Písečný vrch

An unassuming 318 m rise near Bečov that hides the oldest stone quarry in Europe — hundreds of thousands of years of toolmakers came here for its quartzite.

On the map Písečný vrch is nothing — a bump of 318 m rising barely fifty metres over the fields southeast of Bečov. On the ground it is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the country: the hill is a natural source of high-quality quartzite (“Bečov type”), and people came to quarry it for toolmaking from the Old Stone Age onward — the oldest documented stone quarry in Europe, with fifteen archaeological cultures layered on the spot. The diggings and the open sandy scars give the little hill an oddly dramatic face, and the views over the Lounské středohoří cones are far better than the elevation suggests.

The site sits a short walk from the Bečov u Mostu rail station, which makes it the natural first act of a day among the steppe hills towards Raná and Oblík.