Welcome to reppin’ nature!
This channel explores megaliths, ancient landscapes, and what they were actually built for.
I’ve visited hundreds of megalithic sites across Europe, and through repeated time in the field, clear patterns begin to emerge. The same forms. The same placement in the landscape. The same types of stone. Nothing random.
My approach is experiential and observational. Rather than theory alone, my work is grounded in direct contact with the land, the stones, and long-term on-site experience.
I explore what I call Earth-Centric Technology — the idea that megaliths were practical, functional systems built in cooperation with the Earth, using stone, water, light, sound, and landscape to support survival, wellbeing, and the continuation of life.
I don’t see megaliths as monuments to the dead. I see them as living places, built with intent.
This channel explores the forgotten purpose of megaliths.
Cheers,
David
reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
The stone that seems to float…
A few photos from yet another magnificent dolmen in Portugal. This is Anta da Arca in the Viseu district.
It may not look that much at first glance but the three remaining orthostats are huge and the capstone is massive.
This dolmen would have looked very different when it was first constructed. It's thought to have originally been surrounded by a mound of earth and stone, leaving this enormous chamber exposed.
According to local legend and folklore an enchanted Moorish woman carried the enormous capstone here on her head, while holding her child and spinning wool.
Standing underneath this massive capstone really gives you a sense of the scale of the monument. At around 4.5m high, it’s a very impressive dolmen.
With only three orthostats remaining, the massive capstone, elegantly sits on the stones, it almost floats and it’s amazing to think this dolmen has sat here for thousands of years.
🎥 I’ve shared a short film of this dolmen below. Cheers
https://youtu.be/unKnrYbYwP4?is=Y6_3z...
5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 59
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
A beautiful wee stone circle hidden in a forest in Scotland…
A few photos of Glassel Stone Circle near Banchory in Aberdeenshire.
I loved the walk to this site. Walking through the forest, across these moss covered mounds and between the trees, trying to find this site which has stood here for thousands of years.
It’s a secluded and peaceful wee spot and it’s kind of oval shaped with five upright stones about one metre high.
It’s not grand and dramatic like many circles I’ve been to but very atmospheric in this quiet and beautiful setting.
1 week ago | [YT] | 64
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
Why were megaliths built?
I’ve just shared a new video talking through Earth-Centric Technology. My own developing framework for looking at megalithic sites and asking whether some may have had practical functions working with nature.
This one is a wee bit different from my usual films. It’s more informal and conversational, me talking through where the idea came from, how it has developed, and why I keep coming back to the question of what practical problem these structures may have solved for Neolithic people. Cheers
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 13
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
Can sacred and practical function coexist?
I was asked this in an interview recently and I think it’s a really interesting question about the way we interpret megalithic sites.
I think they can coexist.
Our modern way of thinking may divide the sacred and practical into separate categories. Most megaliths are labelled as ritual, ceremonial or sacred to explain these places but those labels don’t necessarily tell us why a place was built in the first place.
Our ancient ancestors may not have made that same distinction and may have seen things differently.
A community might gather at a place because something important happened there. If a place was important to water, fertility, the health of the land or animals, or the wellbeing of a community, then ceremony and belief could become attached to it too.
My own view is that many megaliths may have had practical functions working with nature, while also becoming places of ceremony, belief and social importance.
Maybe these places weren’t sacred instead of functional. They may have become sacred because they served an important function.
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 33
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
Why bring so many different megalithic forms together in one place at Callanish?
That’s one of the many things I find most fascinating about this place.
It’s not just a stone circle. There’s the massive central standing stone, the circle itself, the stone rows and a later cairn. Several of the major megalithic forms found across Britain and Europe are all brought together within one remarkable site.
I don’t think we should assume they all served the same purpose. Different forms create different possibilities and it makes me wonder whether each one played a different role within something much larger.
This is where Earth-Centric Technology has increasingly shaped the way I look at Callanish. Not just the monument itself, but the wider landscape, the water, geology, horizon, sky, surrounding sites and natural rock formations like Cnoc an Tursa.
Callanish makes more sense to me as part of a landscape-based system than as an isolated stone circle.
I discuss this further in my film The Forgotten Purpose of the Callanish Stones. Cheers
https://youtu.be/37lEYrQjmI4?is=YA13_...
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 73
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
Faces in stone at Tyrebagger Stone Circle in Aberdeenshire…
I visited around 20 sites last weekend in Aberdeenshire and I think Tyrebagger was one of my favourites.
I loved this recumbent stone circle. Set in woodland, it had a calm, quiet feel to it and it isn’t the easiest place to find. It overlooks Dyce Airport, which I quite liked as you try to imagine how different the landscape would’ve looked thousands of years ago.
There are 10 stones in the circle, and the massive recumbent is thought to weigh around 23 tons.
I spent a bit of time here just being still and present. One thing I really liked about this trip was taking fewer photos and videos than I normally would. I wanted to spend more time actually experiencing the places rather than going mad taking photos.
There are so many interesting patterns with these recumbent circles. Why this particular megalithic form is so distinctive to northeast Scotland, why the recumbent stone is placed where it is, and what laying one huge stone horizontally may actually have changed.
That’s the sort of question I keep coming back to with Earth-Centric Technology: not just what is this monument? but why this place, why this form, and what was being enhanced?
I’ll share more from the sites I visited soon. Cheers
4 weeks ago | [YT] | 41
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
What did our ancient ancestors understand about a landscape that we no longer understand?
Before any stone was raised, they already knew the land intimately. They would have spent time on that land for generations.
They knew where water appeared, how the seasons changed, where animals were drawn to, where the land was fertile, how the sun and moon moved across the horizon.
Their survival depended on that knowledge.
So when they chose a location for a site and went to extreme lengths to move and erect stones, it doesn’t feel like the location was random.
I believe the monument was a response to something they had first recognised in the landscape.
We see the stones because they survive.
Perhaps the more important question is what our ancient ancestors saw before the stones were ever there.
I discuss this in more detail in my new film The Forgotten Purpose of the Callanish Stones. Cheers
https://youtu.be/37lEYrQjmI4?is=vVeSk...
1 month ago | [YT] | 49
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
A few photos from Anta dos Saragonheiros 1, a beautiful dolmen in Portalegre, Portugal.
It’s a remote megalithic site set in a quiet, open landscape north of Alpalhão.
The dolmen has a large polygonal chamber, a long entrance corridor and a separate granite menhir positioned beside the south-eastern end of the corridor.
It forms part of a wider megalithic landscape with other dolmens nearby. I also visited Anta 2 which is only a wee walk away and much more ruinous and raw. I believe there’s a third Anta nearby too but I couldn’t find it!
I loved the setting here, the dolmen surrounded by trees, the open landscape and the feeling of isolation and solitude.
1 month ago | [YT] | 75
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
What if megaliths were not simply monuments but functional systems built to work with nature?
Stone circles, dolmens, standing stones and other megalithic sites are commonly interpreted through burial, ritual, ceremony, astronomy and symbolism.
I don’t necessarily think those interpretations are wrong.
People buried their dead at some of these places, they no doubt gathered there, performed ceremonies and observed the sky.
But does that necessarily explain why they were built?
These were seriously hardcore construction projects. Our ancient ancestors moved and erected stones weighing many tonnes, sometimes over generations. That required an extraordinary investment of time, labour and cooperation. They went to extreme lengths to construct these monuments.
So what motivated them?
If your survival, and the survival of your children, depended on clean water, fertile land, healthy animals and the wellbeing of your community, you would be extremely motivated to understand the natural world and work with it.
That sits at the heart of an idea I call Earth-Centric Technology.
I introduced this idea last year in my film The Forgotten Purpose of Megaliths.
https://youtu.be/s82bhgMsRCI?is=ay_J7...
The idea is that megalithic sites may have been functional and practical systems for life, built by people who understood their environments deeply and worked with stone, water, light, sound and the landscape itself.
Before a single stone was erected, the landscape was already there. Nature came first. Perhaps our ancestors recognised particular qualities within certain places and then deliberately enhanced them through stone.
But why?
My own interpretation is that the underlying purpose of at least some megalithic sites may ultimately have been survival, wellbeing and the continuation of life.
Clean water, food, fertile land, healthy animals, human health and the continuation of the community.
Earth-Centric Technology is the framework I use to investigate why megaliths may have been built and how they may have functioned.
Nature → Recognition → Enhancement → Purpose
I explore this in much more depth through Callanish in my latest film, but I think the same framework can potentially be applied to many other megalithic sites and complexes. I don’t think that means every monument had the same function. Different landscapes would have presented different conditions and opportunities but perhaps the underlying principle was similar, recognising something already present in nature and then deliberately enhancing it.
If you’d like to watch my Callanish film, The Forgotten Purpose of the Callanish Stones, here’s the link.
https://youtu.be/37lEYrQjmI4?is=1jkaR...
Cheers,
David
2 months ago | [YT] | 77
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reppin’ nature (David O’Connor)
Why do you think the Callanish Stones were built?
An astronomical observatory? A place for ritual and ceremony? A sacred landscape? Or did they have a more practical purpose that we’ve forgotten?
I explore this question in my new film, The Forgotten Purpose of the Callanish Stones.
You can watch the full film here:
https://youtu.be/37lEYrQjmI4?is=JrV2M...
If you enjoy it, please give it a wee like and leave a comment. It really helps the film reach more people. Cheers
2 months ago | [YT] | 54
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