In this day and age it can sometimes seem as if there is nothing new under the sun.

Nothing natural, anyway.

This ancient monument was recently discovered in France, and honestly, the ensuing controversy is pretty fascinating.

Archaeologists are calling it an “unprecedented” discovery, made near Dijon, France.

They found Neolithic age to Iron age artifacts like flint arrowheads, an archer’s brace, and a copper alloy dagger.

The oldest and most intriguing find, though, an an “8-meter (26-foot) long “horseshoe” enclosure attached to a circular enclosure 11 meters (36 feet) in diameter, and another open enclosure attached to that.”

In a press release, the team says that the gravel layers indicate all three of the enclosures appear to be from the same time period.

“This type of monument seems unprecedented and currently no comparison has been possible. The dating still remains uncertain, however the only artifacts discovered in the ditches correspond to cut flints which would suggest a chrono-cultural attribution to the Neolithic period.”

They’re conducting radiocarbon analysis to get a better picture of when the monument was built.

Several Bronze Age wells were also found on the site, as well as a necropolis that was dated between 1500 and 1300 BCE.

No one knows yet when the monument was built or why.

Hopefully carbon dating and more excavation will reveal more about the how, when, and why of this mysterious discovery.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about the mysterious “pyramids” discovered in Antarctica. What are they?