dolmens

Neolithic Tombs of Wales

REVIEW BY KEITH RAY Neolithic Tombs of Wales is a revised edition of a book with similar scope that was published 20 years ago by the same publisher. It is fundamentally a field guide to around 100 sites whose remains…

Mise en page

Megaliths of the World: Volume I

REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH The burial monumentality associated with the Neolithic is very much a global phenomenon. This desire to bury the dead in an artificial cave covered with an earthen or cairn mound occurs over at least six millennia.…

Carn Goedog geograph.org .uk 1448585

This week: Remarkable stones

According to the 12th-century cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth, the famous stones that make up the Stonehenge monument were erected originally in Ireland, before being moved to their current, more familiar home on Salisbury Plain. Geoffrey’s claim may seem fanciful, but…

LEFT Gwern Einion’s steeply sloping capstone stands against a dramatic sky in Gwynedd. What was the purpose of dolmen monuments like these, and were they always denuded stone frames, or had they originally been covered by mounds of earth?

Designed to enchant: the great dolmens of Neolithic northern Europe

The word ‘dolmen’ – derived from the Breton taol maen (‘stone table’) – is regarded as a folk term for Neolithic monuments that consist of a massive capstone supported by three or more upright stones, or orthostats. Archaeologists have sought to subdivide these monuments into more precise typological categories, but Vicki Cummings and Colin Richards, the authors of Monuments in the Making, politely suggest that they are wrong to do so. Is it time to reclaim the word? Chris Catling reports.