The village within the stone circle exists in a time rift, in which the same actions are played out (with minor variations) over and over again, the end result being that the power of the circle will eventually be released to the outside world. Whenever this is faulted, however, the time circle resets and the same events attempt again to unfold. However, since time is passing in the outside world in a normal way, time within the time circle must also progress, matching the time period of the real world while still attempting to play out the events within.
Four cycles of the time circle are clearly described in Children of the Stones.
