The Carnac alignments
Three thousand standing stones in rows several kilometres long, in Brittany.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1.2 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 300 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
The alignments at Carnac comprise over 3,000 menhirs set in parallel rows running for kilometres, erected from around 4500 BCE. Nothing else in Neolithic Europe involves this quantity of stone, and the labour implied is enormous for a farming population of that density. Their purpose is unknown; astronomical, processional and territorial explanations have all been proposed and none is demonstrable.