Austria

Archaeological teams in southeastern Austria have made an extraordinary discovery that pushes back our understanding of European monumental architecture by thousands of years. Imagine standing in a vast circular arena, its earthen walls rising around you under ancient skies. Now imagine that this monument was already ancient when the first stones of Stonehenge were being dragged across the English countryside, and older still than when Egyptian pharaohs first dreamed of pyramids. In the rolling hills of southeastern Austria, archaeologists have uncovered exactly such a place: a complex of three massive circular enclosures that hosted mysterious gatherings over 6,500 years ago, making them among humanity's earliest experiments in monumental architecture. At Rechnitz, near the Hungarian border in Burgenland province, excavations have