A southern viewpoint
Diffusionist theories for the Neolithic in western Europe were completely reversed when the first radiocarbon dates were obtained from Breton sites such as Carn and Barnenez (Giot 1960). Those diffusionist theories had identified Millares as the place of origin of west European megalithic structures, emanating from eastern influences. Moreover, at that moment another tradition began; one of regional studies that are only now beginning to be superseded. Diffusionist ideas have been in vogue for such a long time that they have left a powerful legacy, especially in the southern part of the Atlantic façade. There are even differences between the Iberian Peninsula, France, and Italy. France was divided into three areas: the south with its Mediterranean coast; the Paris Basin, which is oriented more towards Continental Europe; and the west, which has academic connections with the British Isles and the Atlantic region of the Iberian Peninsula. This division is partially explained by the historiography and social framework of the different countries. The Iberian Peninsula retained ideas of distant origins and late dating for its megaliths (Almagro and Arribas 1963). In the other areas, archaeological analyses were developed that moved beyond the location of the megaliths (Joussaume 1985) and took social perspectives into account (Renfrew 1984).
Major projects were carried out in the west of France in the 1980s and 1990s: for example, at Champ-Châlon or Pé-de-Fontaine in the west-central region (Joussaume 1999; Joussaume 2006); at Dissignac, Gavrinis, Saint-Just, Er-Grah, and La Table des Marchands in Brittany (L’Helgouach 1996; Le Roux 1985; Briard et al. 1995; Le Roux 2006; Cassen 2009); and at Ernes in Normandy (Dron and San Juan 1997). These projects provide information that helps to break away from the static image of the megalithic monument. All of them add valuable data for the interpretation of this architecture, and allow important methodological advances, such as those developed at the Bougon necropolis, and at Prissé-la-Charrière (Mohen and Scarre 2002; Laporte et al. 2002; 2015; Scarre et al. 2003).
In the south of France, studies by Guilaine at Saint-Eugène and Pépioux deserve special mention, as does Pajot’s work in Quercy and D’Anna’s work on Corsica (Guilaine and Guilaine 1998; Pajot 1999; D’Anna 2002). However, Arnal’s synthesis of the 1960s has not been replaced by a new interpretative model. New ideas have been more closely linked to the development of new methodologies in physical anthropology and excavation technique, such as those carried out by Duday (2005) at Villedubert. More or less the same occurred in the Paris Basin with, for example, the work of Leclerc and Masset (2006) on collective burials in a number of gallery graves. This academic tradition started in the 1960s with Leroi-Gourhan’s work at the Marne Valley hypogea and is still alive today.
The most innovative project in the Iberian Peninsula was that developed by Vítor Jorge and the Porto University team in the Serra da Aboboreira. This project stands at the beginning of a new way of working with Iberian megaliths. An integrated excavation and research strategy was employed, including study of the mound, the paleoenvironment, and C14 sampling (Jorge 1984; 1995). Subsequent research at Viseu (da Cruz 1995), Tras os Montes (Sanches 1997) and in the north (Silva 2003) can be considered to owe its origin to that methodological and theoretical design. The new theoretical perspectives of Galician archaeology (Bello Dieguez et al. 1987), known extensively from Criado’s and Fábregas’s publications (Criado 1989; 1991; Fábregas Valcarce 1992) could be considered another result of Jorge’s critical way of thinking. The same goes for the first compilation of information by Arribas and Molina (1984).
In the 1990s, research in the Iberian Peninsula ran parallel to Anglo-Saxon research. At this time, some of the most prominent issues in the study of European megalithic monuments were addressed: the polymorphism of the earliest tombs (the geographical extension beyond the coastal zone; regional sequences; and the development of an altogether more realistic perspective. Large scale projects were carried out at Los Millares, El Pozuelo and Ambrona, at sites in the Toledo region, and at Dombate (Bueno Ramírez 1991; 1994; Tarrús 2002; Molina and Cámara 2005; Nocete 2004; Rojo Guerra et al. 2005; Carrera et al. 2005); and in southern Portugal (Oliveira 1995; Gonçalves and Sousa 2000). New aspects were considered, including anthropological perspectives, and the relationship between spaces for the living and spaces for the dead (Delibes 1995; Senna-Martinez et al. 1997; Bueno Ramírez et al. 2002). Territorial studies were a prominent feature of research in the Iberian Peninsula (Hurtado and Garcia-Sanjuán 1997). At the same time, the need to record the decoration of the monuments, and the large number of important menhirs in south-west Portugal (Calado 1997) became clear: megalithic art and representations on stelae and menhirs suggested connections between the Iberian Peninsula and Brittany (Bueno Ramírez and Balbín Behrmann 2002; Calado 2002).
These developments led to the adoption of new methodologies, focusing on those aspects of the evidence that were most important for the new interpretations. There was a remarkable accumulation of C14 dates. This work formed the basis of an evolutionary scheme that proposed a progression in tomb architecture in Brittany from the simplest to the most complex (Arnaud 1983; Boujot and Cassen 1992). Nonetheless, by the 1990s it was called into question. The rigid hypotheses that argued for the spread of chamber forms from a single area of origin to multiple areas were flawed. These flaws could only be overcome by thorough regional documentation (Soares 1997; Bueno Ramírez 2000; Laporte 2011; 2015).
In the 1980s, the availability of new dating evidence led to revised chronologies that overturned previous theories regarding the development of megalithic monuments in the south of Europe, particularly in southern France. From the 1990s, a similar reassessment occurred through the application of territorial analysis in the Iberian Peninsula (Boaventura and Mataloto 2009; Fernandez-Eraso and Mújika 2013; Garcia San Juan and Linares 2010; Molist and Clop 2010). Another feature was the growing interrelationships between the various research teams, and the development of collaborative projects between different European institutions. This opened the way for new discussion groups, and the first of a series of conferences on megalithic art. Wider debates, following from those in Moesgård and Groningen in 1950 and 1960, were revisited at the Bougon conference in 2002 (Joussaume et al. 2006).
Despite this progress, several topics that were resolved or examined in detail in some regions were not considered a focus of interest in others, or were not even taken into serious consideration. These distortions were especially noticeable in countries where there were no common frameworks for research objectives, such as Spain. Certain regions have a strong appreciation for archaeology as a feature that marks their identity, whereas others have little regard for that. One consequence is that established research teams with disappear, as the team leaders retire and are not replaced or succeeded by new researchers. This trend is also present to a lesser extent in France.
The European Megalithic Studies Group: interpretations at the broader scale
Many of the key issues that in recent research on megalithic monuments of the Atlantic zone were raised in the volumes arising from meetings of the European Megalithic Studies Group We hope that the present volume will carry forward this practice. The northern school of megalithic research has recently attained a clearly dominant position, as opposed to the older southern traditions. This is now beginning to change, as the south is contributing new themes for discussion. Thus, there is once again a true dialogue among the west European scientific community around the topic of megalithic monuments.
One such aspect relates to the more finely tuned chronologies (Scarre et al. 2008). A broader consideration of the social system that underlies architectural structures built of large stones is required. This should include the age of the earliest megalithic structures in western France and the Iberian Peninsula, compared with the slightly later developments in the north (Bayliss and Whittle 2007). In this, we feel the evaluation of such architecture as the result of many complex social relations provides the essential starting point. Discussions at the successive EMSG meetings have contributed to this. It has been agreed that analyses that focus on the understanding of supposedly “primitive architecture” must be set aside. Instead, we focus on studying a social and cultural product that was made material in very powerful architecture.
This interpretational framework is meant to draw closer attention to the social and cultural parameters that may explain west European megalithic monuments. From this perspective, we have learnt to nuance the role of architectural development as a classic evolutionary process. We believe there was clear polymorphism from the beginning, when the builders of the oldest European funerary architecture employed a number of different formulae for the housing of their ancestors. To connect this type of study with that of identity (Furholt et al. 2011) requires historical analyses about those societies that generated and sustained highly complex funerary behaviour. The variety that we accept for the structural morphology should also be applied to the function of these monuments. It is not easy to define a single function for monuments that have undergone several transformations. We should therefore develop a nuanced understanding in interpreting “changing” architecture in the coming years.
Throughout the Rennes meeting of 2012, participants discussed architecture, time, space, and action. In different ways, these concepts were applied to landscapes, monuments, and megalithic chambers. They were also applied, however, to temporal or operational sequences, such as time scales and geography (Fig. 22.1). Many participants employed terms such as construction, reconstruction, and experiment, as well as reuse, integration, incorporation, and modelling. Not surprisingly, we discussed monuments and large stones, which can be exposed in order to convey ostentation, or hidden to keep it secret. Many monuments required a tremendous collective effort for their creation, although evidence of more casual construction processes was also presented. Taken together, we often look for a social, technical, and/or symbolic function for a given feature, although even elements that appear to us to us to have had no useful purpose may sometimes have had their own significance.
Fig. 22.1: Distribution of megalithic funerary monuments in Europe (information from Soulier 1998; Darvill 2004; Scarre 2005; Ritchie 2006; Migdley 2006; Costa 2008; Furholt and Muller, 2011; Rzepecki 201; Rocha forthcoming; and R. Barroso and L. Millan (pers. comm.)
One of the objectives of the Rennes meeting was to approach these monuments and their funerary spaces in terms of architecture. This introduces a perspective in which Neolithic builders carefully planned these architectural projects, even before any work in the field began. In several examples, rows of stones discovered below the mound, can be suggested to have acted as precise guidelines for the building process: they can be found in Danish [Chap. 6: Dehn], west French [Chap. 2: Laporte], and British passage graves. Whether mound construction was always an integral part of the architectural project was discussed both for Danish [Chap. 8: Eriksen and Anderson] and British [Chap. 5: Cummings and Richards; Chap. 7: Scarre] dolmens. This leads us to question whether their present day appearance should be understood as a ruin. Taphonomic arguments, for example, identify enclosing platforms or circuits of walling that could have never been covered. Similar elements have also been noted at 5th millennium monuments in southern France, surrounding cists and, more rarely, around standing stones. Reserved areas surrounded by ditches, predating mound construction, are also a feature of some of the west French long monuments. Conversely, the position of the capstones in at least some chambered tombs is due to a deliberate intent to elevate the blocks in the air so as to appear to float: this was clearly part of the conceptualisation of the monument. Isolating this to a phase totally distinct from the construction of the funerary chamber and its surrounding structure would underestimate the complexity and diversity of the values and symbolism involved.
Study of the building site should not be seen through the restrictive perspective of a history of techniques. Indeed megalithic art must be considered part of the project and its development [Chap. 19: Bueno Ramírez et al.]. The ultimate design of the planned structure has first, however, to be distinguished from other more temporary devices. For example, studies of such different architecture as Danish passage graves [Chap. 6: Dehn] and Portuguese hypogea [Chap. 16: Rocha] emphasise that the entrance to the chamber, planned from the beginning as part of the project, was not always the access used while building work was in process. The existence of related structures, such as the closing stones within long megalithic chambers in Denmark, should perhaps be more carefully sought in other regions. Evidence for the drainage systems to improve the water-tightness of the chamber in Danish tombs [Chap. 6: Dehn] could also be investigated to generalise more broadly. The oversailing capstones of angoumoisin type passage graves could perhaps have been designed to achieve this, as could the clay layers inside some Spanish mounds and British long barrows. As for the different types of materials used for construction, it is intriguing to note the mention of daub walling as far north as Denmark [Chap. 13: Gebauer]. In northern Spain, the collective burial of La Velilla, dated to the second half of the 5th millennium BC, was deposited in a circular monument that seems to have been built entirely of daub. Even drystone construction needs further definition at a European scale. While it is often used in its strictest sense in France and the British Isles, the existence of a binding agent between the courses of stone is also attested in some late 4th and 3rd millennium BC structures. This binding agent can be prepared clay, as in the corbelled vaults of tholoi from southern Spain [Chap. 15: Bueno Ramírez et al.], or chalk: even birch bark is seen in some Danish passage graves [Chap. 6: Dehn]. Symbolic and technical choices also highlight local traditions: pointed keystones were used in northern Jutland [Chap. 9: Westphal]; white burnt flint, red sandstone, clay, and even pebbles were used for the flooring in Danish and German passage graves [Chap. 20: Hinz and Kirleis].
The installation of capstones over the chamber, or over the passage, was a strategic step in the building process. Associated platforms and ramps have been identified within Danish [Chap. 6: Dehn] and west French [Chap. 2: Laporte] mounds. Alternative propositions, that still need to be tested, are discussed for portal dolmens in the British Isles [Chap. 5: Cummings and Richards]. This step in the construction sequence may also have left a trace in the external elevation of the walling enclosing circular cairns in western France [Chap. 4: Cousseau]. Another question arises from the latter example – was the morphology of the monument, during what here can be shown to be no more than a constructional step, so different from the morphology of what, elsewhere, is commonly accepted as the final mound [Chap. 11: Linares Catela].
All architecture deals with space. In fact, identifying a place from which capstones can be extracted, moved, or elevated is one of the first requirements before work at the building site can begin. The presence of similar carved motifs on both a natural outcrop and an orthostat used in the construction of a passage grave [Chap. 7: Scarre] in England provides a striking example of the link between open air rock art and megalithic monuments. This has already been highlighted for the Iberian Peninsula. In Brittany, on the other hand, what looked like a natural outcrop within which a gallery grave was constructed was revealed to have previously been the quarry from which some of the tall standing stones of the Morbihan originated [Chap. 17: Gouezin]. The choice of the capstones, and to a certain degree the orthostats, also determines the dimensions of the chamber [Chap. 6: Dehn]. In Wales, the unique and sometimes enormous capstones of the portal dolmens could have been extracted from a pit discovered just underneath [Chap. 5: Cummings and Richards]. The dimensions of the backstone must have been strategically planned during the construction of Iberian polygonal chambers, with a standardised number of uprights and a capstone of generally small size [Chap. 10: Fábregas Valcarce and Vilaseco Vázquez]. In Iberia, former standing stones seem frequently to have been reused in the construction of these chambered tombs [Chap. 15: Bueno Ramírez et al.]. Standing stones themselves may have had sequences as complex as those of some burial mounds [Chap. 18: Large and Mens]. It is important always to recall the size of the space that the builders wanted to cover in the chamber. This was no more than 4 or 5m2 for most southern French passage graves [Chap. 3: Bec Drelon], as well as for Danish dolmens [Chap. 13: Gebauer]. By contrast, L’Helgouach (1996) noted that almost all the passage graves in Brittany are larger than that.
The location chosen for construction must also be examined. Landscape is a crucial part of the architectural project, including both natural and artificial structures. In southern Spain, the visual relationship between entrance to the Menga tomb and the Peña de los Enamorados provides a good illustration of the link between a megalithic monument and a natural landscape feature [Chap. 1: Sanjuan and Lozano Rodríguez]. The large terraces constructed around the monuments of the El Pozuelo cemetery, in southern Iberia, as well as those identified at the Klekkendehøj Danish passage grave [Chap. 6: Dhen] highlight the integration of cultural feature [Chap. 11: Linares Catela]. Flanking quarries along large mounds are sometimes the only features that have survived down to the present day. The chronology and locations of these monuments are also linked in central Spain and Denmark to sites of previous farming settlements [Chap. 15: Bueno Ramírez et al.; Chap. 12: Andersen]. The link between funerary and domestic architecture, however, can also be examined through conceptual models, for example, in the long barrows of western France [Chap. 2: Laporte]. Tomb cemeteries (clusters of monuments of different types, successively constructed by local groups) and associated enclosures (used for a short duration but commanding the involvement of a large number of people) are also explored [Chap. 12: Andersen; Chap. 20: Hinz and Kirleis], mostly in northern Europe.
Conclusion
Are these the right questions? Would specific architectural layouts and ways of construction be of interest for understanding the functions of monuments resulting from such collective investments? Would the process of making things have been more significant – including for the Neolithic builders themselves – than the architectural product that resulted from it? These questions also show what Chis Scarre (pers. comm.) has termed, not without some irony, as an informal boundary between what could be seen as “Catholic” and “Protestant” based academic traditions in Western Europe. The former emphasises the dogma of what can be seen or demonstrated by material evidence. The latter focuses more on the essence of things, which are not always accessible by direct observation. In this way, it is striking to note how some researchers would, for example, relatively readily accept a reconstruction using now-lost wooden elements within a megalithic structure. Yet the same researchers will be sceptical at the suggestion of a stone platform originally higher than it was observed in the field. On the other hand, those who regularly draw generalisations from well preserved monuments (sometimes several metres high) often forget that elsewhere the missing part could have been built in timber, turf or even daub.
The Rennes meeting was a venue for dialogue, and this must be reinforced. What new ideas can be proposed? What evidence should be considered valid to support a particular interpretation or reconstruction? Is reconstruction useful, or even possible? This dialogue is partly one between what can be seen today and our mental concepts. While we are all looking for what has disappeared, we do not give the same weight to specific pieces of evidence. Some insist on surviving material evidence. Others give more weight to what has disappeared. Some even focus only on the significance it had for past populations. This dialogue also examines the coherence of general trends when confronted with specifics at the local level. On the one hand, trying to renew ways of thinking tends to highlight general frameworks of interpretation inducing, paradoxically, a normative effect. On the other hand, reexamining our observations tends to highlight local diversity but, at the same time, cannot avoid the risk of generalising too quickly. Both are obviously necessary. Dialogue presupposes diversity.
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