simply by the fact that they existed and were a part of the earth.

How beautiful. Yes, I agree. Monuments in stone don't really matter when we're dead and gone anyway. It's sad we don't talk about death. I changed my Dad's mind about how Buddhists pointedly meditate on rotting corpses and the like - he thought it was abhorrent. But when I argued it helped them come to terms with death and the impermanence of all things, he agreed it was probably better to come to terms with it through thinking and discussion.