ReviewsTerence Meaden's work has been known to readers of the Megalithic Portal for many years. His systematic study of British and Irish stone circles, arguing that their stone arrangements enact a recurring fertility symbolism - tall thin stones as the male principle, broader flat ones as female - is one of those bodies of research to engage with seriously whether or not you end up persuaded. Meaden visits sites at sunrise on the relevant festival dates. He measures, photographs, and documents. This book is the fullest statement of that fieldwork to date, covering around 120 stone circles across Cork and Kerry with analyses, dawn photography, and a complete site-by-site gazetteer.
Image submitted by KenWilliams

Neolithic and Bronze AgeTwo cairns - burial monuments dating from the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, visible as two stony mounds. On the headland at Gallanach Bay, Isle of Muck.
Image submitted by MattM

Neolithic and Bronze AgeNeolithic (and Roman) Long Barrow which comprises a 44m long 15m wide, 2.5 m high earthen and turf covered chalk structure. A flint axe head dating to circa 2000BCE was found in the core. A ditch extends along eastern and western side side and southern end. In the upper layer of the ditch 4 Romano British burials were found.
Image submitted by Brian_Eyes

Neolithic and Bronze AgeMegalitgrav (Burial Chamber) in Holbæk. A dolmen on a low mound with one capstone, 5 orthostats (uprights) and one entrance stone.
Image submitted by Tonnox

Mesolithic, Palaeolithic and EarlierA Lower Palaeolithic site in the Vertes Hills of northwestern Hungary where Homo heidelbergensis (or possibly Homo erectus) left traces dating to approximately 350,000-400,000 years ago - among the earliest evidence of human presence in Central Europe. Excavations were carried out in the 1960s by Laszlo Vertes. The site has produced stone tools and, most remarkably, a partial occipital bone (the back of a skull) known as 'Vertesszollos Man' (Samu) - pictured.
Image submitted by Creative Commons

Iron Age and Later PrehistoryOne of the largest pastoralist cemeteries in Africa, with over 3,000 burials excavated from a shallow valley on the isolated rocky hill of Jebel Moya in the Gezira plain of central Sudan, between the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers south of Khartoum. The site was first excavated by Henry Wellcome between 1911 and 1914 in one of the largest archaeological excavations ever conducted in Africa at that time, employing thousands of workers. The cemetery dates primarily to the 1st millennium BCE and early 1st millennium CE [Old Kingdom Period], though earlier occupation phases exist. The Wellcome Collection has records and photographs from the excavations, linked from our page.
Image submitted by Anne T

Neolithic and Bronze AgeAn Early Neolithic stalled chambered cairn at the northern tip of Holm of Papa Westray, the small islet lying east of Papa Westray, Orkney. Ancient DNA results published in 2026 by Prof. Vicki Cummings and colleagues identified a father and son entombed here in the mid-3300s BCE alongside the father's maternal uncle or half-brother, and revealed that two of the women buried here were genetically connected to a male at Tulach an t-Sionnaich in Caithness - family links across the Pentland Firth at the very edge of early Neolithic Britain.
Image submitted by PAB

Neolithic and Bronze AgeTwo chambered cairns at the edge of Loch Calder near Thurso. The level of the loch has been raised in recent years so the waters now lap the cairns. A further cairn, Tulach Na T-Sionnaich, is close by.
Image submitted by Creative Commons

Neolithic and Bronze AgeA setting of three stones, older reports describe a fourth fallen stone. Variously described as standing stones or the remains of a circle. They appear too small to be a recumbent stone circle so more likely a four poster.
Image submitted by golux

Neolithic and Bronze AgeThe Holmfield Interchange, where the M62 meets the A1(M). But look, a henge, seen to the lower right in this stunning LiDAR image by Dr John Wells. The henge survives as low earthworks but is in danger from ploughing.
Image submitted by Bladup

Multi-periodA lovely National Trust house but listed on the Portal because of Charles Darwin's 'Earthworm Stone' in the grounds. This was one of the sources of the research for Darwin's classic earthworm paper and book which are still cited by archaeologists today. The house also has some recently re-discovered wall paintings from the 1960s which are apparently copies of those at Knossos Palace on the island of Crete.
Image submitted by Jon Agar

Early MedievalA monumental rock relief carved into a 100-metre-high cliff face near the village of Madara in north-eastern Bulgaria, depicting a horseman spearing a lion, with a dog running behind. The carving, approximately 23 m above the base of the cliff, dates to around 710 CE and is attributed to the early Bulgarian state under Khan Tervel. It is the only known large rock relief from the early medieval period in Europe and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. The Madara plateau also has traces of earlier occupation stretching back to the Neolithic and Thracian periods, including a cave sanctuary.
Image submitted by Anne T

Neolithic and Bronze AgeA tumbledown dolmen in trees and close to the shore of the Isle d’Arz, Morbihan
Image submitted by peulven

Modern SitesA small stone labyrinth on Bryher, one of the Isles of Scilly. Created in the 1990s, the labyrinth is formed from rounded rocks gathered from the adjacent storm beach and is 5.0 metres in diameter, with two larger rocks placed at the entrance. The design is basically a spiral with five circuits, but with several choices and switch-backs that increase its complexity and make it a simple maze rather than a true labyrinth.
Image submitted by Anne T

Roman, Greek and ClassicalThe second largest Roman olive oil mill in the entire Roman Empire and the largest in Tunisia, dating to the 2nd century CE. The site is famous for the Latin inscription 'CIL VIII, 1193 and 2358', transcribing a senatus consultum from 138 CE that authorised the organisation of a bimonthly market - exceptional documentary evidence for the rural economy of Roman North Africa.
Image submitted by Anne T

Neolithic and Bronze AgeThe main Calanais I site forms a sort of Celtic Cross shape. Check the nearby sites list and map from our page for more details of this and each of the dozens of surrounding standing stone sites.
Image submitted by Andy B

Mesolithic, Palaeolithic and EarlierA large sandstone rock shelter near Berdorf in the Mullerthal region of eastern Luxembourg, part of a dramatic landscape of towering sandstone cliffs and narrow gorges known locally as Luxembourg's "Little Switzerland". The Mullerthal sandstone formations created natural shelters that attracted human settlement from the Mesolithic onwards.
Image submitted by Anne T

Neolithic and Bronze AgeA stone circle on Mull set in a natural amphitheatre formed by the surrounding hills - a magical place. The 13.4m diameter circle originally consisted of 9 stones, one of which has disappeared and been replaced with a small boulder. The stones range in height from 1.2m to 2m and have flat faces faced inwards. There are 3 outliers, the nearest of which is 0.85m high and lies just to the SE, the tallest 2.7m to the SW.
Image submitted by MegalithicMouse

MuseumsA medium size museum in Palembang, Indonesia. As well as artefacts from the medieval Sriwajaya period it contains some stunning sculptures of megalithic South Sumatra. More on our page.
Image submitted by Kuba

Pre-ColumbianAn Ancestral Pueblo village occupied between 1100 and 1500. Part of the larger Bandelier National Monument system, though less visited. At Tsankawi you take a 1.5 mile walk along a mesa, viewing cavates, petroglyphs and the Ancestral Pueblo village of Tsankawi. Ladders are a required part of this trail!
Image submitted by stonetracker