The Senegambia Stone Circles, consisting of four large groups of stone circles, found in the West African modern countries of Gambia and Senegal, are not as massive or impressive structures like those of Stonehenge in England or the Moai Statues of Easter Island, but they represent a remarkable cultural and architectural achievement of pre-historic western Africa. The incredible feature of the Senegambia Stone Circles is the concentration of more than 1000 of them spread over an area that is 100 km wide and 350 km in length, along the River Gambia. It is estimated that the Senegambia Stone Circles date back from the 3rd century BC to 16th century AD, which suggests that the stone circles were built gradually over a long period of time and that probably signifies a tradition that was maintained for almost two millennia.

Still today, the history of the construction of the megalithic Senegambia Stone Circles remains shrouded in mystery. In those early days, to carve out the monoliths in cylindrical or polygonal pillars, without the help of the modern tools, was not an easy task. The circles were built of laterite rocks, extracted in one piece from the nearby quarries, which required tremendous skill. After that, the huge extracted monoliths were transported to various sites for the installation of the pillars, which required mobilization of hundreds of manpower.

The Senegambia area, located between the River Senegal and the River Gambia, consists of four large groups of stone circles. Out of the four, Sine Ngayène and Wanar lie in Senegal, while Wassu and Kerbatch are in Gambia. They include 1053 stone circles and each circle consists of 8 to 14 columns. The shape of the 6.5 feet (2 m) tall lateral columns, weighing around 7 tons, is surprisingly regular, some of which are almost ideal cylinders, indicating the accurate processing of metal tools.

The reason for the construction of the mysterious stone circles is really unknown. Recent excavations in the immediate vicinity have uncovered mass burials, in which bodies were haphazardly thrown into the graves, suggesting the possibility of an epidemic or some kind of prehistoric sacrificial ritual. Nevertheless, the presence of the burial mounds led many scholars to consider that the stone circles probably had some funerary purpose.

However, according to Islamic writers, the monolithic stone circles were erected around the burial mounds of the royal personages of the ancient Islamic empire of Ghana, probably during the 11th century. However, the mounds had leveled over centuries of erosion.

Among the four groups, as mentioned above, Sine Ngayene is the largest, featuring 52 stone circles. However, the other two groups attract maximum number of visitors, as the region encompasses more than a thousand megaliths erected in as many as fifty circles. In 2006, out of the 1053 circles 93 were enlisted in the UNESCO World Heritage sites.