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Britain’s tallest surviving stone row may have travelled farther than archaeologists once believed, after scientists traced tiny mineral grains on its weathered surfaces to a distinctive rocky landscape 18 kilometres away. Dating 236 zircon grains has now produced a striking geological fingerprint, pointing towards Brimham Rocks rather than the nearer Plumpton Rocks. The material recovered from the three surviving stones was enough to produce 236 concordant zircon U–Pb dates. Stone 1 provided 67 ages, Stone 2 produced 64 and Stone 3 produced 105. The zircon record from the Devil’s Arrows contains several distinctive age groups, including dominant Palaeozoic grains dating to roughly 460–400 million years ago, alongside Mesoproterozoic grains from about 1.3–1.0 billion years ago and Palaeoproterozoic grains from around 1.8–1.5 billion years ago. There are also smaller Archean populations, with the oldest analysed grains reaching more than 3.7 billion years. The study points to a three-metre-long gritstone near the rocks carrying wavy engravings and around 21 cup-and-ring marks dating from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age.
Because it is nearer to the Devil’s Arrows and has the appropriate Millstone Grit lithology, plumpton Rocks has long been considered a possible source. Because sediment was carried through separate ancient river channels, the researchers explain that even outcrops belonging to the same Upper Plumpton Grit interval can have different mineral fingerprints. The Devil’s Arrows therefore add another example to evidence from monuments such as Stonehenge, Orkney and Irish passage tombs, where prehistoric communities transported stone over considerable distances.
Titled ‘ Deliberate prehistoric sourcing of the Devil’s Arrows, Britain’s tallest stone row ’, strips of adhesive tape were placed against the stones to recover mineral grains without damaging the protected monument, according to the new study published in The Royal Society. They therefore used what the study describes as a novel “peel method”. The Devil’s Arrows and Brimham Rocks share the same broad polymodal zircon pattern and similar proportions of the different age groups, according to the study. As the researchers conclude, the monument represents an “intentional km-scale relocation” of material from a distinctive upland landscape into a lowland ceremonial setting.
The Devil’s Arrows, a group of enormous prehistoric stones near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, have long been linked to a closer gritstone source. The researchers needed a way to examine the Devil’s Arrows without taking conventional rock samples from the protected monument. Twenty-centimetre sections of adhesive tape were placed against dry, inconspicuous areas of the stones for five minutes, collecting tiny grains from their surfaces. The approach was carried out under Scheduled Monument Consent granted by Historic England. Statistical tests found no significant difference between the zircon age patterns of the three stones, allowing the researchers to combine them into one dataset for comparison with potential source rocks. When fingerprints were matched with potential source areas, Brimham Rocks produced the closest match. The statistical comparison was particularly strong with a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, while Plumpton Rocks showed a substantially different zircon spectrum. The study notes that it is the source named in the Historic England Official List entry. Yet the mineral evidence tells a different story: the zircon population from Plumpton Rocks differs from both the monument and Brimham Rocks. In their statistical comparison, the Devil’s Arrows had a much closer relationship with Brimham Rocks than with Plumpton Rocks, supporting Brimham as the more likely source. Image AI generated The researchers argue that the choice may have combined practical and cultural considerations. Brimham is a prominent tor landscape with unusual, weather-eroded rock formations, while natural joints and bedding planes create elongated blocks that could have made the lifting of large stones easier. There are also signs that Brimham itself was a place of prehistoric activity. Taken together, the geological and archaeological evidence suggests that the Devil’s Arrows were not simply made from whatever suitable stone happened to be closest. The new provenance evidence suggests that the people who raised the approximately seven-metre-high stones near Boroughbridge may have deliberately sought out. Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.
