Types of Megalithic Monuments of the Irish Sea and North Channel Coastlands: A Study in Distributions

Abstract

The megalithic cult of southern and western Europe appears to have been largely seaborne. It was spread in western Britain, too, by a people who used the northern sections of the Atlantic route. This paper deals with the distributions of different types of megalith in the Irish Sea basin and in its northward extension. It describes the burial and ceremonial monuments of the lands which front on to a mainly land-locked sea. The routeways of the Irish Sea were used to diffuse the megalithic cult over a long period, and the better favoured coastlands attracted large colonies of megalith builders (see fig. i) comparable in size to those of any section of the Atlantic route. The controlling geographical features such as tidal currents and their influence on routeways; or diffusion in relation to areas of lighter soil, or patches of bare rock, or wind-swept coastlands (i.e. the less densely forested areas); are of vital importance, and will be discussed elsewhere.