Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:37:40.337Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Megalithic transport and territorial markers: evidence from the Channel Islands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Mark Patton
Mark Patton*
Affiliation:
Jersey Museums Service, The Weighbridge, St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Evidence from the Channel Islands supports the view that long-distance transport of megaliths in the European Neolithic cannot be substantiated. Analysis of the stones at La Hougue Bie, however, shows that megaliths were regularly moved over shorter distances, and suggests that the distribution of megalithic sites within a region cannot be explained simply as a function of the availability of building materials. This view modifies the purely materialistic conclusions of Thorpe & Williams-Thorpe in their recent demolition of the Stonehenge bluestones myth (ANTIQUITY 65: 64–73).

Type
Notes
Information
Antiquity , Volume 66 , Issue 251 , June 1992 , pp. 392 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkinson, R.J.C. 1979. Stonehenge. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Burl, A. 1991. Megalithic myth or man the mover, Antiquity 65: 297.Google Scholar
Hawkes, J. 1937. The archaeoiogy of the Channel Islands I: The Bailiwick of Jersey. St Helier: Société Jersiaise.Google Scholar
Hedges, J.W. 1983. Isbister, a chambered tomb in Orkney. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. British series 115.Google Scholar
Hornsey, R. 1987. The Grand Menhir Brisé: megalithic success or failure?, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 6: 185–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinnes, I.A. & Hibbs, J.L.. The dolmens of Jersey. Jersey: La Haule Books/Channel Television.Google Scholar
Mourant, A.E. 1933. Dolmen de La Hougue Bie: nature and provenance of materials, Société Jersiaise Annual Bulletin 12: 217–20.Google Scholar
Mourant, A.E. 1937. Notes on petrology, in Hawkes, 1937: 205–7, 212–3, 225, 238-9, 244–5, 269.Google Scholar
Mourant, A.E. 1963. The stones of the Mont de la Ville passage grave, Jersey, Société Jersiaise Annual Bulletin 18: 317–25.Google Scholar
Mourant, A.E. 1977. The use of Fort Regent granite in megalithic monuments in Jersey, Société Jersiaise Annual Bulletin 22: 41–9.Google Scholar
Patton, M.A. 1987. Jersey in prehistory. Jersey: La Haule Books.Google Scholar
Patton, M.A. 1990. Neolithic communities of the Channel Islands. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
Patton, M.A. 1991. Axes, men and women: symbolic dimensions of Neolithic exchange in Armorica (northwest France), in Garwood, P., Jennings, D., Skeates, R. & Toms, J. (ed.), Sacred & profane: archaeology, ritual and religion: 65–79. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology. Oxford Monographs in Archaeology 32.Google Scholar
Renfrew, A.C. 1973. Before civilisation: the radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Renfrew, A.C. 1976. Megaliths, territories and populations, Dissertationes Archaeologicae Gandenses 16: 198–220.Google Scholar
Thorpe, R.S. & Williams-Thorpe, O.. 1991. The myth of long-distance megalith transport, Antiquity 65: 64–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar