Lost Bronze Age stone circle used for ancient rituals uncovered in Gloucestershire by laser scanning

: "Nobody knows precisely what they were used for. Some have been found in association with burials, and often there appear to be residues of charcoal in places like this, suggesting rituals that involved fire."

Circular structures like this are thought to have been common in other areas such as Derbyshire and Wales.

The Gloucestershire ring cairn is about 80 feet wide and the circle rubble bank around it is 16 feet thick.

At least 10 white limestone standing stones have been observed standing on top of the ring and they are no more than one metre high.

This makes them much smaller than the standing stones at Stonehenge.

Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, was constructed between 3000 and 2000 BC and has a ring of standing stones that measure around 13 feet high and seven feet wide.

However, Hoyle highlighted that not all Bronze Age stone rings used large stones and that Gloucestershire's suspected ritual circle may have had a greater emphasis put on its rubble bank.

Mr Hoyle describes his discovery further in his new book Hidden Landscapes of the Forest of Dean.

In other archaeology news, a treasure hunter has found an ancient coin ‘with an engraving of Donkey from Shrek’ in Buckinghamshire.

A rare 2,500-year-old ‘Golden Warrior’ has been found buried under precious ornaments in Kazakhstan.

And, the ‘real Excalibur’ has been pulled from a rock at the bottom of lake – and no one knows how the 700-year-old weapon got there.

What do you make of the Bronze Age monument discovery? Let us know in the comments...

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