Europe’s Megalithic Route from the Netherlands to Germany

 

Across Europe, from the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic, there exist enormous ancient man-made monuments of stone, also known as “megaliths”. These massive stones weighed several tons and were pushed, without tools, without modern machinery, over continental Europe, all the way from Scandinavia.

 

They are among the oldest, largest, and most mysterious man-made monuments in the world. In fact, the word mega-lith is actually a fancy name for “big stone”. To put it in perspective –most of them are even older than the pyramids in Egypt! How did they manage to move them around thousands of years ago with the limited tools and resources they had?

 

A Hunebed in Borger, Netherlands. Can you imagine these stones being moved all the way from Scandinavia 5,000 years ago?
A Hunebed in Borger, Netherlands. Can you imagine these stones being moved all the way from Scandinavia 5,000 years ago?

Our ancestors were equally mystified by these massive creations. Curiosity paired with legends shared across a variety of mythologies left them one logical conclusion -these must have been made by giants. Yes, giants!  The names given to these megalithic structures; Hunebed in the Netherlands and Hünebetten in Germany, echo exactly this -they thought these were the real beds for giants.

 

Could they have been made for a race of prehistoric man, a race of giants? Thus, I began my quest to understand more about our neolithic ancestors, making my way from Borger, Netherlands all the way to Albersdorf in the northwest of Germany along Europe’s Megalithic Route. 

So What Were they Made for Anyways?