The Megalithic Network: Stone Sites That May Have Measured Earth, Sky, and Time

Stonehenge in Britain, the Nazca Lines in Peru, the moai of Rapa Nui, and Tiwanaku with Puma Punku in Bolivia are separated by thousands of years. Stonehenge began developing around the fourth millennium BCE. Different societies built them for different purposes. Yet all four required choices of location, direction, and organized labor far beyond what an ordinary shelter required.

Megaliths are structures made with very large stones, including circles, pillars, temple platforms, steps, and statues. Stonehenge, Nazca, the moai, and Tiwanaku cannot be assigned one function: Stonehenge relates to the seasonal Sun, Nazca has figures and lines across the desert, the moai connect to ancestors, and Tiwanaku was a ritual and political center near Lake Titicaca. That difference points to a simpler possibility: each community may have turned its landscape into a tool for reading Earth, the sky, and time.