![]() Īmongst the vast Neolithic collections of the Carnac stones in Brittany, France, several dozen dolmens are found. The most famous of these sites is La Hougue Bie, a 6,000 year old neolithic site that sits inside a large mound later a chapel was built on the top of the mound. The term Houge derives from the Old Norse word haugr, meaning a mound or barrow. Many examples appear on the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, such as La Pouquelaye de Faldouet, La Sergenté, and La Hougue des Géonnais. Some believe the dolmens evolved from a simpler cist burial method. Examples have also been found in northern Ireland, where they may have co-existed with the court cairn tombs. In Ireland, however, more dolmens are found on the west coast, particularly in the Burren-and Connemara, which includes some of the better-known examples, such as Poulnabrone dolmen. It has been suggested that this means they are related to the passage graves found in Denmark and elsewhere.ĭolmen sites fringe the Irish Sea and are found in south-east Ireland, Wales, Devon and Cornwall. Some have a more complex layout and include an entrance passage giving them a T-shape. They consist of a kerb surrounding an oval mound, which covered a rectangular chamber of stones with the entrance on one of the long sides. Hunebedden are chamber tombs similar to dolmens and date to the middle Neolithic ( Funnelbeaker culture, 4th millennium BC). Megalithic tombs are found from the Baltic Sea and North Sea coasts south to Spain and Portugal. ĭolmens are known by a variety of names in other languages including dolmain ( Irish), cromlech ( Welsh), anta ( Portuguese and Galician), Hünengrab/Hünenbett ( German), Adamra ( Abkhazian), Ispun ( Circassian), Hunebed ( Dutch), dös ( Swedish), and goindol ( Korean). Since all the names come from languages used long after the dolmens were erected, they don't indicate the intentions of the civilisations that constructed them. Anta is the term used in Portugal and Galicia, Spain. Of other Celtic languages, cromlech derives from Welsh and quoit is commonly used in Cornwall. The etymology of the German Hünenbett or Hünengrab and Dutch Hunebed all evoke the image of giants building the structures. The term dolmen originates from the expression taol maen, which means "stone table" in Breton, and was first used archaeologically in Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne's Origines gauloises. 2.2.4 Eurasia (North Western Caucasus) Circassia.It has been impossible to prove that these archeologic remains date back to the time when the stones were set in place. ![]() ![]() There is however no firm evidence that even this theory is correct. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to them, which allowed a scientific dating. The most widely accepted theory is that all dolmen are tombs or burial chambers. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. The oldest known dolmen are in Western Europe, where they were set in place around 7000 years ago, at the same time as the ancient civilisations of Egypt, India, and the Middle East. ![]() It remains unclear when, why, and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. Dolmens were usually covered with earth or smaller stones to form a barrow, though in many cases that covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the burial mound intact. Most date from the early Neolithic period (4000 to 3000 BC). Kilclooney dolmen near Ardara in County Donegal, IrelandĪ dolmen, also known as a portal tomb, portal grave, or quoit, is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of three or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone (table). ![]()
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