Sepultures d'Occcident et geneses des megalithismes (9000-3500 avant notre ere).

Sepultures d'Occcident et geneses des megalithismes (9000-3500 avant notre ere). JEAN GUILANE (ed.). Sepultures d'Occcident et geneses desmegalithismes (9000-3500 avant notre ere). 206 pages, b/w figures. 1998.Paris: Errance; 2-87772-150-7 ISSN ISSNabbr.International Standard Serial Number 0982-2720 paperback FF195. These four volumes testify to the continuing focus upon what Germanscholars, I believe, originally termed `Megalithismus', a termclearly now embraced with enthusiasm in the latin languages. In the 19thcentury scholars such as Fergusson assumed that such `Rude StoneMonuments' had something in common wherever they might be found,from northern Europe to north Africa, from Iberia to the Levant Levant(ləvănt`)[Ital.,=east], collective name for the countries of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to, and including, Turkey. andindeed beyond. From the second half of the 20th century it was realizedthat the chambered tombs of western Europe Western EuropeThe countries of western Europe, especially those that are allied with the United States and Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (established 1949 and usually known as NATO). (including those of Germanyand Scandinavia) form an approximately continuous zone, and might wellbe considered a unitary phenomenon, both geographically andchronologically, despite their long duration. It seems curious, then, tofind a wider spatial compass in Megalithismes, with papers by TaraSteimer & Frank Braemer on `Monuments funeraires megalithiques auproche-orient', and by Roger Joussaume on `Ethiopie: dolmens duHarrar et traditions des steles'. They serve to remind us, as mightother such contributions focused upon other parts of the world, thatconstruction of monuments from large stones is not restricted to theNeolithic of northwestern Europe. But unless a broad framework ofcomparative ethnography is intended, it is difficult to see the purposeof including them with the European studies. One fascinating, if confusing, feature of these four collectivevolumes is that several academic traditions are simultaneously at work.There are typological studies of the traditional kind, where themonuments are considered in terms of their plans as drawn by the modernarchaeological draughtsman. There are grand syntheses, seeking to gatherup all the megaliths of Europe in their scope, and there areparticularistic par��tic��u��lar��ism?n.1. Exclusive adherence to, dedication to, or interest in one's own group, party, sect, or nation.2. studies where individual monuments are studied withcare, sometimes set in a well-considered and wider archaeologicalcontext In archaeology, not only the context (physical location) of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. . The most straightforward, and the most coherent in its approach, isLa France La France was a single that was released by Dutch popgroup BZN in 1986. It is about a man and woman who met and fell in love while in France. des dolmens, which, after a brief introduction by the editor,undertakes a survey of the French dolmens and collective tombs on aregion-by-region basis, with 20 regions of France France is divided into 26 regions or r��gions (in French), of which 21 are in continental metropolitan France, one is the island of Corsica, and four lie overseas. R��gions in mainland France are further subdivided in between 1 and 8 d��partements. listed alphabetically.The text is in French. Soulier's introductory map, based on thenational DRACAR DRACAR Digital Radio-Controlled and Combat Auto Racing database, indicates well over 3000 megalithic meg��a��lith?n.A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles, notably in western Europe during the second millennium b.c. monumentsin France. The successive chapters document their great variety. Sincethe earliest radiocarbon dates for such sites still appear to come fromBrittany, the chapter on Brittany by Charles-Tanguy Le Roux Roux, Pierre Paul ��mile 1853-1933.French bacteriologist. His work with the diphtheria bacillus led to the development of antitoxins to neutralize pathogenic toxins. is a pointof departure for discussion, but it is a concise note of nine pages, andcannot deal with underlying issues. For the British reader, or indeedfor the international reader influenced by recent British syntheses,this picture offers a healthy antidote to our insular preoccupations. Itreminds us that the centre of gravity centre of gravityNounthe point in an object around which its mass is evenly distributedNoun 1. centre of gravity of the French distribution is inthe south: the Aveyron has 725 monuments, and Lot has 551. Yet thevariety and profusion of these monuments, while putting the muchscantier British showing in its place, does serve also as an invitationto what one may term a `megalithismatic' approach, where thephenomenon of megalith megalithHuge, often undressed stone used in various types of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments. The most ancient form of megalithic construction is probably the dolmen, a type of burial chamber consisting of several upright supports and a flat roofing slab. building becomes divorced somewhat from thesettlements and other manifestations of the societies and communitieswhich built them. The two volumes edited by Jean Guilaine (with the texts in French)are the product of a seminar held at the College de France. The approachis again primarily a regional one (restricted, apart from the unexpectedexcursus ex��cur��sus?n. pl. ex��cur��sus��es1. A lengthy, appended exposition of a topic or point.2. A digression. to the Near East and Ethiopia noted above) to the megalithicmonuments of France. They indicate the high quality of recentexcavations and fieldwork. Le Roux in the 1999 volume (on Brittany inthe 5th and 4th millennia BC) and several authors in the 1998 volume(notably Nicolas Cauwe on collective tombs from the Mesolithic to theNeolithic, Henri Duday & Patrice Courtaud on the Mesolithic cemeteryat La Vergne (Charente-Maritime), Christian Jeunesse on Danubianfunerary fu��ner��ar��y?adj.Of or suitable for a funeral or burial.[Latin fner practices and societies and Christine Boujot & Serge Cassenon Carnacean tumuli and long mounds) focus well upon the early phases ofmegalithic burial in France. As Le Roux points out, the work of Boujot& Cassen has re-opened the possibility that the massive Breton longmounds (`tertres') with totally enclosed chambers, first studied atCarnac, might be earlier than the first passage-graves, hitherto widelyconsidered to be the first chambered tombs of Brittany and hence ofEurope. These three works perform a valuable service in illustrating thewealth of relevant French material, and of the high quality of theresearch currently conducted in France. For a wider perspective it is,however, necessary to turn to the massive (860-page) proceedings of theSantiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela(säntyä`gō thā kōmpōstā`lä)or Santiago,city (1990 pop. 91,419), A Coruña prov., NW Spain, in Galicia, on the Sar River. conference of 1996. This in turn helps to rectifythe geographical balance, giving due weight at last to the megaliths ofIberia. These were largely omitted from the recent syntheses of Hodderand then of Sherratt, where a Danubian Neolithic influence (and thelocal reactions to that influence) were seen as the motivating force forthe development of megalithic burial in Europe. Yet it has never beenclear how this thesis might apply to the various and numerous megalithictombs of Iberia, nor indeed, if Brittany has priority, how Bretoninfluences were transmitted. The first section is devoted to historiography and methodology, andbegins with a well-judged introduction by Jean Guilaine. (The text ineach case is in the native language of the author, with a convenientresume in Spanish and in English at the head of each chapter.) Thesecond section is devoted to northwestern Europe (i.e. Britain, Ireland,Scandinavia and Germany, with an excursus to the Caucasus), where afurther broadly synthetic paper by Elizabeth Shee Twohig is notable. Thethird section is devoted to France, with chapters by a number of authorswho subsequently contributed to the volumes edited by Guilaine, notedabove. In addition there is a useful overview by JeanL'Helgouac'h in which he expresses the view that Neolithiccultures were established on the Armorican coastline several centuriesbefore the construction there of megalithic burial chambers. The earlyclosed monuments (tertres) co-existed with the open monuments (includingpassage graves). The tertres with their rich burial goods are seen asthe burial places of important chiefs or dignitaries. Hence significantsocial stratification is seen at the outset of the megalithic phenomenonin Brittany. It is the next three sections which form the heart of this volume,more than half its length, and, appropriately for a publicationcelebrating a conference in northern Spain, at last rectify the balancein favour of Iberia. Most of these are regional studies. At least two(by Carlos Tavares da Silva, on early Neolithic and megalithic originsin south Portugal, and by Joaquina Soares, on the transition towardsNeolithic social formations on the southeast Portuguese coast) byimplication see local megalithic origins, while recognizing an easternsource for the domesticates upon which the Neolithic economy was based. The seventh and final section (`Society, Art and Ritual')contains articles on a number of interesting themes, some of themrelating to megalithic art. Notable among them is the paper by NicolasCauwe, also a contributor to the works edited by Guilaine, in which theMesolithic roots of the megalithic collective tombs are emphasized. Thissection makes an appropriately open-ended conclusion to the wholevolume, for in it we find a number of case-studies givingwell-documented insights into the burial customs of the AtlanticNeolithic. Yet it seems clear that many of the basic questions remainunanswered, and in particular the relationship (if there is any) betweenthe megalithic architecture of Iberia and that of France remainsunresolved. The deficiency in the discussions of the megalithicphenomenon here is the lack of any serious treatment of Scandinavia, butthat can hardly be a reproach in a conference dedicated to the AtlanticNeolithic. Overall these four volumes emphasize how rich the material is, andhow well-conducted surveys and excavations are adding to ourunderstanding of the megalithic architecture of each region. Only in afew cases, however, do we find the burial monuments set within the widerNeolithic landscape, or the relationship clarified between theoccupations of the living and the repose of the dead. The central mystery remains. Why was it in western and northwesternEurope, and only in those regions, that the phenomenon of megalithicburial developed and prospered so mightily? The few cases documented forsuch practices elsewhere in the world only serve to emphasize the fargrander scale of the European manifestation. And I am still intrigued bythe problem of origins, although many authors in these volumes rightlydeal with other questions altogether. Most authors here would, I guess,see separate megalithic origins in Iberia, Brittany and Scandinavia --for certainly no-one is here arguing for active contacts between theseareas at the early time in question. Some authors argue for localMesolithic antecedents, and the accumulating documentation of this viewis particularly useful. Others attempt to show the chronologicalpriority of the Neolithic economy, and here the documentation and datingis now much fuller than it was a decade ago. But why and how should theadvent of farming produce the phenomenon of megalithic burial quiteindependently in at least three regions of Europe Europe is often divided into regions due to geographical, cultural or historical criteria. Some common divisions are as follows. Directional divisionsGroupings by compass directions are the hardest to define in Europe, since (among other issues) the pure geographical criteria ? No-one here is sobrave as to suggest that the Mesolithic antecedents seen in one or otherregion were already so well established generally throughout western andnorthwestern Europe that the separate coming of the farming economy ineach of these regions could be expected to produce megalithicarchitecture through the widespread and universal influence of thosewidespread Mesolithic collective burial practices. It is now at least 40 years since the impact of radiocarbon dating,especially in Brittany, brought about a revolution in our understandingof the European megaliths, clearly implying their independence fromarchitectural traditions in the east Mediterranean. That point now seemsuniversally accepted. But beyond that the situation seems as confused asit was 40 years ago. But if the picture is confused at the level ofcontinental synthesis, it is becoming progressively clearer at the localand regional level. The high quality of the work reported in these fourvolumes is eloquent testimony to that. The pieces of the jigsaw (if onemay use that rather misleading analogy) are being meticulously dustedoff and fitted together. Yet the big picture remains obstinatelyobscure. COLIN RENFREW, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research is a research institute of the University of Cambridge in England. HistoryThe Institute was established in 1990 through a generous benefaction from the late Dr D. M. McDonald, a well-known and successful industrialist. ,Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, England.