Jharkhand Set To Showcase Living Megalithic Tradition at World Economic Forum, Davos

Outlook Web Bureau

The stones of Jharkhand are not remnants of a forgotten world. They are living witnesses, recording ancestry, astronomy, and human resilience across millennia. Now, the state is set to showcase its ‘living’ megalithic tradition at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

As Jharkhand prepares to engage with global leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026 in Davos during its official visit to the United Kingdom, the state is also bringing to the international stage a deeper story of land, time, and cultural continuity, one rooted in one of the oldest megalith traditions on the planet.

Jharkhand lies on the Singhbhum Craton, one of Earth’s earliest stable landmasses, formed over 3.3 billion years ago. Across this ancient geological foundation, human communities have, for millennia, raised megaliths, monoliths, and stone circles to mark memory, ancestry, and cosmic order. Unlike most megalithic cultures worldwide, which survive only as archaeological remains, Jharkhand’s stone traditions remain active and living, maintained by indigenous communities who continue to use these sites for ritual and remembrance.

Sites such as Chokahatu in Ranchi district, the largest living megalithic landscape in the Indian subcontinent, continue to receive new memorial stones placed by the Munda community, creating a layered archive of lineage and memory that spans across centuries.

At Pakari Barwadih in Hazaribagh, carefully aligned monoliths track the movement of the sun and the Equinox, placing Jharkhand within the global history of prehistoric astronomy. These stone formations have drawn comparisons with iconic sites such as Stonehenge in the United Kingdom, reflecting a shared human impulse across continents and millennia to anchor time, death, and cosmic order in stone.

Together with cave complexes such as Isko and the fossilised forests of Mandro, these landscapes represent a rare continuum in which deep planetary time and living human culture coexist in the same geography.

By presenting this heritage alongside its economic and development vision at Davos and in the United Kingdom, Jharkhand is offering a perspective that is increasingly vital to a global conversation: that long-term growth must be anchored in ecological memory, cultural continuity, and respect for deep time.

Jharkhand’s megalithic showcase aligns closely with the India–UK cultural preservation and cooperation framework that promotes ethical conservation, museum partnerships, research exchange, and the protection of heritage on site.

Jharkhand’s megalithic landscapes -- preserved not in esoteric collections but in living villages and forests -- represent a powerful example of how heritage can be safeguarded while remaining embedded within its communities.

From the Stone Age to the golden pages of history, Jharkhand has carved its legacy, and in the modern era, it is playing a vital and decisive role in strengthening the nation’s economy and development.