Megalithism

The megalithism or art megalithic is a form of architecture that the people of the Neolithic Préhistoire recent at the time (approximately 4500 with 2000 av. J. - C.) or much more rarely of the Protohistoire (the period which fits between the Préhistoire and the Histoire, in turn, for each people) practiced a little everywhere in Europe and in the world.

This art megalithic refers to the use of large stones (of the Greek méga = large; lithographies = stone) like artistic medium, and with the monuments that the people of these old times set up with those. One could not assimilate the use to it that make some sculptors and modern artists of “large stones” in their work: the term is more generally used to describe the art engraved on Mégalithe S in prehistoric Europe.

Built, for the majority, between the Ve and the thousand-year-old IVe front J. - C., Dolmen S and Menhir S, “monuments” emblematic of the megalithism , are the work of the first farmers and stockbreeders having lived in Europe at that time moved back of the Préhistoire. They are among the very first “monuments” of the continent, and, if they seem to defy the eternity, it should be known that the state in which they arrived to us is very distant from their country of origin. The large assembled flagstones of the dolmens represent the skeletons of tombs often very elaborate, sheltering complex practices funerary, always unknown and mysterious. A great number of raised stones, menhirs and steles today isolated, are only the remainders of devices much vaster to the still dubious significance.

However, the term megalithism is ambiguous, because it indicates at the same time art to build the monuments, the “Mégalithe S”, (Dolmen S, Menhir S, Cromlech S, Cairn S, Henge S, Peulven S, Tholos, gone covered, Taula S of the Balearic Islands, Broch S of Scotland), the period during which these buildings were set up and their scientific study by the archeologists, the prehistorians, who try to include/understand the direction of them.

A “art” with whole share

Did the men of prehistory make art as Mr the Jordan made Prose? In the absence of any document allowing to know their motivations, the archeologists reduced, after the redécouverte of these innumerable trâces were left by our ancestors, to put forth assumptions, and to invent a category “prehistoric Art”, in which came quite naturally to fit - at the sides of the Cave painting found in the decorated caves - the oldest form of monumental architecture in the history of humanity, megalithism.

Even if the function first of this Architecture were not directly “artistic”, but religious, the Mégalithe is sometimes the privileged support of the art of its time. For example, the Orthostat S of the Dolmen S can be decorated with very complex engravings from which the symbolic system still escapes to us; they can also be carved and to present an anthropomorphic form, being thus connected with true prehistoric statues, of which some are characterized at the point to have centres (female guardian divinity?), of the rows of collars, Of the same etc, the inscribed menhirs are megaliths whose engravings sometimes extremely advanced and many are the witnesses of the artistic activity of the men of prehistory, art joining crowned.

A dubious “science”

The habitat and the lifestyle of the builders of megaliths cause many interrogations, which the scientists try to answer. The comprehension of these disappeared cultures requires the study of the objects (potteries, tools lithic or osseous) and of the monuments which arrived to us, after being sometimes re-used by other civilizations, being plundered, being destroyed, with the wire of the centuries. The megalithism, connects prehistoric archeology, thus remains a dubious science, a “ science of vague the ”, to take again the terminology of the prehistorian Serge Cassen, resting on assumptions. The burials, their architectures and their furniture hold an essential place in this research. One does not know large thing about the methods of construction of these imposing buildings, set up by means of enormous blocks of stone. These constructions, witnesses of the first monumental architecture in the history of humanity, were set up, to be used most of the time as burials, by organized companies.

Initially, research on the megalithism will attempt to define the natural environment of which forms part megalithic architecture. Will intervene then another problem, that of the dating, to allow the establishment of a chronology. And there still, it is the uncertainty which reigns as a Master. . As of 1944, Pierre-Roland Giot creates, within the Faculty of Science of Rennes, a laboratory of Prehistoric anthropology, in which it applies the scientific techniques to the Archéologie: Petrography of the polished axes, Spectrography of metals, Paleolithic Sedimentology of the layers S amongst other things. It will carry out during forty years the great excavations and the megalithic restorations of monuments and tumulus and will train a team of prehistorians aguerris. Among his pupils, one raises the names of Yves Coppens, Jacques Briard and Jean Helgouach, joined later by Charles-Tanguy the Russet-red, Pierre-Louis Gouletquer, Marie-Yvane Daire and Henri Morzadec.

Mysteries of the megalithism

Megalithic civilizations are for the majority in the Neolithic era. And the erection of these mysterious “monuments” (Dolmen S, Menhir S, Cromlech S, etc…) who arrived to us, without their “directions for use” causes many questions still remaining without answer.

The first mystery raised by the megalithism is of technical order: it is that of their construction. One wonders legitimately about the techniques implemented for the transport of such stones, if bulky, on several kilometers, then on their installation by men having only one rudimentary material. One is tiny room to formulate assumptions: one can suppose that with time, by using levers and a labor in great number, it was possible to move stones of 20 or 30 tons, to make them slip on rollers, and to make them rock on levels inclined to draw up them. But when the stones weigh more than 100 tons (like the Grand menhir broken of er Grah, with Locmariaquer (Morbihan), the largest menhir of the world, of almost 20 m, and to approximately 350 tons), that does not appear more possible. In the same way, certain flagstones of cover of the Dolmen S - as, always with Locmariaquer, that of the Basket Rutual , for example, whose the 11 meters length flagstone (40 tons) appears disproportionate compared to the room - do not seem to have been able to be raised by wood levers, which would have broken.

A second mystery is due to the relative good state of conservation of the majority of these monuments: how is it done that so high Monolithe S (6 or 7 meters, sometimes more) and hardly inserted in the ground hold still upright nowadays?

Another question without answer: one could note that certain alignments or Cromlech S correspond in any point to the course of an underground river, therefore invisible, and one is unable to explain the reason of it.

Last mystery, and not of least, that of the major significance of the erection of these monuments. The megalithism, we saw it, has a religious dimension incontestably. But we do not know anything of this religion, its rites, its ceremonies. One made, in certain cases a bond with the Mort. Certain monuments seem to be tombs (Dolmen S, Galgal S, Cairn S…). However, close to alignments (like those well-known of Carnac), of cromlechs, or certain menhirs, no ossement was discovered. They thus had probably another function. Among the more or less serious theories which circulate to try to explain this mystery, one will quote three of them, which does not bring the least element of scientific checking:

Some think that the megaliths were reference marks for the travellers.
Of others which they correspond to the terrestrial telluric nodes.
Some affirm that they are astronomical reference marks.

One will quote for memory another theory, at the very least eccentric and which raises more Science-fiction than of the Science, according to which the megalithism would be an extraterrestrial form of communication, with beings come on ground at the time of the Préhistoire.

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