Megaliths
Huge rough stones set upright, in circles or as houses for the dead
How to recognise it
- Standing menhirs in rows or circles
- Dolmen: slab walls under a capstone
- Earth mound over a stone passage
- Aligned to solstice sunrise or sunset
- Spirals and lozenges pecked into stone
Why it emerged
Atlantic Europe's first farmers settled down and raised lasting monuments to ancestors and the solar calendar. Moving stones without metal or wheels took hundreds of people, which meant chiefs and communal feasts.
Examples
Carnac stonesc. 4500 BC–3300 BCOver 3,000 menhirs in kilometre-long rows — the largest megalithic cluster
Newgrangec. 3200 BCAt the winter solstice a sunbeam runs the passage to light the burial chamber
Stonehengec. 3000 BC–1600 BCA ring of lintelled sarsens; bluestones hauled 200 km from Wales.jpg?width=640 "FritzPhotography · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons")
Ġgantijac. 3600 BC–2500 BCLobed temple halls — among the oldest free-standing buildings on Earth
Dolmen of Mengac. 3750 BCSlabs up to 150 tonnes on pillars — one of Europe's largest dolmensHow it spread
- 4500 BC Carnac
- 3750 BC Antequera
- 3500 BC Zealand, Denmark
- 3200 BC Newgrange
- 3100 BC Orkney
- 3000 BC Stonehenge
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Mesopotamian art Middle East
- Ancient Egyptian art Africa
- Aegean art Europe
- Shang and Zhou bronzes Asia