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Origins
of the
Megaliths
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第一篇：考古类
Origins of the Megaliths
Since
the
days
of
the
earliest
antiquarians,
scholars
have
been
puzzled
by the many Neolithic (~4000 B.C.~2200 B.C.)
communal tombs
known as megaliths along
Europe's
Atlantic
seaboard.
Although
considerable
variations
are
found in the architectural form of
these impressive monuments, there is
a
general
overriding
similarity in
design and,
particularly, in
the use of
massive stones.
The
construction of such large and architecturally
complex tombs by
European
barbarians
struck
early
prehistorians
as
unlikely.
The
Bronze
Age seafaring
civilizations that lived in the region of the
Aegean Sea (~
3000 B.C.~ 1000
B.C.), among whom
collective burial and a diversity of
stone-built tombs were known, seemed a
probable source of inspiration.
It was
suggested that Aegean people had visited Iberia in
southwestern
Europe
in
search
of
metal
ores
and
had
introduced
the
idea
of
collective
burial
in
massive
tombs,
which
then
spread
northward
to
Brittany, Britain, North Germany, and
Scandinavia.
Radiocarbon dates for a
fortified settlement of megalith builders at
Los Millares in Spain appeared to
confirm this picture, though dates for
megaliths
in
Brittany
seemed
too
early.
When
calibrated,
however,
it
became
clear
that
radiocarbon
dates were universally too early to
support a Bronze Age Aegean origin. It
is
now clear that the megaliths
are a western and northern European
invention, not an introduced idea.
Even
so, they are still a subject of speculation and
inquiry. What induced
their
builders
to
invest
massive
efforts
in
erecting
such
monumental
tombs? How was
the necessary labor force assembled? What
underlies
their striking
similarities?
One
answer
to
the
last
question
was
proposed
by
Professor
Grahame Clark, one
of
Britain's
greatest
prehistorians.
Investigating
the
megaliths
of
southern Sweden, he noted that one
group was concentrated in coastal
locations from which deep-sea fish such
as cod, haddock, and ling could
have
been caught in winter. Historically, much of the
Atlantic was linked
by the travels of
people who fished, and this could well have
provided a
mechanism by which the
megalith idea and fashions in the style of tomb
architecture
spread
between
coastal
Iberia,
Brittany,
Ireland,
western
England
and
Scotland,
and
Scandinavia.
The
high
concentrations
of
megaliths on coasts and
the surprising number of
megaliths found on
small
islands may support
a connection with fishing.
Professor Colin Renfrew of the
University of
Cambridge,
England,
however,
views
the similarities as similar responses to similar
needs. At
the
structural
level,
the
passage
that
forms
a
major
element
of
many
graves could have been devised
independently in different areas to meet
the need for repeated access to
the
interior of these communal tombs.
Other
structural
resemblances
could
be
due
to
similarities
in
the
raw
materials
available. In answer to the question of why the
idea of building
monumental tombs
should arise independently in a number of areas,
he
cites the similarities in their
backgrounds.
Most megaliths occur in
areas inhabited in the postglacial period by
Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (~20000
B.C. ~ 18000 B.C. ). Their adoption
of
agriculture
through
contact
with
Neolithic
farmers,
Renfrew
argues,
led to a population explosion in the
region and consequent competition
for
farmland between neighboring groups. In
the face of potential conflict, the
groups may have found it desirable
to
define
their
territories
and
emphasize
their
boundaries.
The
construction of megaliths could have
arisen in response to this need.
Renfrew has studied two circumscribed
areas, the Scottish islands of
Arran
and
Rousay,
to
examine
this
hypothesis
more
closely.
He
found
that
a
division
of
the
arable
land
into
territories,
each
containing
one
megalith, results in units that
correspond in size to the individual farming
communities of recent times
in
the same
area.
【】
Each unit supported
between 10 and 50 people.
【】
The labor needed to put up
a megalith
would
probably
be
beyond
the
capabilities
of
a
community
this
size.
【
】
But Renfrew
argues that the cooperation of other communities
could be secured by some form of
recognized social incentive perhaps
a
period
of
feasting at which communal building was
one of several
activities.
【
】
Most
megaliths
contain
collective
burials.
Different
tombs
used
different
arrangements,
but
there
seems
to
have
been
an
underlying
theme: people placed in these tombs
were representative of their society,
but their identity as individuals was
not important. The tombs belonged
to
the ancestors, through whom the living society
laid claim to their land.
This
interpretation
reinforces
Renfrew
’
s
view
of
the
megaliths
as
territorial markers.
题目
word
ground
ate
ing to paragraph 2, early prehistorians
thought the Aegean
people of the Bronze
Age might have influenced megalith building along
the Atlantic seaboard because they
established commercial routes along
the Atlantic seaboard
been in Iberia,
where they introduced the idea of burial in very
large tombs
thought to have
found megaliths in Iberia when searching for
metals
thought
to
have
passed
along
the
concept
of
burial
in