MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS. There are still to be found in various parts of the world sepulchral monuments of stone which were erected in ancient times. Many are to be seen even in Europe. Megalithic monuments include dolmens. or table-like structures formed of several slabs of stone, cromlechs, or stone circles. and menhirs or solitary upright stones. Examples of these three types of monument have been found in Palestine east and west of the Jordan, and would seem to have been the work of a pre-Semitic race. It used to be thought that the dolmens were tables or altars of stone, but there is a growing mass of evidence against this view. R. Munro points out (Hastings' E.R.E.) that, as used by some English archeologists, cromlech is almost synony mous with dolmen; but, as defined by Continental authorities, cromlech is exclusively applied to enclosures " constructed of rude standing stones placed at intervals of a few feet or yards, and arranged roughly on a circular plan—circle, oval, horse-shoe, or rectangle." Cromlechs sometimes surround dolmens, tumuli, and cairns. It is clear, from the discovery of bones, skeletons, etc., that use was made of most of the smaller cromlechs as sepulchres. But he finds it difficult to believe " that burial was the sole purpose of the large cromlechs such as Avebury, Stonehenge, the Giant's Ring near Belfast, Mayborough near Penrith, etc. This last consists of a circular mound composed of an immense aggregation of small stones in the form of a gigantic ring, enclosing a flat space 300 feet in diameter, to which there is access by a wide break in the ring. Near the centre of the area there is a fine monolith, one of several known to have formerly stood there." He thinks that such large enclosures must have been used not only as cemeteries, but also "for the performance of religious ceremonies in connexion with the cult of the dead." Menhirs, besides being sepulchral monuments, may sometimes have been erected for other purposes (as oracular stones, etc.). They are often isolated, but they are also found in groups, forming a circle (cromlech) or an avenue. The question of the origin of the megalithic monuments is interesting and important. It has been discussed recently (1912) at the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Mr. T. Eric Peet, author of The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy (1909), pointed out that the main point at issue is whether the megalithic monuments were built by a single race or by a number of entirely different races or peoples, and, in the latter event, whether they arose independently among various peoples or •spread from a single centre. Prof. G. Elliot
Smith suggested that the idea of megalith-building originated kin Egypt soon after the invention of metal tools, and spread from tribe to tribe until the whole world was encircled by it. " No adequate explanation of the significance of dolmens, cromlechs, alignments and all the other works in stone associated with them, can be found unless due recognition is given to (a) the identity of the ideas which prompted •their construction, and the essential resemblances in their plan; (b) their geographical distribution—their absence from large central continental areas, and their wide extent alone continuous coastal and insular territories; (c) the chronological sequence of their construction, the site of their earliest appearance being somewhere do the neigh bourhood of the Eastern Mediterranean, and progressively later in date as we go either west or east—towards Ire land and Scandinavia, or Japan and the Pacific Islands, respectively; (d) the coincidence of their first appearance in most lands with the last phase of the Stone Age or the commencement of the Age of Metals; and (e) the improbability of theories of independent evolution, among widely separated races of mankind, of identical ideas which find expression in the same way In building of similar design and materials." Prof. Elliot Smith pertinently asked why, if the impulse to build megalithic funerary monuments was a phase of culture through which all mankind passed, the people of Central Europe were exempt from this instinct, when their littoral rela tives in the Mediterranean area and on the north-west of Europe were stirred by it to cut rock-tombs and build dolmens. " Why also, •if this hypothesis has any basis of fact, did the ancient inhabitants of Ireland not get their impulse ' until more than a millennium later, and the people of Japan until two millennia later, than the people of Egypt? " See the " Discussion on Megalithic Monuments and their Builders " in the Report of the Meetings of the British Association (1912); W. J. Perry, The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia. 191S; Reinach, O.; Peter Thomsen, Pallistina and seine Kultur in fiinf Jahrtausenden, 1909; B roekha us ; Hastings' E.R.E., s.v. " Death and Disposal of the Dead," vol. iv. 1911.