As a member of the European Route of Megalithic Culture https://megalithicroutes.eu/ the Archaeology Section celebrated the European Megalithic Culture Day on 28th April. The theme of this year’s day was “Megaliths in the Landscape”.
Tying in with the Section’s Neolithic Landscapes project, a walk was organised in the Samares and Mont Ubé area to visit several megaliths which are probably between four and six thousand years old and “hidden” in plain sight along various roads and fields in the area. It is well known that the area must have been used in the Neolithic period because of known sites like Mont Ubé dolmen and to a lesser extent La Blanche Dame, a menhir in the middle of a field off Samare Lane.
Photo credit – Jane Edwards
Amongst a large proportion of the sixty of so participants on the walk which was repeated three times during the day, there was considerable surprise at the number of megaliths which are passed every day without noticing them, let alone knowing what they are.
The walks were led by Section Chair Marc Yates and Section member Nick Aubin who explained that the landscape which we see today (ignoring the buildings!) is perhaps not that different to what the Neolithic people created all that time ago as they cleared the Island of trees to grow grain and other crops and to graze animals as the first farmers. As the groups stood at the top of Mont Ubé looking down towards Seymour and Icho Towers, they were asked to imagine that all the foreshore, which was land not yet claimed by rising sea levels, together with the lower lying land around St Clement, was alive with the activity of a Neolithic community living in it!
Photo credit – Jane Edwards
