World Megalithic Atlas: Explore Ancient Stone Sites Around the World

A megalithic sites map built for exploration

A dolmen on an Irish limestone hillside, a row of standing stones in Brittany and a basalt-walled Pacific ceremonial centre can all stop a traveller in their tracks. They do not, however, belong to one period or one culture. Their differences are where the interesting questions begin.

This interactive megalithic sites map brings together a large open-record layer and a smaller set of source-reviewed guides. Search for a monument, explore a country, compare up to three records or download the results for your own research. Every entry has a source link. Every selected record can become a finished infographic carrying its own source and illustration label.

Start with a familiar place, then widen the comparison. Newgrange makes more sense alongside Knowth and Dowth. Malta’s temples reward a comparison of plans and materials. Nan Madol shows why monumental stone construction cannot be confined to the European Neolithic. For a closer view of the Dutch tradition, read our guide to hunebeds in the Netherlands.

North America: stone circles, pueblos and Maya cities

The expanded North American layer includes the United States, Canada and Mexico, together with Central America. Start with the stone great houses of Chaco Canyon, compare the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, then follow the masonry traditions of Arizona. In Canada, Majorville’s cairn and circle, Bannock Point’s petroforms and the inuksuit of Inuksuk Point offer very different ways of working with stone. These are Indigenous cultural landscapes with continuing significance, not anonymous traces of a vanished universal civilisation.

Mexico and Central America add another scale of comparison: Maya temples and carved stelae, Zapotec stone mosaics at Mitla, the large granite masonry of Iglesia Vieja and dry-stone terraces at Cerro de Trincheras. The Monumental architecture category is deliberately comparative. It does not suggest that every pueblo or pyramid was built from giant monoliths. La Venta and San Lorenzo are included for their stone sculpture; their earthen platforms are not reclassified as megalithic masonry. Qajartalik is identified as rock carving, while petroforms and medicine wheels are low stone arrangements rather than rings of tall standing stones.

Use the region filter for the whole area, or choose a country to explore its records. Each added entry has a checked heritage or research source, an approximate coordinate with provenance and an individual information graphic. This remains a selective atlas: a lightly mapped area is an invitation to further research, not evidence that its communities lacked stone-building traditions.

Explore the expanded North America map