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Le douzième dolmen de Barnenez: destructions et reconstructions au sein d’une nécropole mégalithique
More informationThe southern tumulus of Barnenez, situated on the north coast of Finistère, is one of the most famous Breton megaliths. It was excavated during the 1950s by P.-R. Giot, and the results published in 1987. Since then, data concerning this well-preserved monument have not been updated with the new knowledge regarding megaliths gained over the last three decades. In 2010, an international research program began on this tumulus, integrating an ongoing PhD at Rennes 1 University. The first part of the study concerns the ornamentation inside the funerary areas, with the discovery of paintings and the redefining of the engravings. The second section is an architectural study through interpretation of the elevations thanks to the use of archaeological building methodology. Both revealed multiple phases inside the tumulus, unveiling a complex history. This article will focus on two structures of the tumulus which contain discreet evidence of that substantial history, before the monument attained its imposing final form, seventy metres long. The first structure is passage grave H. Two registers of ornamentation have been found, revealing two distinct and successive phases inside the chamber. In the passage, the architectural study showed some ruptures in the constructional mode, revealing extensions of the passage. Passage grave H seems to have had a previous state, destroyed by the Neolithic builders themselves. We decided to do a survey to test if the previous monument had left marks on the ground of the current passage grave. The results exceeded our expectations, with conservation of the plan and of part of the cairn with, in several places, two courses in elevation. Not all the monument was levelled off, the orthostats of the end of the chamber remained in place, integrated into the current chamber, which explains the differences of ornamentation. The survey proves that a monument was dismantled and partially reused in the current dolmen H. It is one of the first times we can prove the reuse of stones taken from a dolmen to be integrated within another. We needed all the megalithic architectural elements, marks on the ground, on the elevations and on the ornamentation, to partially understand the architectural history of dolmen H. The second part studied is the western façade of the tumulus. It contains a row of many raised stones, whose wider sides face the bay of Morlaix. This alignment is a kind of buttress used to block the external mass of the tumulus against the slope on which it was built. Furthermore, resemblances have been found between the stones of the façade and alignments of raised stones in the open air. The main result, however, lies in the similarity between the organisation of these stones and those inside the passage graves, with shared rhythms in the forms and the geology of the blocks as criteria. This western façade shows, as it were, a flat version or representation of the walls of an orthostatic passage grave. This alignment of raised stones is an architectural manual to explain the internal space of a dolmen and how to build it. The corresponding dolmens inside the tumulus bore marks of extensions of the passage with the addition of new slabs, matching the phases of the tumulus. The alignment includes these extensions but with differences in rhythm. It allows us to suggest that the raised stones came from the dismantling of another dolmen, with its own architectural history, different from the tumulus, but “ embedded” or recorded in the western façade. The southern tumulus of Barnenez provides evidence that the Neolithic builders did not avoid the destruction of a previous monument in order to build a new architectural project, where the stones could be reused. To restrict this process only to the large broken menhirs, initially raised in open areas, was probably a misinterpretation.
Keywords: Brittany, megalith, passage graves, standing stone alignments, architecture, Neolithic, Mégalithe, dolmen à couloir, alignements de pierres dressées, architecture, Néolithique, Bretagne
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123.More information
ABSTRACT The inverted commas show that the metathesis of the title is not a slip. Indeed, many aspects of the megalithic current seem to be deeply rooted in the Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian traditions : treatment of the corpses, spatial structures observed in art and architecture, as well as other features of everyday life. Inversely, the Balkano-Danubian Neolithic seems closer to the Eastern European Epigravettian tradition. Fifty years ago, Leroi-Gourhan opposed the linear space of hunter-gatherers to the circular one of peasants. We think that this assertion, formulated in a diachronical perspective, can today be considered as a mere ethnographical distinction. The geometrically ordered space of the semi-settled hunter-gatherers from the Russian plain can be opposed to the more homogenous and topological space of the nomadic Magdalenians. Later, the geometrical and metrical space of the Balkano-Danubian Early Neolithic illustrates the same kind of contrast with the looser spatial structures of the megalithbuilders. Thus, both kinds of spatial organization may coexist and do not depend on a Palaeolithic or Neolithic way of life. As a detailed account of the whole question would require a book, we only stress here some of the most salient features of these various cultural worlds. Even if such a synthesis may appear to be somewhat audacious, we believe that it remains globally true.
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124.More information
The archaeology of Neolithic burial structures, and notably of megalithic ones, has long been dominated by a plethora of classifications and considerations touching building materials and the construction techniques implemented. A recent re-thinking of the problematic applied to Neolithic burial facilities over recent years involving new lines of inquiry has allowed certain clues to be identified for interpreting human activities and access to be gained to architectural aspects that had remained up until now. Thus the discovery of secondary entryways, transit areas, and various other internal features in graves has substantially altered the traditional view of structures. This is so much the case that this information today represents indispensable material for anyone seeking to reconstruct and make sense of the complex history of these structures, with their successive phases of construction, remodelling, obstruction, and destruction, etc.
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ABSTRACT Research work into megalithism has mainly been focused on the study of megalithic monuments themselves (dating them, finding out what they were used for and how they were built) while their links with the geographical context have never been seriously analysed. Study of the location of megaliths and the origin of the stones used to build them in two small areas of Auvergne, the built-up area of Clermont-Ferrand and the Saint-Flour planeze, reveals that the sites of megaliths are not a matter of chance or of a favourable geological context, but are mainly the result of the determined will of the builders which very often meant over carrying huge stones very long distances. Choosing the location seems therefore to have been a major factor for the builders. Their aim seems to have been to erect monuments in carefully chosen and clearly visible places. In addition to funeral and ritual intentions, it looks as if such prestigious monuments as dolmens and standing stones were put up in order to show the boundaries of a territory.
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127.More information
With 87 megalithic tombs, Mengez is the biggest necropolis of megalithic tombs in Lebanon. The tombs are rectangular, square or circular with or without covering stone. The majority of the material found inside the tombs belongs to the Chalcolithic, Early Bronze or Late Bronze periods. No settlement is associated with the necropolis so we can assume that nomads built it.
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