Stone Circles in Leśno

In a pine forest near the Kashubian village of Leśno, stone circles rise out of the ground, and on one burial mound stands a boulder whose outline suggests a human figure. This is a cemetery used by several cultures for more than a thousand years – from the Bronze Age to Roman times, when the area was home to people of the Wielbark culture, associated with the Goths. The site is open to visitors along the "Kamienne Kręgi" (Stone Circles) lichen and heritage trail in the Zabory Landscape Park.

Where it is

The cemetery lies south of Lake Leśno Dolne, by the river Niechwaszcz, between Leśno and Zalesie in the municipality of Brusy (Chojnice County), in the part of Kashubia known as Zabory. It has been on the register of archaeological monuments since 1978. Since 1975 it has been studied by archaeologist Krzysztof Walenta of the University of Łódź.

What was found

According to the Brusy municipality, researchers uncovered 13 burial mounds and 15 stone rings linked with Gothic settlement, plus about 20 stone-cist graves and pit and urn graves with face urns left by the Pomeranian culture of the early Iron Age. The first and largest mound measures 26 metres across and has a stone circle and a stele with human-like features. Such a layout is traditionally read as the grave of a tribal chief or a shaman, although the largest mound, near the entrance, contained a woman's burial, and the finds from it went to the museum in Chojnice. Traces of a so-called longhouse were also found here.

A coin and a scarab

One of the graves held a Celtic silver coin from what is now Slovakia and an amulet shaped like a scarab from the Mediterranean. Such imports show how far the contacts of Pomerania's inhabitants reached in the first centuries AD. Archaeologists suggest that the stone circles may also have been used for gatherings and rituals, but this remains a hypothesis rather than a proven fact.

What to see

• The mound with the stele – a boulder set in the middle of a circle, the most striking point on the trail.
• Stone rings – flat circles of fieldstones, partly hidden under pine needles.
• Reconstructed cist graves built of stone slabs.
• Lichens on the stones – the reason for the "lichen" part of the trail's name.

Tripto tip

At the entrance two boards show a map of the area and a plan of the cemetery – worth a look before you set off. The trail takes 40–60 minutes. It was restored in May 2020 after a storm in August 2017 that destroyed about 5,000 hectares of forest in the park. Leśno sits where several marked trails meet: the green Zabory trail, the black-and-yellow literary trail named after writer Anna Łajming and the blue Zbrzyca trail. The village itself has a 17th-century wooden church funded by Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga – a good addition to the trip.