Megalithic monuments are encountered outside of Europe--in India, and on the African coast.
Megalithic monuments appear by hundreds in western France, especially in Brittany; almost every hill in England has them; the Orkney Islands alone contain more than two thousand.
The megalithicstructure of Callernish, in the island of Lewis before mentioned, is the most perfect example of the practice extant in Europe.
Further illustrations of the same principle are witnessed in the Indonesian megalithic monuments which Perry calls "dissoliths".
A series of waves of megalithic culture introduced purely Western ideas.
Perry, "The Relationship between the Geographical Distribution of Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines," Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, Vol.
Perry in his book "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia" makes it certain that the people of Indonesia in turn got it from the West.
Perry has collected the evidence preserved in a remarkable series of Indonesian legends in his recent book, "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia".
Dechelette in his work on Celtic and Gallo-Roman archaeology, as he traces from the earliest prehistoric times in Europe the evolution of the cult of the dead according to the evidence furnished by the ancient megalithic monuments.
But it may be argued that megalithic monuments are not to be found in Tuscany, though it was once said that this was the case.
Further, a certain type of man, whom we term the Prospector, is found living in no small numbers in most of these megalithic areas, as well as becoming a successful merchant at many of the sea-port towns of Europe.
Thurlow: The dolmens and megalithic tombs of Spain and Portugal.
A very natural reply to such a suggestion is that megalithic monuments do not occur in Sumer, or, as I should prefer to state it, have not yet been observed near the Persian gulf.
Frequently associated with these megalithic monuments are other structures, which are believed to belong to the same culture, though the association is not so clearly established.
Relationship between the geographical distribution of megalithic monuments and ancient mines.
Here, and perhaps too at Syracuse, they may well have had depots, but from the wealth of its megalithic monuments we may well believe that Malta was the base of operations for the western and northern trade.
These are often found in close association with the erections of larger stones, but not infrequently where true megalithic structures are absent.
Before bringing to a close this description of megalithic monuments, we must say a few words as to menhirs and cromlechs.
But Brittany is far from possessing the exclusive privilege of these megalithic constructions.
The Celts--a nation which occupied a portion of Gaul at a period long before the Christian era--were altogether innocent of any megalithic construction.
The megalithic constructions do not all date back to the same epoch.
Now if the curious lines traced upon the human hand at the roots and tips of the fingers be examined under a lens, it will be found that they bear an exact resemblance to these designs of megalithic sculpture.
Unlike the Megalithic People, they spoke a Celtic tongue,(33) though Bertrand seems to doubt their genuine racial affinity with the true Celts.
The dolmens proper gave place in the end to great chambered mounds or tumuli, as at New Grange, which we also reckon as belonging to the Megalithic People.
The Megalithic People did not imagine their deities under concrete personal form.
The megalithic carvings also sometimes show the solar emblem and sometimes not; the boats are sometimes filled with figures and are sometimes empty.
The Megalithic People* The religions of primitive peoples mostly centre on, or take their rise from, rites and practices connected with the burial of the dead.
If Mr. Borlase's view is correct, we have here a very strong corroboration of the symbolic intention which I attribute to the solar ship-carvings of the Megalithic People.
Yet it must not be forgotten that the descendants of the Megalithic People at the present day are, on the physical side, deeply impregnated with Celtic blood, and on the spiritual with Celtic traditions and ideals.
The practice of human sacrifice is, of course, not specially Druidic--it is found in all parts both of the Old and of the New World at a certain stage of culture, and was doubtless a survival from the time of the Megalithic People.
The Balandrau has been supposed to be a megalithic monument of the dolmen builders, but it is natural, a relic of the Ice Age in the valley when it was choked with glaciers.
Of late these cairns have been excavated, and prove to cover dolmens and covered avenues; one, the Grande Butte of the lande of Pontacq, contains a megalithic chamber, recalling the finest monuments of the kind in Brittany.
There are not many megalithic monuments to the north of the chain, but sufficient remain to show us that the dolmen-builder occupied the land from sea to sea.
The megalithic monuments of Brittany are undoubtedly the most remarkable relics of that epoch of prehistoric activity which is now regarded as the immediate forerunner of civilization.
The nains are also regarded as the originators of a cabalistic alphabet, the letters of which are engraved on several of the megalithic monuments of Morbihan, and especially those of Gavr'inis.
An island in the Gulf of Morbihan; megalithic monuments in, 48 ILE DE SEIN.
What Menhirs and Dolmens are Regarding the nomenclature of the several species of megalithic monuments met with in Brittany some definitions are necessary.
Piles of stones are heaped over them, they are buried deep in the earth, they are walled up in natural caves, they are inclosed in megalithic structures, they are burned, they are sunk in the sea.
There is one near the megalithic remains at Drizzlecombe, also with its mould-stones.
Other members of the same swarm skirted the Channel and crowded the plateaux and moors of Western and Central France with their megalithic remains.
The Icelanders were a very different race from the men who erected the megalithic monuments, but their Scandinavian ancestors came on the traces of the neolithic men, subdued them, and adopted many of their usages.
We are only justified in so asserting when we find it in connection with megalithic monuments, or when the spade in exploring it reveals implements of bronze or stone.
The Norsemen were buried seated in their chairs or in their boats, but the builders of the megalithic monuments were interred lying on their sides, with their hands folded, as though in sleep.
Wherever megalithic remains are found, there also these holed stones are found large enough for the passage of a body; sometimes only of sufficient size for the hand to be passed through.
There was another usage of the men of the megalithic monuments which had, apparently, the same idea or conception of spirit as that which induced them to make holes in their dolmens.
Among the megalithic people the stone grave was gradually reduced in dimensions from the mighty dolmen to the small kistvaen.
According to Maury, the distribution of the megalithic monuments of Europe marks the last refuge of vanquished Neolithic races, fleeing before their conquerors.
There has been a good deal of discussion about the orientation of megalithic monuments, and the truth on that point once ascertained, some light might be thrown on the aim of the builders.
Megalithic monuments are perhaps the most interesting of all the witnesses of the remote past, into the history of which we are now inquiring, and of which so little is known.
We have now specified the chief forms and modes of arrangement of megalithic monuments, and must add that they are often found in juxtaposition.
This is, of course, but a very rapid survey of the megalithic monuments of our globe.
The pillars and lintels of the outer portico, and those of the trilithons, are fitted together with the greatest skill, with tenons and mortices, a remarkable exception to the general rule with megalithic monuments.
The megalithic monuments of Ireland are not less important, and a recent survey has reported no less than 276 still standing.
In one hundred and forty-five megalithic monuments supposed to date from the Neolithic period, seventy-two give proof of incineration and twenty of inhumation only.
The megalithicmonuments of Palestine and of Arabia may yet be found to be linked with those of Algeria, by examples in the little known regions between the Nile and the Regency of Tripoli.
They are divided into two principal classes, the megalithic structures and lake dwellings.
A possible connection has been suggested by Sergi between the Mas-d'Azil signs and the markings that have been discovered on the megalithic monuments of North Africa, Brittany, and the British Isles.
It buried its chiefs and important people in megalithic chambers--i.
There are traces of such a large community of families in Wiltshire in England, for example; the remains of the stone circle of Avebury near Silbury mound were once the 'finest megalithic ruin in Europe.
Megalithic monuments have been made quite recently by primitive Indian peoples.
The earliest known natives of this region were the Celtic Rutheni, to whom the numerous megalithic monuments found in the department are attributed.
The Aymaras, indeed, seem to have possessed a very considerable culture before their conquest by the Incas in the 13th and 14th centuries, evidence of which remains in the megalithic ruins of Tiahuanaco.
The dolmen at Espartignac and the cromlech of Aubazine are the chief megalithic remains in the department.
Megalithic monuments are numerous, chief among them being the dolmen of Fontanaccia in the arrondissement of Sartene.
The similarity of the megalithic temples of Malta and of Stonehenge connect along the shores of western Europe the earliest evidence of Phoenician civilization.
In all the more modern megalithic tombs the entrance faces the south.
The tomb is a partly subterranean megalithic vault enclosed in a huge mound of earth, while the shrine is a wooden structure raised on posts some feet above the ground.
The bodies of nobles, princes, and sovereigns were deposited in megalithic vaults which were covered by huge mounds of earth.
The land on which it stands was the private property of the Tooitongas, whose megalithic tombs are situated some eight or nine miles away to the west.
In proof of the supposed connexion between these megalithic monuments and a worship of the sun, Dr.
So far as their descriptions allow us to judge, these megalithic monuments of the Tongans were purely sepulchral in character; they were dedicated only to the worship of the dead.
Rivers, who made them the basis of his far-reaching theory of a secret worship of the sun introduced into the Pacific by immigrants from a far northern country, who also built the megalithic monuments of Polynesia and Micronesia.
Megalithic monuments in the form of stepped or terraced pyramids seem to have been very rare in the Marquesas Islands; indeed, it is doubtful whether they existed at all.
From his descriptions we may infer that some at least of the Hawaiian temples deserved to rank among megalithic structures, and that the natives had definite traditions of the kings or queens by whom the temples had been built.
The megalithic remains, the dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs and stone circles are said to resemble more closely those of northern Africa than the larger remains of Brittany and of the British Isles.
We have only some inscriptions, legends on coins, marks on pottery and on megalithic monuments, in alphabets slightly differing, and belonging to six geographical districts.
A megalithic chamber was found beneath the head of the serpent, or saurian, which contained burnt earth and bones, charcoal, and charred nutshells, and a flint implement with the edge serrated like a saw.
This megalithic wall may be taken to be contemporaneous with similar works of defence found in various parts of Italy, but I believe its existence on Ponza has not yet been recorded.
On the west of the Jordan megalithic monuments were probably once numerous, since traces of them still survive in Galilee and Judaea,[82] but later divergent civilizations have removed most of them.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "megalithic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
