Each circle is made of standing stones, a bit like Stonehenge in England but smaller and rounder. The stones were carved from laterite, a hard reddish rock that forms naturally in the ground in this part of Africa. Some pillars are taller than an adult and weigh as much as a small car. Moving and placing them must have taken enormous teamwork.
There are about 93 stone circles in Gambia alone, mostly near the towns of Wassu and Ker Batch. Some circles are side by side; others stand alone in fields. Archaeologists — scientists who study ancient things — have found that many of the circles mark burial places. But they also think the circles might have been used for ceremonies, meetings or to mark important places in the landscape.
What makes these circles especially exciting is how many there are. Altogether, across Gambia and Senegal, there are more than 1,000 circles and 28,000 individual stones. That means thousands of people, over hundreds of years, decided this was important enough to do again and again. It must have meant a great deal to them.
Today local guides lead visitors around the circles and share what is known — and what remains a mystery. Schoolchildren in Gambia often visit on field trips, and sometimes they try to imagine who placed each stone and what story it holds.