Giants’ churches: Stone Age megastructures as multi-temporal architecture
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-02-06

Until the 19th century the actual concept of the Stone Age, or prehistory, did not exist. The study of the human past was almost entirely based on textual remains, which were thought to record the entire past. Even in historical studies written during the 18th century, when new ideas about the human past were already bubbling under, material remains of the distant past were often treated with disregard. However, Stone Age architectural remains are a different kind of material residue. They are often too big and too visible in the landscape to be ignored. Since they could not be fitted into the familiar text-based timeline of history, their origins were often thought to involve supernatural beings. Ancient architecture forms an important bridge between the past and the present, since the structure and its place can be envisioned to exist in all times. This is often mentioned in relation to Roman and Medieval ruins kindling interest in past during the late 18th and early 19th century, but also Stone Age structures and ruins attracted attention, still retaining some of their mystic aura today.

Liisa Kunnas-Pusa (University of Helsinki)