megaliths in Italy

Aix-Marseille Université Laboratoire d'Archéologie Méditerranéenne Préhistorique Europe/Afrique (UMR 7269) Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l'Homme 5, rue du Château de l'Horloge BP 647, 13094 Aix-en-Provence (France) 3 4 REMERCIEMENTS RINGRAZIAMENTI 5 LES PIERRES DRESSÉES DE L'AIRE CORSO-SARDE. ETUDE SYSTÉMIQUE DES TERRITOIRES. LE PIETRE FITTE DELL'AREA CORSO-SARDA. STUDIO SISTEMICO DEI TERRITORI. 6 9

This article does not presume to summarize the immense complexity of megalithism in France over a period of nearly three millenia, but rather to contribute a few elements of reflection to the numerous  research directions it inspires. It first insists on the importance of finally eliminating a number of accepted ideas; among which, the tendency to systematically classify the architecture of burial spaces in function of their “apparent” complexity, from the most simple to the most elaborate. Numerous examples show that the megalithic  phenomenon is complex, not linear. Each monument, today in ruins, is the result of several architectural projects, in the true sense of the term. The construction of a site, supposes at the same time a  succession of technical acts that also merit detailed study, in the same manner as that which specialists of the Medieval period call the archeology of construction. We also wish to emphasize the necessity of addressing Megalithism from the perspective of architecture, grave goods and human remains (when they are preserved), as these three aspects are often intertwined. Finally, a megalithic monument must be understood in its space, the funerary space in the broad sense, as well as the burial space. From this perspective, a multitude of question and numerous research directions appear. Megalithism is not an outdated subjet, but an innovative one, for which much remains to be done.

In questo lavoro vengono spiegati alcuni procedimenti  base per due espressioni di vibrante vitalità: l’antico “percepire il luogo” e l’antico “pensare all’immagine”. Il primo riguarda la pareidolia, il riconoscere forme familiari in ciò che ci circonda, il secondo la cinetica delle immagini, ossia la pratica di rendere il movimento delle figure su un piano bidimensionale. Queste espressioni, visuali e grafiche, prevalenti nei popoli preletterati, sono connesse, in qualche modo, all’animismo, hanno diffusione globale e caratterizzano sovente i luoghi sacri della preistoria.

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"Análisis epigráfico de las inscripciones -presuntamente megalíticas- del tholos de la Zarcita, Huelva.
"Una Golondrina no hace verano"
Georgeos Díaz-Montexano, "Sociedad Epigráfica de España" & "The International Epigraphic Scoiety".

"En la Península Ibérica ya se utilizaba la escritura miles de años antes que los fenicios aparecieran por sus costas", esta la tesis que ahora defiende la doctora en Historia Antigua, Ana María Vázquez Hoys1, si bien hay que señalar que en realidad es la más reciente investigadora que se suma a una vieja teoría planteada y defendida ya desde principios del pasado siglo, por varios autores -nacionales y extranjeros- y que actualmente es también defendida, desde hace un par de décadas, por otros dos investigadores, quienes han reunido indicios por casi toda la península ibérica2. El estudio de la Dra. Vázquez Hoys se centra fundamentalmente en un fenómeno local, unas inscripciones o grafitos, hallados en dos útiles prehistóricos, encontrados en sepulcros megalíticos de Huelva (España), y que se conservan en el museo de la capital onubense, donde se encuentran expuestos al público. No son las únicas muestras, existen otras en el sur peninsular...

Debemos poner en duda lo que hasta ahora se consideró como verdad irrefutable, el que fueran los fenicios quienes nos enseñaron a escribir -sostiene la Dr. Vázquez Hoys- ¿Y si, en realidad, hubiera ocurrido lo contrario? ¿Y si esos pueblos del mar que toda la mitología del Mediterráneo Oriental sitúa en la Península Ibérica, hubieran enseñado, en verdad, a los fenicios? ¿Escribirían los fenicios sus propios Anales en una escritura de Occidente? 3 Son estas las mismas preguntas que ya se realizaron otros autores antes."

Keçili and Bahşili erected stone monument complexes are situated in the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkish Thrace. These two sites are found roughly in the middle of the peninsula, on low hills with no view of the two seas Marmara or Aegean Sea. Right near the fresh water sources with fertile lands surrounding, they are situated in the most dense forest cover of the land. These two occurrences of erected stone monuments are not very far from each other. These standing stones are found on the localities marked as ancient graveyards on the old maps but only in Keçili locality we find a number of medieval ottoman gravestones with Arabic inscriptions on a separate sector of the site. Similar stones are called "martyr gravestones" by the local people not only in Turkish Thrace but on the Asian part facing the Gallipoli peninsula as well. Are these erected stones date to medieval (Byzantine or Ottoman) or nomadic cultures which later frequented these lands until they transformed to a sedentary life? This paper tries to find the answers to these questions.

This article presents the results of six years of excavation at Tumulus C in the megalithic cemetery of Prissé-la-Charrière (Deux-Sèvres). This is a trapezoidal mound 115 metres long, 30 metres wide and 4 metres high, that was constructed in several stages. The earliest stage that has so far been documented consists of a small funerary monument measuring 7.2 metres east-west and 8.8 metres wide. It was built largely of earth, and contained a cist open on one side and enclosed within a circular dry-stone mass. At a later stage, the entrance to the cist was blocked and the monument extended towards the east to form a long mound 23 metres in length. This mound was entirely surrounded by an encircling ditch. Later still, the 100-metre trapezoidal long mound was built, enclosing the earlier long mound within its western terminal. This extended mound contains at least one megalithic chamber of quadrangular plan, accessed by a passage opening from the northern façade approximately 1/3 of the distance from the western terminal. The chamber has yielded Middle Neolithic material. The significance of these discoveries are discussed in relation to existing understanding of the megalithic monuments in this region of France, with particular regard to the question of origins.

The IVth meeting of an international workgroup will gather together, in Rennes, from 10 to 12 May 2012, several of the leading European specialists on the theme of megalithic monuments (about twenty speakers from some ten different nationalities). Following the international colloquium at Bougon (Deux-Sèvres) which was held in 2002 (Joussaume, Laporte, Scarre, 2006), meetings of the European Megalithic Studies Group took place in Göteborg in Sweden ( 2004 ), in Seville in Spain ( 2008 ) and in Kiel in Germany ( 2010 ). This will be the first time for more than thirty years that the city of Rennes will welcome a high-level scientific meeting specifically dedicated to the study of megalithic monuments. It is organized within the framework of a program entitled " Megalithic monuments of the Atlantic zone and beyond " which is supported in particular by the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme de Bretagne. It will comprise two days of oral communications, open to the general public, in the Auditorium of the Museum of Brittany, in Rennes. They will be accompanied by the presentation of posters about current work on megalithic monuments in France, in Europe and in the World.

In this paper, I report the azimuth orientations of three compass-shaped monuments at a fourth site in the Tassili mountains of Algeria. Some of the compass-shaped structures of Tassili are oriented to the summer or winter solstice. Mapping these monuments, and documenting their azimuth orientations, provides useful data for our study of the ancient culture that built the monuments.

The ancestry of the long mound has long been a key focus in debates on the origins of monumental and megalithic architectures in western France. Typological schemes and absolute dates have alike been invoked in support of different models of monument development, but with limited success. Recent excavations at Prissé-la-Charrière, a 100-metre long mound in the Poitou-Charentes region, have emphasised the importance of internal structure and the complex process of modification and accretion by which many long mounds achieved their final form and dimensions. Excavations have revealed an early megalithic chamber in a dry-stone rotunda, that was progressively incorporated in a short long mound, then in the 100 m long mound we see today, which contains at least two further chamber tombs. The wide range of monument forms present in western and northern France during the 5th millennium BC suggests that the issue of monument origins must be viewed in a broad inter-regional perspective, within which a number of individual elements could be combined in a variety of different ways. Consideration of seven specific elements, including the shape of the mound, the position and accessibility of the chamber, and the significance of above-ground tomb chambers as opposed to graves or pits leads us to propose a polygenic model for the origins of the long mounds and related monuments of western France.