Stonehenge – People and landscapes

Till September 25, 2022 in the LWL Archaeological Museum in Herne there is an exhibition about the best known archaeological monument in Europe, Stonehenge. Visitors can embark on a journey through space and time. They will experience the dimensions of this imposing stone circle from close up with detailed full-sized replicas and move through analogically and virtually reconstructed landscapes, combined with selected finds from English archaeology and Westphalian LWL-archaeology. Together with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro) we can present the latest research results on the history of the stone circle and the surrounding landscape.

Stonehenge is the monumental pinnacle of prehistoric construction and engineering work, but Stonehenge does not exist in isolation. It is part of a ritual landscape with thousands of years of history and parallels throughout Europe that are tangible even within our region. The exhibition focusses for the first time on the shaping of this cultural landscape by humans and contrasts it with contemporaneous developments in Westphalia and the Ruhr District. Because here, too, over 4,500 years ago, and in some cases even earlier than in southern England, megalithic (mega = large, lithos = stone) structures were built that served as social meeting points in a landscape that was increasingly shaped by humans.