of large stones about 12 metres in diameter encloses a huge monolith at its centre. Also in the middle of the ring are the remains of a chambered cairn, revealed when the peat was cut away. As the cairn appears to have been added to the circle, and chambered cairns are considered to be Neolithic in date, it seems clear that the site in general is also Neolithic. (Standing stones and stone circles elsewhere are often stated to be Bronze age, but without dating or stratigraphical evidence. Some are just as likely to be of stone age date).

Alignments - . Professor Alexander Thom finds that looking south along the line of the stone avenue gives the point at which midsummer full moon sets behind Clisham.

Running north from the stone circle are two parallel lines of stones forming an avenue about 80 metres long. There are now 19 stones in the avenue. Any visitor entering the site from the north will feel impelled to walk up this avenue to the circle, although this is now discouraged.

Also running from the circle are single lines of stones to the east (4 stones), west (4) and south (6). In plan, the site has the form of a cross.

Much work has been done over the last 80 years on the astronomical orientations built in to the monument at Callanish, some of which are still controversial. Boyle Somerville suggested in 1913 that the northern avenue was positioned to indicate the rising of the star Capella about 3,800 B.P. He pointed out that the west row indicates the setting sun at the two equinoxes. He also suggested that a line between the two stones outside the circle (to the north-east and south-west) indicated the moon at its maximum (major standstill). This was the first time a surveyor introduced evidence for a lunar line for any prehistoric site in Scotland.

More recently researchers have suggested that the avenue should be viewed as pointing south, to the position of the setting southern moon at the major standstill, though the horizon is blocked by the rocky knoll to the south of the site. The southern line of stones together with the large monolith in the centre of the circle has a bearing of 180.1°, and is an accurate indicator of the meridian, true north-south³. Such a line indicates to the north the 'pole' around which the stars of the night sky appear to revolve, and to the south the highest position the sun and moon attain in the sky on any day.

Tradition - A tradition still current in the twentieth century called for all the fires on the island of Lewis to be extinguished on My first (Beltane). Priest's then started a new ire and distribute it to any people within the circle. This suggests an association with the sun-god Baal (Bel). Other traditions explain the presence of these stones by saying that when giants of old who then lived on the island refused to be Christianised, St.Kieran turned them to stone. Another local belief of this Gaelic-speaking community was that when the sun rose on midsummer morn, the 'shining one' walked along the stone avenue, his arrival heralded by the cuckoo's call. This could be a remnant of the astronomical significance of the Callanish stones.