French prehistoric site makes UNESCO world heritage list
Among them are the Carnac alignments, with long straight avenues of menhirs -- "long stones" in Breton -- of different sizes, whose origin and purpose remain a mystery.
They are visited each year by close to 300,000 people.
These megaliths "constitute an exceptional testimony to the technical sophistication and skill of Neolithic communities, enabling them to extract, transport, and manipulate monumental stones and earth to create a complex symbolic space that reveals a specific relationship of populations with their environment," UNESCO said.
Carnac's inclusion takes the total number of French sites on the heritage list to 54.
Making the UNESCO's heritage list often sparks a lucrative tourism drive, and can unlock funding for the preservation of sites.
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