Today, Neolithic circular enclosures are generally regarded as evidence of the first monumental architecture in Europe. They are undoubtedly a topical subject in Neolithic research and also attract great interest from a broader audience. This has not always been the case. Just over 40 years ago, the few examples known then, mainly from Bavaria and Bohemia, were regarded as exotic and of no particular importance for the cultural-historical assessment of early farming societies in Europe. Thanks to aerial archaeology, the number of known sites increased rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s in Bavaria and Lower Austria. This has also been the case, since the 1990s, in East Germany and other countries of the former Eastern Bloc when political change made systematic prospecting flights possible. In addition, the development of geophysical prospection methods provided new insights into the structure and landscapes into which the enclosures were embedded. Finally, the increasing number of rescue excavations and large-scale scientific excavations have contributed to a better understanding of such sites as a characteristic component of Middle Neolithic societies in Central Europe.

今天，新石器时代的圆形围墙通常被认为是欧洲第一座纪念性建筑的证据。它们无疑是新石器时代研究的热门话题，也吸引了更广泛受众的极大兴趣。情况并非总是如此。就在 40 多年前，当时已知的少数例子，主要来自巴伐利亚和波希米亚，被认为是异国情调的，对于欧洲早期农业社会的文化历史评估并不特别重要。由于航空考古，巴伐利亚州和下奥地利州的已知遗址数量在 1970 年代和 1980 年代迅速增加。自 1990 年代以来，东德和前东欧集团的其他国家也是如此，当时政治变革使系统性的勘探飞行成为可能。此外，地球物理勘探方法的发展为围墙嵌入的结构和景观提供了新的见解。最后，越来越多的抢救性发掘和大规模科学发掘有助于更好地理解这些遗址作为中欧新石器时代中期社会的特征组成部分。