Page "Four-poster" Paragraph 2

It is widely accepted that the four-poster tradition grew out of the recumbent-stone circle tradition of Aberdeenshire at the very start of the Bronze Age.

The earliest ancestors of the four-poster are found in the hills north of Inverurie, where gross extremities in the scale of recumbent-stone circles have been found ranging from very large ( 50 metres diameter ) to very small ( 5 metres diameter ).

In some of the smallest, the setting consists of six or eight stones, one within 45 degrees of south being only slightly bulkier or special compared with the others.

In most of these, a clear rectangle appears stones if only the four largest stones are considered.