The Giant's Ring dates from the
Neolithic period and was built around 2700 BC, before the
Egyptian pyramids. The site has had some sort of public use throughout its history. It is near the Shaw's Bridge crossing of the
River Lagan, a point which has been used as a crossing of the river since at least the
Stone Age. It is generally assumed that the tomb structure in the centre is earlier than the ring and that the earthwork enclosure was created afterwards, perhaps as a function of activities that took place there. Substantial effort over many years would have been needed to construct this earthworks. The original purpose of the monument is unknown but it has often been hypothesised that it meeting place or as a memorial to the dead. Over time the usage may well have changed so it impossible to ascribe a single defined usage to such a site. Archaeologist Michael J. O'Kelly believed that the Giant's Ring, like hundreds of other passage tombs built in Ireland during the Neolithic period, such as
Newgrange, showed evidence for a religion which venerated the dead as one of its core principles. He believed that this "cult of the dead" was just one particular form of
European Neolithic religion, and that other megalithic monuments displayed evidence for different religious beliefs which were solar, rather than death-orientated. In the 18th century, the site was used for horse racing. A ritual site adjacent to the henge was excavated in the early 1990s by Barrie Hartwell of the
Queen's University of Belfast who has published a comprehensive and thorough account of the site, the many excavations and possible original usages of the wider Ballynahatty townland in which the Giant's Ring is situated. ==See also==