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Colonialism and Megalithismus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Colin Renfrew
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Extract

Ideas and theories in prehistory often seem to have a life of their own, surviving and flourishing quite independently of the evidence upon which they might be supposed to rest. The biblical Lost Tribes, the Etruscan migrations of Herodotus, and the Phoenician merchants of Strabo, for example, served for centuries as a model for the explanation of Europe's remote past, unsupported in many cases by any evidence whatsoever.

Type
Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 41 , Issue 164 , December 1967 , pp. 276 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1967

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References

page 276 note * The list illustrated by L. Siret [1] is: 1. cupola tombs; 2. funerary adzes; 3. axe symbol; 4. sign for water; 5. signs for rain or clouds; 6. sign for cuttlefish (‘oculus motif’); 7. sign for the earth; 8. female statuettes; 9. worked flint; 10. hippopotamus ivory; 11. ostrich eggs; 12. alabaster vases.

page 277 note * The value of examining the underlying principles for an archaeological theory, the model on which it is based, has been emphasized by Professor Stuart Piggott [3].

page 277 note † The Los Millares culture and its contemporaries have been termed Eneolithic or Chalcolithic by some writers, or sometimes Early Bronze Age ( = Bronce I). The term Chalcolithic is used here.

page 278 note * Dr Blance started first with a careful and objective statistical analysis of the material, not published in her antiquity article. What is in question here is the explanation adduced to account for it.

page 278 note † The Aegean, and especially Cycladic, parallels are dealt with in greater detail in my Ph.D. thesis [10].

page 278 note ‡ The concept of functional association of cross- cultural traits has been accepted since the remarks of Tylor in 1889 [12]. It was central to Childe’s concept of Urban Revolution that metallurgy and urbanization were functionally related.

page 279 note * See H. Breuil’s work on Iberian rock art published in 1933 [20]. Not all of these are earlier than the marble figurines, but they have earlier prototypes. Egyptian prototypes for megalithic art and paintings are again argued by L. de Albuquerque e Castro [21].

page 280 note † Childe, in more critical mood, actually dismissed this parallel, as well as those for the pottery and tombs, adding, ‘Though much has been learnt about the Peninsula’s prehistory and foreign relations in the past six years, reliable evidence for chronology based on an interchange of actual manufactures has not been achieved’ [22].

page 280 note * Amber sources in Europe, including Portugal, are mentioned by C. Beck et al. [27]. Siret suggested an Iberian source for callals (op. cit. [1], 39).

page 282 note * It is not yet excluded completely that fortifications in Iberia may be a Beaker innovation. Apparently the fortified site (with circular bastions) at Lèbous in the Hèrault is of Beaker date (1930 ± 250 bc, Gif-156; compare 2010 ± 175 bc for La Grotte Muree, Montpezat, with Beakers, Gsy-116). Cf. [32].

page 282 note † Students of Iberian prehistory will always be indebted to the Leisners for their admirable collection and presentation of so great a quantity of primary material.

page 283 note * This is likely to be an import from Africa, although the possibility of fossil ivory cannot yet be excluded, cf. Leisner, op. cit., 474.

page 283 note † Other Beakers have been recorded in N. Africa [43].

page 286 note * A radiocarbon date of 2400 BC (on the 5,568 halflife) may give a date in calendar years of around 3000 BC [52].