Stonehenge

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Europe has a vast wealth of ancient ritual landscapes, from Britain’s world heritage site Stonehenge in Wiltshire to the standing stones at Carnac in France and the rock art of the Camonica Valley in Italy.

While some of these iconic monuments are familiar to most of us, some may be less obvious – just look at a walkers’ map and you will spot dozens of tumuli or burial sites, dotted across the countryside. These days, many of these places can be explored digitally on Michael .

Britain

Stonehenge must be Britain’s most famous prehistoric site. Listed as a World Heritage Site, it sits on Salisbury Plain in the heart of one of the most complex ritual landscapes in the world. From the air, for many miles around the central circle of stone, there are cists, barrows and alignments of features that suggest ancient societies in the region wanted the landscape to relate in some long forgotten way to their spiritual world and beliefs.

It is possible to find out a great deal about the site and about this period by searching on MICHAEL. A quick search for Stonehenge finds Window on Wiltshire which has interesting resources about the archaeology of the region around Stonehenge and a look into the Themes section, locates a number of interesting resources about the ancient site and others in Wiltshire.

English Heritage have responsibility for this great monument, and their pages offer several ways to find out more about the mysterious origins of the place, as well as online guides to the making of Stonehenge and a timeline.

The UK has many other important sacred landscapes, for example the Lake District and Avebury Stone circle in Wiltshire.

The large number of stone circles scattered across the landscape of the Lake District are the legacy of ritual activity by our prehistoric ancestors. A search on MICHAEL finds the Living Landscape project where you will find images of famous monuments such as Long Meg and Her Daughters, Castlerigg Stone Circle and Swinside Stone Circle.

Avebury stone circle is the biggest in the UK, and probably is the biggest in Europe. Although the site is now bisected by roads and the present town, much can be seen online. The Wiltshire County Council website, which can be accessed via Window on Wiltshire, offers updates of recent archaeological finds at Avebury and other sites in this rich ritual landscape.

To see for yourself what the massive Avebury site looks like today, why not try a virtual walkabout by Clive Ruggles of the monument from the AHDS Archsearch site?

For more about prehistoric burial go to Past Perfect and explore the virtual world of Low Hauxley in the Peak District: http://www.pastperfect.org.uk/sites/lowhauxley/index.html .

General view of the Petit-Mont cairn after restoration

© C. -T. Le Roux (Ministère de la culture / SRA Bretagne)

France

France and Britain share a common Celtic ancestry, most noticeably in Brittany, where many people still speak the Breton tongue, a close relative of Welsh and Cornish.

Carnac is one of Brittany’s most popular seaside resorts, but is also home to one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe. Rows of hundreds of ancient standing stones are lined up in a field just north of the town. They are thought to have been erected around 3,000 BC, possibly as markers honouring ancestors.

In fact, the Morbihan area of France, of which Carnac is a part, contains a particularly rich number of ancient monuments from the Neolithic period (around 5,000-2,000 BC).

The Megalith In Morbihan website is particularly useful in identifying the 500 or so sites and for finding out more about them. Menhirs, or standing stones, can be found almost everywhere in the area. Early tombs like passage graves are mainly on the coast and funeral galleries from the late Neolithic are found in the northern half of the Morbihan peninsula.

This website is one of a number publications about famous archaeological sites where you can find out more about prehistory including "People of the Lakes" ; "Life along the Danube 6,500 years ago" ; "The Cave of Lascaux" and "The Cave of Chauvet".

Detail of a carved stone (25) from corridor of the dolmen at Gavrinis.

© N. Aujoulat (Ministère de la culture / CNP)

Italy

Of course Italy has a long and rich history, from the splendours of Rome to the wealth and power of its Renaissance trading cities but its’ archaeological heritage stretches back further than the days of Romulus and Remus.

A good place to explore all things archaeological in Italy is http://www.archeologia.beniculturali.it .
From this homepage all the main museums in Italy with archaeological collections can be found, and there are literally hundreds:
http://www.archeologia.beniculturali.it/pages/atlantearcheo/AtlanteRegioni.html

While features like dolmen and menhirs are quite common in southern Italy and in Sicily, rock art can be found all over Italy. The Italian site Rupestre contains lots of links to web resources about this fascinating link with the past, and to help you locate the best places there’s an interactive map which also has examples of where to explore this fascinating tradition in Austria and Switzerland

The Neolithic period in Northern Italy was one of gradual change from hunting to agriculture and this is reflected in the emergence of pottery and the range of stone carvings found in the region. You can learn more about this pivotal period in the pre-history of the country on the website of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, which features a virtual tour of the Prehsitoric section of the Archaeological Museum’s collection.

Picturing the rituals of the past was made easier when archaeologists began to look at the amazing rock art in the Camonica Valley in Italy. Now protected as a World Heritage Site, Valcamonica houses many hundreds of precious Iron Age rock art artefacts, commonly showing warriors and battle scenes. The valley must have been quite a place 2,500 years ago! View some of the most illustrative scenes on the Rupestre website, where there’s a useful digital archive of the stones and tablets found in the region.

Further information and some really informative articles about sacred landscapes worldwide, and in Europe, can be found in Arte Preistorica .