At https://phys.org/news/2026-03-israel-stonehenge-longer-satellite-technology.html … Rujm el-Hiri on the Golan Heights has often been compared to Stonehenge. Mainly because it is an elaborate stone circle – without the trilithons. In fact the term Stonehenge is often used to denote stone circles – anywhere. Some of which are very old and some of which are much younger than Stonehenge. Why stone circles were erected is a perennial question that has never been properly explained. Were they simply communal assembly points – or did they have an astronomical alignment. Could they have been erected in order to keep track of potentially catastrophic events?
Using advanced satellite imagery and remote sensing technology researchers have discovered Rujm el-Hiri was not alone. They have discovered it is actually the centre piece of a much larger and previously denser megalithic landscape. There are another 28 stone circles – defined as large. In the surrounding region. Presumaby mostly on the Golan Heights as megalithic structures tend to occupy high ground – but not always. Stonehenge is a case in point. However, it does have a large landscape vision, and a wide arc of the sky. The question here, we might imagine, is how old these other structures were. Do they go back into prehistory, prior to even Rujm el-Hiri? In other words was the idea of building stone circles introduced to the Levant from further afield or were European megaliths derived from examples in the Levant. So far there is no evidence of any connection – apart from the fact that early farmers, around 8000 years ago, moved from the Levant and Anatolia through the Mediterranean region. So far dates obtained in Europe are older than in the Levant – or are contemporary. So, an interesting exercise to discover when these stone circles, invisible on the landscape today, were constructed. At the moment it seems researchers are thinking of a connection with pastoral societies in Arabia, as community assembly points, or going back further, seasonal hunting strategies. The idea of diffusion around the Mediterranean has not been suggested as far as I can see. Diffusion might still be a dirty word in some archaeological circles. It is worth remembering that in the Clube and Napier model, periodic shedding of cometary material leading to, initially, dense meteor streams that went on to dissipate over time, such events litter the whole of the Holocene. Not just relatively recent prehistory.