The Social Archaeology of Megalithic Monuments

The Social Archaeology of Megalithic Monuments The change from simple tombs to elaborate henges in the Neolithic period of western Europe appears to have coincided with the rise of centralized political control by Colin Renfrew ver the past two decades many ments were the unaided work of the bar Europe, but at least one can begin to prehistorians have moved be barian peoples of European prehistory. think about them in social terms. O yond the concept of re-creating The absence of metal objects in them Although the structures may have had the past in terms of culture history indicated that their makers were the other functions, most of them served as toward a concept of "process" that seeks simple farmers of the New Stone Age, tombs. In some areas, notably in Britain, to explain past events rather than being but before the development of absolute there are prehistoric stone monuments content to narrate them. As Kent V. dating techniques their actual age could of other kinds, notably the great stone Flannery of the University of Michigan only be estimated. circles of Stonehenge, Avebury and the has put it, some New World archaeolo Did the structures represent the influ Ring of Brogar in the Orkneys. In Britta gists are not "ultimately concerned with ence of more advanced ideas, percolat ny great "alignments" of standing stones 'the Indian behind the artifact' but rath ing from areas that supported high cul arrayed in parallel rows three-quarters er with the system behind both the Indi tures, such as Crete and Greece, west of a mile long are found at Carnac. Car an and the artifact: what other compo ward to Spain and then northward along bon- 14 dating and the variety in the nents does the system have, what energy the Atlantic coast? Given such an as form of the monuments in different ar source keeps it going, ... and so on? " sumption, the "diffusionist" view that eas suggest that they may have had five The distinction between the two ap barbarian Europe merely mirrored the or six quite independent places of origin. proaches to prehistory is made clear in civilizations of the Near East was quick One of those places was surely Brittany. the Old World by the case of the Euro to rise. Scholars of the culture-history Another was in Portugal and perhaps in pean megaliths (from the Greek megas, school even mapped the successive ad Spain; others were in Denmark, proba "great," and lith os, "stone"). These im: vances of the supposed Mediterranean bly in Ireland and perhaps in southern pressive monuments have intrigued stu influences. England. Glyn Daniel of the University dents of the past for more than a centu The development of carbon-14 dating of Cambridge has suggested that some ry. They are found in all the countries of caused the complete collapse of the dif of the monuments took their form Atlantic Europe, from the Mediterrane fusionist view. It was soon learned that through the imitation in stone of the an seaboard to Sweden, and the human the megalithic monuments in several ar wood houses of the local inhabitants bones many of them contain show that eas of Europe were nearly 2,000 years and their ancestors. This is in some in they served as tombs. Some are very older than any of their supposed Medi stances a plausible suggestion, but it simple, although they could not have terranean predecessors. Some of the ear does not state precisely why the monu been easy to build. For example, the liest of them, in Brittany, could be dated ments came into existence. monuments called dolmens may consist back to 4500 B.C. There could no longer Faced with such a problem, the ar of three or four large boulders support be any doubt that the monuments, the chaeologist would do well to ask what ing a massive capstone. There are some earliest stone structures still standing the role of these diverse monuments was 50,000 dolmens in Europe, and the la anywhere in the world, were of local Eu in the societies of the time. This is iri part bor required to group the boulders, to ropean origin. a question about the actual function of build up earth ramps and then to move the monuments: How were they used, the capstones into position must have he dual problem that then faced the how did they facilitate the workings of been prodigious. Other monuments are Tarchaeologist was not only to find the society? In part it is a further ques far more elaborate than dolmens and some explanation for the origins of tion about the nature of those socie must have required man-hours of labor these monuments but also to give some ties. What kind of societies were they totaling in the hundreds of thousands. account of their function that could in order for such monuments to have Examples include the great passage make the monuments intelligible to us. a meaningful place in them? And of graves of Newgrange in Ireland and of The various historical reconstructions course both questions go beyond the is Maes Howe in the Orkney Islands. that were once offered are now seen to sue of "usefulness" in any narrow mate Even the early students of the mega have failed. Instead one has to think in rialist or "functionalist" sense; it is evi lithic monuments of Europe realized terms of process, considering the system dent at the outset that these great feats that they were pre-Roman and indeed behind both the monuments and the so of construction must in many instances prehistoric. The scale and sophistication cieties that built them. Today archaeol have had an enormous symbolic val of such structures as the passage graves, ogists still have only a few clues to why ue. They were surely a source of pride however, made the same scholars reluc the megalithic monuments rose precise� to their makers and perhaps of envy to tant to believe that the megalithic monu- ly where they did, and not elsewhere in their neighbors. In a social approach to 152 © 1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC DITCH SURROUNDING THE RING OF BROGAR, one of two be the result of quarrying in the sandstone bedrock. The labor invest henge monuments on the central Orkney island known as Mainland, ment required to complete the late Neolithic ditch, more than 330 me was trenched in the course of the author's studies there. It proved to ters in circumference, is estimated to have been 80,000 man-hours. © 1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC 153 these questions the human qualities of found to the west and, more sparingly, ceeding early Bronze Age in Wessex. pride and emulation, of solidarity and in the Wessex area itself. Because early In the centuries immediately after 2000 competition must have a role. investigators did not find tomb cham B.C. individ ual burials were accompa Whatever their general interest, the bers in them, the structures were at nied by rich grave goods, including ob two questions must in practice be asked first called unchambered long barrows. jects of bronze, amber and gold. first about a specific region and place. Later excavations, however, revealed A second class of stoneless Wessex The monuments differ from area to that most of them did originally con- monument is known as a causewayed area, and so must the specific inter . tain wood structures that had long since camp. Most of the camps are roughly pretive approach, whatever regularities collapsed. Like megalithic chambered circular enclosures about 200 meters may underlie them. One of the first areas tombs, the barrows undoubtedly served in diameter surrounded by concentric to be examined in this way was pre as places of burial, but the number of rings of ditches. The ditches are not con historic Wessex: those several counties individuals represented by the remains tinuous; they are broken by und ug areas of southern England where Stonehenge, in them is in most instances small. (the causeways), and it is now clear that Avebury and many lesser monuments Moreover, the remains are incomplete, the banks thrown up with the chalk ex are found. The period is between the suggesting that the dead had been al cavated from the ditches, rather than the first development of farming communi lowed to decompose elsewhere in prepa- . ditches themselves, are what were origi ties there in about 4000 B.C. and the de ration for secondary burial in the bar nally significant. Recent excavations at velopment of a technology based on the row (a custom that is well documented Hambledon Hill in Dorsetshire by Rog working of bronze in about 2000 B.C., for cultures in many parts of the world). er Mercer of the University of Edin when the building of megalithic mon Grave goods are sparse in the long burgh have shown the enclosure to have uments had effectively gone out of barrows, as they are in nearly all the been defended by outlying timber pali fashion. Until recently little was known European megalithic tombs, and what is sades on the approaches to it. Moreover, about the domestic settlements of this there is very simple. The finds are gen Mercer found evidence, in the form of area. Even today most of our knowledge erally restricted to the normal range human sk ulls and skeletal fragments in comes from the considerable profusion of Neolithic artifacts: pottery, polished the ditches, that amplified earlier inter of monuments, many of them on the stone axes and chipped-flint tools. Ex pretations of these sites as the meeting rolling chalklands that were among the cept in the tombs of Spain and Portugal places of scattered communities from first areas to be settled.

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