Ancient megalithic sites – bridges from the past to the future?

Ancestral Neolithic sites also host a diversity of modern cultural heritage: new stories and communal experiences. In the INT-ACT project, we investigate the intangible culture of today that emerges in relation to European cultural heritage sites of the past. Our focus is on different societal challenges that can be addressed by connecting intangible cultural heritage with their associated tangible heritage sites and presenting these connections through immersive XR environments to visitors. The Évora surroundings in Portugal is one of the most fascinating megalithic regions in Europe. Megaliths are monumental stone structures erected by Neolithic people, such as standing stones in circular patterns often referred to as ‘cromlechs’. While archeologists have divergent theories regarding the possible meanings and knowledges the ancestral constructors related to these sites, some things are more certain. These sites are perhaps the first monuments erected by our ancestors to last for millennia, and they required a vast communal effort to succeed in moving the enormous stones, often long distances, and in placing them on important locations such as hilltops following an intentional pattern. In addition, new research keeps finding other patterns, like connections to both solar and lunar cycles in the stones’ alignments.