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The ‘Dolmens’ of Southern Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Glyn Daniel
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Extract

‘Observation not guided by ideas, even hypothetical ideas’, says Professor Wolf, ‘is blind ; just as ideas not tested by observation are empty’. The student of megalithic monuments has as constantly to regret that early antiquaries were not more aware of the necessity of making accurate plans and of recording morphological and constructional details of the monuments—many alas, now ruined or vanished—which they visited, as he has to deplore their delight in formulating theories which they never tested by fieldsurvey ; but he has also to cope with evils more dangerous even than these, namely observation so dominated by false or imprudent hypotheses that it results in a distorted vision worse by far than mere blind observation or empty ideas. Some of these hypotheses—like the Druids, the Ancient Egyptians, the metal-working Prospectors, the megalithic race, solstitial and clock-star alignments,—to mention only a few, have been disproved by research and flourish today only among perverse and illogical archaeologists. Others—such as the concept of the Montelius dolmen here examined in its relation to southern Britains—while just as inadequate and inaccurate, are the comrnonplaces of modem text-books.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 11 , Issue 42 , June 1937 , pp. 183 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1937

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References

1 Wolf, A. Essentials of Scientific Method, 1928, p.23.Google Scholar

2 e.g., the theory that some burial-chambers are built on low artificial hills, has led some archaeologists—even Montelius himself—to record beneath chambers such low mounds which have no objective existence. See Crawford, Long Barrows of the Cotwolds, pp. 148x2013;9.Google Scholar

3 ‘Southern Britain’ here means Wales, and England south of Mersey and Humber.

4 See Murray, N.E.D., S.V. Dolmen; Reinach, S. Revue Archdologique, 1983, series 3, 22, 36x2013;7;Google Scholar Déchelette, Manuel d’Archéologie, 1, 374x2013;5.Google Scholar

5 Théophile Malo de la Tour d’Auvergne Corret, Origines Gauloises (Paris, 1796), p.24.Google Scholar

6 In his Essai sur les Dolmens (Geneva, 1865), p.3.Google Scholar This is a rare book and the definition is worth quoting : ‘Le nom de dolmen s’applique à tout monument en pierre, couvert ou non couvert de terre, d’une dimension suffisante pour contenir plusieurs tombes, et formé d’un nombre variable de blocs bruts (les tables) soutenus horizontalement au-dessus du niveau du sol par plus de deux supports’.

7 The word is first used by Arcisse de Caumont, Bulletin monumental, 1863, p.582.Google Scholar See also Fondouce, Cazalis de Allées couvertes, 1873.Google Scholar

8 The term passage–grave is used throughout this article to connote tombs such as Cunha Baixa, Kercado, New Grange, Falköping, etc. ; the term gallery–grave tombs such as La Halliade, Kerlescant, Browndod, Carn Ban (Arran), etc. It is perhaps worth emphasizing here that these terms are technical and not descriptive ; obviously in common parlance there is little difference between passages and galleries.

9 Dolmens have been defined in ways other than these three primary ones here discussed. A common usage is to describe all free–standing chambers as dolmens. See for example, Windle, Remains of the Prehistoric Age in England, pp. 174–5.Google Scholar

10 A good summary of his earlier classification will be found in Compte rendu, Cong, inter. d’Anthr. et d’Arch. Préh., (Stockholm, 1876), p.152 ff.,Google Scholar ‘Sur les tombeauxetla topographie de la Suède pendant Tage de la Pierre’. His later classification is developed in ‘Orienten och Europa’, Antiqvarisk Tidskrift for Sverige (Stockholm, 1905), 8, 183.Google Scholar

11 op. cit., ‘Sur les tombeaux…’, p. 162.

12 As, for instance, those by Leeds, Obermaier, and Bosch–Gimpera.

13 See Fergusson, Peet, Rice Holmes, etc Montelius gives a characteristic account in Orienten och Europa, p.25.Google Scholar

14 As, for example, Childe, Dawn of European Civilization, p.287:Google Scholar ‘Dolmens are common in Ireland, Cornwall, and Wales, and there are some on the coasts (sic) of Devon, Dorset, and Wiltshire, and perhaps one in Kent’.

15 A Handbook of the Prehistoric Archaeology of Britain, (Oxford, 1932), p.25. (Produced in connection with the First International Congress of Prehist. and Protohist. Sciences, London, 1932). Note again the emphasis on Wiltshire.Google Scholar

16 16 Irish Naturalists’ Journal, July 1935, 5, 5.Google Scholar

17 Based on a field survey made during 1933–36. I take this opportunity of thanking Mr W. F. Grimes for his invaluable assistance with the Welsh material.

18 e.g. Randwick, Tinkinswood, Mantón Down, Gatcombe Lodge.

19 The Devil’s Den in Clatford Bottom is the only example in Wiltshire existing at present and Goddard, Crawford, and Passmore have independently recorded the remains of a long barrow here.

20 Ordnance Survey, Prof. Papers, N.s., no. 6, p. 4 ; Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, p. 21 ; Map of Neolithic Wessex, p. 6. Some have suggested alternatively that these free–standing chambers here discussed were covered with round mounds. Crawford has dealt with this suggestion. It would be indeed curious if all the chambered round barrows in this region (with the possible exception of Greenwell 217) had been denuded while so many of the chambered long barrows remained intact.

21 Ordnance Survey Prof. Papers, N.S., no. 8, p. 3.

22 Fergusson first suggested a north–European origin for the Medway megaliths. See also Ward, John Arch. Camb., 1916, p.242;Google Scholar Fleure, and Peake, J.R.A.I., 60 63.Google Scholar

23 But Piggott thinks the Chestnuts site may have had a round barrow (P.P.S., 1935, p. 122). There seems to me little evidence to support this suggestion.

24 Archaeology of Cornwall and Scilly, 1932 ; Ant. Journal, 1933, p. ff.Google Scholar

25 Tregaseal, Chapel Cam Brea, Tregiffean Vean, and perhaps Cam Gluze probably represent degenerate gallery–graves of the Scilly type.

26 Farrington, Richard Snowdonia Druidica, 1769, opp. p. 175.Google Scholar This is an unpublished MS. in the National Library of Wales, and I am indebted to Mr W. F. Grimes for drawing my attention to it.

27 Archaeologia, 1935, 85, 253.Google Scholar

28 P.P.S, 1936, pp. 119–120.Google Scholar

29 Archaeologia, 42 (I), 215 ff.Google Scholar

30 C. A. Ralegh Radford has suggested to me that the group of megaliths to the north of the fine chamber at Presaddfed may perhaps be the remains of a passage leading south to the chamber. I am inclined however to agree with Baynes (Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion, 1910–1911 pp. 21–22)Google Scholarthat they probably are the remains of a second chamber.

31 As Grimes points out (P.P.S., 1936, p. 131), the stone separating the two chambers functions at present as a supporter, but there has clearly been much alteration at this site.

32 ibid., p. 131.

33 At present certainly four and originally probably five.

34 34 Though it may be, as W. J. Hemp has suggested to me, a false entrance or ‘dummy portal’.

35 For a short account with plans of the Welsh Șearthfast’ types see Grimes, W.F. P.P.S., 1936 p. 132 ff.Google Scholar

36 Or even, perhaps, of passage–graves or gallery–graves.

37 Gardner–Wilkinson’s is perhaps the best known. See also Macalister, Archaeology of Ireland, pp.115–16.Google Scholar

38 Grimes, Map of South Wales showing the distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths Ordnance Survey, 1936 p. 12.Google Scholar

39 Grimes, op. cit., pp. 12–14.Google Scholar

40 I have touched on some of these issues in P.P.S., 1936, p. 259.

41 op. cit. supra, p. 23 and fig. 6. It should be observed however that similarity of orientation does not necessarily support Baynes’s argument.

42 e.g. Gaulstown, Ballynageragh, and Knockeen, all in co. Waterford.

43 Archaeological Journal, 1934, 91, 332.Google Scholar

44 J.R.A.I., 60, 63.Google Scholar

45 p. 42, vol. 1, of A History of Carmarthenshire (ed.SirLloyd, J.E.) Cardiff, 1936.Google Scholar This statement is manifestly incorrect. Vide infra.

46 Ordnance Survey Prof. Papers, N.s., no. 13, p.5 (1936).Google Scholar

47 A Handbook of the Prehistoric Archaeology of Britain, 1932, p. 25.Google Scholar This is an iniquitous misquotation. Crawford says clearly, ‘I repeat that I am dealing only with the district covered by Sheet 8 (of the Ordnance Survey Quarter Inch Maps—G.E.D.) where, as I believe, megalithic chambers were covered only by long mounds or cairns’ (Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, p. 21).

48 Careful excavation and detailed air-photography may reduce the number of those with no barrows visible at present to the earth-bound field-archaeologist.

49 Even if Grimes’s contention (P.P.S., 1936, p. 124) that the mound west of this chamber is natural, be correct (which I deem improbable) there is no doubt that the mound is functionally a ‘long barrow’.

50 Gor and Los Millares in southeast Spain, for example, or the Cretan tholoi.