Etched into crops, the outlines of Bronze Age burial mounds surround a roughly
190-foot (57-meter) circular Stone Age temple site about 15 miles (24
kilometers) from Stonehenge in southern England in an undated aerial photo.
Discovered during a routine aerial survey by English Heritage, the U.K.
government's historic-preservation agency, the "
crop
circles" are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering
with plant growth. True crop circles are vast designs created by flattening
crops.
The features are part of a newfound 500-acre (200-hectare) prehistoric
ceremonial site which was unknown until the aerial survey, archaeologists
announced in June 2009.