The megalithic stone circles of Senegambia

Over one thousand stone circles and burial mounds rise from the earth like frozen waves. They spread across 30,000 square kilometres of the Senegambian landscape, forming the largest concentration of megaliths in the world. This was a sacred geography used for more than 1,500 years, a land of deliberate, heavy geometry.

Between the 3rd century BCE and the 16th century CE, a prosperous and organized society shaped this soil. They extracted laterite from quarries and used iron tools to carve pillars that stand two metres high and weigh seven tons. The stones are arranged in precise circles, double circles, and rows, some facing the east like silent sentinels. Nearby burial mounds offer a reminder of the ancestors who lived here, with some dated to between 927 and 1305 AD.

No one can say with certainty who raised these heavy weights. No living group claims them as their own in their oral histories, though many theories weave through the mist of time. Some say they were a Mande-speaking people fleeing a great drought, while others believe they were a group pushed south by the arrival of the Serer and Mandinka. The stones remain, their builders lost to the shifting sands of memory.

Today, these sites are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Visitors can find them in the quiet corners of Senegal and the Gambia, where the smooth surfaces of the laterite blocks still catch the light. In the Wassu area, the tallest stone reaches a height of 2.59 metres. The most recent excavations conducted on these megalithic circles date to the Anglo-Gambian campaign led by Evans and Ozanne in 1964 and 1965.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons