DOLMEN (Bret., table-stone. from dal, table ± men, Welsh morn, stone; the Wel411 equivalent is cromIrrh, bending slab). The name given to a class of monuments of prehistoric civilization, consisting of several great stone slabs, set edgewise in the earth and supporting a flat capstone for the roof, designed for a se pulchral chamber. The greatest historic in terest attaches to these monuments, for several reasons. They were erected in the British Isles, in northwestern France, in Spain. along No•th ern Africa, in Syria, and chambered mounds exist far east as Japan. They mark the Neolithic period in Europe, and their erection may be called the beginning of engineering. In Guern sey and elsewhere they are styled Druid altars, and are associated with Druidical rites. by sonic they have been attributed to the Celts, and this raises the question whether all the dolmen builders of Northern Africa and Europe and even in Japan were of the some race. If they
were, they would belong rather to the Iberie branch of Sergi's Eurafric species, a strain of whose blood may have reached the Orient. Dol mens were sometimes covered with immense tu muli, and again the earth envelope reached only the capstone. Some of the mounds were of great size, as that of Silbury llill, Wiltshire, 170 feet high, and 316 feet along the slope. In sonic of the chambers might have been single interments; in others, says Keane. the same mound had to do duty for many generations. the original cell expanded into the 'family vault.' developing a system of lateral chambers 30 X 16, and 8 feet high, with roof slabs of corresponding size, some weighing 10, 20, and even 40 tons. Consult: Keane', Ethnology (Cambridge, 1896) Borlase, The Dolmens of Ireland (London, 1897).