Crossroads Roundup: Major Neolithic Monuments Discovered, a Titanic Watch, and a Leonardo da Vinci Biopic

Our favorite stories on art, archaeology, folklore, and more from this past week.

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An aerial view of the Neolithic structure found in Marliens, France. © Jérôme Berthet / INRAP

This past week, news outlets announced the discovery of two major Neolithic monuments.

The first (see above) is a large monument uncovered at a prehistoric site in Marliens, France. The site also includes a complex of necropolises—the first of its kind to be discovered in eastern Burgundy. While researchers aren’t exactly sure when the above monument was built, they have found evidence of habitation on the site from the Neolithic era to the First Iron Age.

The center circle measures 36 feet across, and the enclosure on the right measures 26 feet across. Artifacts discovered on the site, including arrowheads and a copper-alloy dagger, date back to the Bell Beaker culture, a Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age group who originated in the Iberian Peninsula and spread across Europe about 4,500 years ago. However, radiocarbon analyses are still underway to determine the exact dating of the site.

As the researchers from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) shared in a statement, “This type of monument seems unprecedented. As of now, it has been impossible to make a comparison.”

It certainly possesses a unique shape—to me, it looks a bit like a bowtie. Or, if you squint, a duck with a large bill.