The Hawk Stone is a neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 standing stone

Standing stone

Standing stones, orthostats, liths, or more commonly megaliths are solitary stones set vertically in the ground and come in many different varieties....

 just north of the hamlet of Dean, Oxfordshire

Dean, Oxfordshire

Dean is a hamlet in Spelsbury civil parish, about north of Charlbury and southeast of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Its toponym derives from the fact that it located between the valleys of the Coldron Brook, and one of its tributaries....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

The name either derives from its shape, being like a hawk, or is a corruption of the word 'hoar' meaning 'old'.

Local tradition has it that a cleft in the top of the stone was made by the chains of witches who were tied to the stone and burnt alive.