Megalithic Tombs Research Articles

A spatula-idol on human radius in a megalithic tomb of the spanish central plateau

Se estudia un idolo-espatula de hueso, sobre radio humano, que procede de una tumba colectiva neolitica de la provincia de Valladolid (Espana). Los autores formulan diversas hipotesis sobre su significado

Phenomenology and the Megaliths of Wales: a Dreaming Too Far?

It is argued that the field data do not support the claims made by Tilley in his A Phenomenology of Landscape (1994) for intentional relationships between the placing of Welsh megalithic tombs and natural features of the landscape. The critique relates to sample quality, observational rigour and failure to examine alternative hypotheses concerning the siting factors involved in the placing of the tombs.

Studies in Iberian Archaeoastronomy: (6) Orientations of Megalithic Tombs of Badajoz and Neighbouring Portugal

Studies in Iberian Archaeoastronomy: (6) Orientations of Megalithic Tombs of Badajoz and Neighbouring Portugal

Ruined buildings, ruined stones: Enclosures, tombs and natural places in the Neolithic of south‐west England

There seems to be a consistent relationship between the forms taken by rock outcrops in south‐west England and those of megalithic tombs. Such tombs are sometimes found close to walled enclosures which incorporate a number of these natural formations. At first sight it seems as if the tombs were built to imitate these distinctive features of the landscape, but there are problems with this interpretation, for megalithic tombs took a similar form in areas with a quite different topography. Perhaps the very distinction between buildings and natural features is inappropriate in studying societies which lacked a modern understanding of geology. It seems possible that certain rock outcrops were identified as ruined tombs or the remains of other buildings surviving from the ancestral past. They were incorporated into newer structures as they provided a source of social power.

Studies in Iberian Archaeoastronomy: (5) Orientations of Megalithic Tombs of Northern and Western Iberia

Cet article presente les resultats de travaux sur le terrain conduits au cours des annees 90 dans la plupart des regions de la Peninsule riches en tombes megalithiques. Les auteurs s'attachent dans cette etude a inventorier les donnees qu'ils ont recueillies, se reservant de les interpreter dans une etude ulterieure.

On the natural history of the peasant landscape

Harm Tjalling Waterbolk (1924) is regarded, together with Pieter J.R. Modderman (1919) and Willem Glasbergen (1923–1979), as the direct inheritor of the founder of Dutch archaeology Albert Egges van Giffen (1884–1973). From the middle of the 1950s, after Van Giffen's retirement, thistroikashaped the rapidly growing academic archaeology in the Netherlands. Until well into the 1970s and 1980s they occupied the most prominent chairs at the universities of Groningen, Leiden and Amsterdam. One look at Waterbolk's impressive list of publications (almost exclusively articles) tells us that for half a century he has been an authoritative participant in developments in Dutch archaeology. He has been involved, directly or indirectly, in the modernization of excavation practices, in changes in the organization of academic education and research, in the introduction of new methods and techniques and in shifts in theory and interpretation. He has made a valuable contribution to the development of large-scale settlement research, to the shaping of the Dutch legal foundation of university education (the study of prehistory in theAcademisch Statuut), to the expansion of palynological research and the C14 method, and to the conceptualization of long-term continuity in the spatial organization of historical communities. His work is interesting because of the blending of a scientific interest in the history of the cultural landscape and a committed and critical involvement with the protection of such. Enough reasons to interview him ten years after his retirement. We meet Waterbolk in Meppel, a small town in south-west Drenthe, on one of the few hot days in the summer of 1996. It has been agreed that we will first pay a short visit to his birthplace in Havelte and to Van Giffen's grave in Diever. Before long it becomes clear that during the tour a web of named places and paths is gradually unfolding, each with its own historical tale and associated with personal memories. The afternoon is spent in the area between Balloo and Rolde, 5 kilometres east of Assen, the capital of the province of Drenthe. This area, which has an un-Dutch concentration of still existing and visible megalithic tombs, burial mounds, Celtic fields, and prehistoric roads, has recently become the subject of Waterbolk's interest (Waterbolk 1994a, and in press b).

Radiocarbon Dating and the Prehistory of the Balearic Islands

The aim of this paper is to establish an absolute chronology for the prehistoric entities and sites of the Balearic islands. We begin with the human settlement of each island and continue with the temporalities of the most important entities and materials of the Pretalayotic period: the Beaker phenomenon, megalithic tombs, artificial burial caves, naviforms, and navetas. Then we define the chronological limits of the Talayotic period, giving special attention to its internal sequence and to the chronology of its distinctive monuments — the talayots, sanctuaries, and taulas. Finally we suggest the chronological limits of the material and sites ascribed to the Post-talayotic period. The approach adopted here is based on a detailed analysis of the radiocarbon dates corresponding to the main archaeological periods mentioned above. The information potential of each date has been evaluated critically in terms of the archaeological contexts from which samples were obtained.

Découverte d'une ciste lithique entre le Loukkos et le Sebou (piémont rifain), Maroc

In 1995, on the piedmont of Rif not far from Ouerrha, was discovered a lithic cist. This one had the characteristics that pertain to the funeral cists in the surroundings of Tanger. It is the most meridional megalithic tomb discovered up to now in Morocco.

Dolmen des Pierres-Folles des Cous à Bazoges-en-Pareds (Vendée)

ABSTRACT Some metres in front of the "Ciste des Cous", around chambered tomb in a circular cairn, the megalithic tomb of "les Pierres-Folles" is of the "angevin" type. Its chamber is 5 m long and 2.60 m wide. Its narrow tumulus has a rectilinear façade and looks like the "angevin dolmen" of la Bajoulière in Saint-Rémy-la-Varenne (Maine-et-Loire). The archaeological elements found in this very disturbed megalith do not allow us to date the construction.

THE EARLY NEOLITHIC of WESTERN FRANCE and MEGALITHIC ORIGINS IN ATLANTIC EUROPE

Summary: Recent work on the early neolithic of western France has demonstrated the importance of influences and ideas from both the early farming communities of the Paris basin and the early neolithic groups of the Mediterranean zone. the complex pattern resulting from the interplay of these two sources has led to lively debates about the origins of the megalithic tombs of Brittany and west‐central France. Much emphasis has been placed on the impact of neolithic expansion from the east and its role as cause or catalyst in the development of megalithic tombs. the present article argues that explanations which look to the east for the origin of west French megaliths pay insufficient attention to the nature of early megalithic tombs, especially passage graves, as an essentially Atlantic phenomenon.

The Henge Monuments: Ceremony and Society in Pre-historic Britain. Geoffrey Wainwright, with foreword by Colin Renfrew, general editor. New Aspects of Antiquity Series, Thames and Hudson, London, 1989. 176 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index. ’35.00 (cloth). - Patterns of Deposition and Settlement: Studies on the Megalithic Tombs of West Scania. Birgitta Hårdh. Almqvist & Wiskell International, Stockholm, 1990. 111 pp., abstract,

The Henge Monuments: Ceremony and Society in Pre-historic Britain. Geoffrey Wainwright, with foreword by Colin Renfrew, general editor. New Aspects of Antiquity Series, Thames and Hudson, London, 1989. 176 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index. ’35.00 (cloth). - Patterns of Deposition and Settlement: Studies on the Megalithic Tombs of West Scania. Birgitta Hårdh. Almqvist & Wiskell International, Stockholm, 1990. 111 pp., abstract, tables, figures, bibliography. No price given (paper). - Mégalithes de haute Bretagne: Les monuments de la forêt de Brocéliande et du Ploërmelais: Structures, mobilier et environnement. Jacques Briard, editor, with contributions by B. Bigot, J. Bourhis, J. Briard, M. Briard, M. Cabaret, J. Chalavoux, M. Houeix, G. Jumel, G. Larcher, M. Le Goffic, D. Leborgne, D. Marguerie, J-P. Muratore, Y. Onnee, S. Pennec, F. Querat, G. Querre, J-Y. Tinevez. Documents d'Archèologie Française No. 23. Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Paris, Paris, 1989. 135 pp., figures, index, bibliography, abstracts (English). Fr 163 (paper). - Volume 56 Issue 3

Procédure de condamnation d'une allée couverte Seine-Oise-Marne (Méréaucourt, Somme)

ABSTRACT Some evidence suggests that the capstones of that megalithic tomb were only put into place after the funerary layers. Far from belonging to the original building, somehow they manifest its final closure.

The place of megalithic tomb cemeteries in Ireland

The megalithic chamber tombs that are the most striking monuments of the Irish Neolithic have long been divided by the shape of their plans. With the shapes there goes a characteristic pattern of distribution and of spacing in the landscape, and from this arise some puzzling questions of sequence as to how ‘cemeteries’ grew up. A fresh view is taken of this old problem

Monuments from the inside: The case of the Irish megalithic tombs

Abstract Studies of prehistoric monuments often consider them from a detached viewpoint, as if they were being looked at from the air. But they also played a part in controlling human perceptions and in determining the pattern of movement in and around them. The argument is illustrated by the sequence of megalithic tombs in Ireland.

Enige onuitgegeven brieven van Willem Roelofs aan Carel vosmaer

AbstractIn the Vosmaer family archives (General State Archives, The Hague) are a few letters written by the painter Willem Roelofs to the man of letters Carel Vosmaer between 1863 and 1882. The letters indicate that Roclofs and Vosmaer were already on friendly terms while the former was living in Brussels. Six of the letters are quoted in full in this article. A letter of 1863 refers to a report drawn up by Vosmaer for Minister Thorbecke concerning the purchase of works of modern art for the government. In the same letter Roelofs intimates that his sojourn in Brussels was disappointing. In 1869 he endorsed the views expressed by Jozef Israels under a pseudonym in a magazine article, putting forward his (Israels') ideas about the modern artist's task as opposed to former, outdated notions. In his article, Israels advocated the depiction of visible reality instead of subjects clictated by literature and historical science. The article appeared in De Nederlandshz Spectator, of which Vosmaer was an editor. For another issue of the same journal that year Roelofs sketched a megalithic tomb in Tinaarlo (fig. 2), with a caption protesting at the destruction of such monuments. The following year Roelofs asked Vosmaer's advice on the establishment of a society for the cultivation of etching'. After the appearance of Vosmaer's biography of Roelofs in the magazine Eigen Haard in 1879, the painter apprised him in a letter of a few errors, providing important additional information about his artistic work and detailed study of beetles. Vosmaer incorporated this information in an issue of Onze hedendaagsche schilders devoted to Roelofs in 1882, for which the artist supplied the illustrations. A letter prompted by the galley proofs contains Roelofs' observations on a few technical aspects of his watercolours.

DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN THE DESIGN OF MEGALITHIC TOMBS

Summary. Megalithic tombs exhibit a wide variety of chamber plans. This paper suggests that one feature which influenced their design was a wish to create areas of light or darkness within the monument. The argument is illustrated by the changing layout of passage graves in southern Brittany.

Trefignath and Din Dryfol:the excavation of two megalithic tombs in anglesey. By C. A. Smithand F. M. Lynch

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Trefignath and Din Dryfol. The excavation of two megalithic tombs in Anglesey. By C. A. Smith and F. M. Lynch. 135 pp., 53 figs, 38 pls. Cambrian Archaeological Association, Cambrian Archaeological Monographs No. 3, 1987. £29.50.

Trefignath and Din Dryfol. The excavation of two megalithic tombs in Anglesey. By C. A. Smith and F. M. Lynch. 135 pp., 53 figs, 38 pls. Cambrian Archaeological Association, Cambrian Archaeological Monographs No. 3, 1987. £29.50.

Le monument mégalithique transepté de La Joselière (ou du Pissot), au Clion-sur-Mer (Loire-Atlantique)

Already described as a transepted passage grave, the megalithic tomb at La Joselière comprises four lateral chambers opening on an axial passage. The remains of the cairn reveal a square plan. Amongst the few artefacts discovered in the southern chamber, beneath the cairn and in front of the entrance, variscite and sericite beads, transversal arrowheads and thin sherds of potteries belong to the Middle Neolithic.

Astronomical Orientations of Five Megalithic Tombs at Madau, near Fonni in Sardinia

Astronomical Orientations of Five Megalithic Tombs at Madau, near Fonni in Sardinia