Avebury Cove Stone I
Also known asCove Stone 1 · The Cove Stone 1
DatedEst. 3470–2760 BCE
Photo Jwslubbock · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
Avebury Cove Stone I is a megalith recorded in Kingdom of the Netherlands. Other recorded names are Cove Stone 1, The Cove Stone 1. The catalogue places it at 51.4291° N, 1.8540° W and links it to Wikidata item Q131296639.
Built from structured records, not from an articleSources and licences
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
The full article
About Avebury Cove Stone I
This kind of monument hereSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
A megalith is a large stone used to build a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified in Europe, from Sweden in the north to the Mediterranean in the south, and megaliths are found worldwide. The word was first used in 1849 by the British antiquarian Algernon Herbert for Stonehenge, and comes from the Greek for "great stone". Most extant megaliths were erected between the Neolithic, with some earlier Mesolithic examples, and the Bronze Age. The oldest known ceremonial structures in the world, Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori in Turkey, are dated to about 9000 BCE. Further down this page, About this kind of monument gives the whole of “Megalith (type not specified)”.
DatingSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Typological estimate, not a date for this site: monuments of this kind in this region are normally dated 3470 BCE to 2760 BCE. The range comes from what is known about megalith monuments in Kingdom of the Netherlands; nothing measured on this site itself is on record, so it may be younger or older than the range suggests.
The range rests on this regional background (source: the Wikipedia article “Megaliths in the Netherlands”): Dutch hunebedden were built between 3470 and 3250 BC and were used until about 2760 BC.
Landscape and neighbours
The catalogue lists 73 other sites within 1 km, 169 within 5 km and 246 within 10 km; 77 of them are also classed as megalith. That puts it inside a dense cluster of monuments. In Kingdom of the Netherlands, 87 of the 93 catalogued sites are classed as megalith.
The nearest neighbours in the catalogue are Avebury Cove Stone II (0.0 km west, megalith); Stone 206 (0.0 km east, megalith); Stone 207 (0.0 km east, megalith); Stone 201 (0.1 km north, megalith). The catalogue is assembled from open records and is not complete, so unrecorded monuments may lie closer.
Records and protectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The open records used here carry no heritage designation for the site, which says nothing either way about its legal status. The open records for it are Wikidata (Q131296639), where corrections and further identifiers can be added. Many such sites stand on private land; check local access rules and respect the monument and its surroundings.
How this page was madeSources for this section
Sources for this section
Nothing on this page was written by an AI model: it is assembled by program from Wikidata (CC0) and the regional article “Megalith (type not specified)”, written for the Atlas from the Wikipedia articles it cites (CC BY-SA 4.0), with distances and counts calculated from the catalogue coordinates.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Megalith (type not specified)
A megalith is a large stone used to build a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified in Europe, from Sweden in the north to the Mediterranean in the south, and megaliths are found worldwide. The word was first used in 1849 by the British antiquarian Algernon Herbert for Stonehenge, and comes from the Greek for "great stone". Most extant megaliths were erected between the Neolithic, with some earlier Mesolithic examples, and the Bronze Age. The oldest known ceremonial structures in the world, Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori in Turkey, are dated to about 9000 BCE.
The most widely known megaliths are not tombs. The main kinds are single stones, such as menhirs and monoliths; multiple stones, such as stone circles (cromlechs) and alignments; dolmens; cists; and megalithic walls, also called cyclopean walls. Megalithic art, painted or carved on kerbstones, orthostats or capstones, is found in many parts of Western Europe, with the main concentrations in England, Malta, Ireland, Brittany and Iberia, and it is highly abstract.
Megaliths were used for a variety of purposes, from boundary markers of territory to reminders of past events, to being part of the religion of a society. Contemporary megalith-building cultures exist in Indonesia, among the Toraja and in the Marapu tradition. In the Atlas, a record marked only "megalith" lacks a more specific type, usually because the source did not say, and it receives a broad date range.
Dating relies on associated finds when a monument is excavated; otherwise it depends on shape and comparison.
When visiting, look first at the setting, and at whether the stone looks worked or natural.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Megalith, Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: Dolmen, Wikipedia: Megalithic art · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3470–2760 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megaliths in Kingdom of the Netherlands; this site has not been dated itself. Dutch hunebedden were built between 3470 and 3250 BC and were used until about 2760 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Kingdom of the Netherlands
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 51°25′45″ N, 1°51′14″ WFor a GPS or map app: 51.42908, -1.85396
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q131296639wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Avebury 2022 August 10.jpgJwslubbockCC BY-SA 4.0
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
This page is assembled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a tradition article paraphrasing Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). No article exists for this site, and nothing here is written by a model.
- Wikidata Q131296639CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0