Megaliths of the World

Luc Laporte is Research Director at CNRS (France). He is a specialist of the Neolithic period in Europe, and on the subject of megaliths in general, and is the author of more than 140 scientific articles in international journals. He has written a book on the megaliths of western France and edited several reference collective works on the megaliths of Western Europe and Africa megaliths, for the Neolithic and Protohistoric periods. His field works focused mostly on the study of reference sites such as the tumulus C of Péré in Prissé-la-Charrière (France) and the World Heritage megalithic site of Wanar (Senegal), but also in East Africa (Djibouti) and South America (Argentina, Peru). He has been teaching at the Universities of Rennes for more than twenty years, and his expertise is regularly sought by various national or international institutions (UNESCO, National Geographic, CNRA, ANR, Fondation de France, etc.). TARA STEIMER-HERBET is a graduate of Paris 1 - Panthéon La Sorbonne where she carried out her doctoral research on developing a methodological approach to Middle Eastern archaeology. Her research led her to become particularly interested in megalithism, and the way this phenomenon is expressed in the cultural and funerary practices of the Levant and western Arabia during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. In 2005 she excavated a sanctuary in Hadramawt (Yemen) and since 2010 has focussed on the megalithic phenomenon in Indonesia. Her research efforts currently concentrate on the preservation of megalithic monuments in the Akkar region of Lebanon as well as on characterising the megalithic phenomenon of the 3rd and 2d millennium BC in the Kuwait region of al-Subiya, Dr Steimer currently teaches ‘archaeological methodology’ and ‘megalithism in the world’ at the Laboratory of Prehistoric Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Preface – Roger Joussaume ;


Introduction – Jean-Paul Cros, Sophie Corson, Jean-Marc Large, Luc Laporte ;



PART I: MEGALITHS ;



Chapter 1 :


From the architectural project to megalithic ruins: a dynamic vision of ‘petrified’ remains – Luc Laporte ;



Chapter 2 :


Megalithism and monumentalism: a plea for broadening the debate – Alain Gallay (†) ;



Chapter 3 :


From the rock throne to the burial chamber. History, myths and megaliths in Japan – François Macé, Laurent Nespoulous ;



Chapter 4 :


Megalithic genesis: construction of a cultural identity for better goods circulation – Tara Steimer-Herbet ;



Chapter 5 :


Stones in the landscape: Megalithic monuments in their wider setting – Chris Scarre ;



PART II: MEGALITHS IN AMERICA ;



Introduction – José R. Oliver, Luc Laporte ;



Chapter 6 :


Pre-Colombian megaliths of the Caribbean: bateyes and plazas of the Greater Antilles – José R. Oliver ;



Chapter 7 :


Megaliths of the Colombian Andes: Boyacá, Sierra Nevada del Cocuy and San Agustín – José R. Oliver ;



Chapter 8 :


The late Holocene megalithic structures at easternmost Amazonia – João Darcy De Moura Saldanha ;


From stone to dust: ceramics and megalithism in Amapá (Brazil) – Marina Da Silva Costa ;



Chapter 9 :


Non-funerary megalithism among mobile hunter-gatherers and shepherds: Tulán-52 and Tulán-54 (Atacama Desert, Chile) – Catherine Perlès, Lautaro Núñez ;



PART III: MEGALITHS FROM EASTER ISLAND TO INDONESIA ;



Introduction – Nicolas Cauwe, Tara Steimer-Herbet ;



Chapter 10 :


Aboriginal monumental stone-working in Northern Australia during the Pleistocene – Chris Urwin, Bruno David, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Joshua A. Bell, Jean-Michel Geneste ;



Chapter 11 :


Megalithism in eastern Polynesia – Nicolas Cauwe ;



Chapter 12 :


Megalithic architectures in a world of oceanic ‘little islands (Micro-nesia)’ – Christophe Sand ;



Chapter 13 :


Mechanisms of appearance and disappearance of Indonesian megaliths – Tara Steimer-Herbet ;



Chapter 14 :


Menhirs of Tana Toraja (Indonesia): a preliminary ethnoarchaeological assessment – Ron Adams, Guillaume Robin ;



Chapter 15 :


Megaliths on Sumatra and Nias (Indonesia): concepts of ‘value’ behind the making of stone monuments – Dominik Bonatz ;



Chapter 16 :


The social context of megalithic practice: An ethnoarchaeological approach. What the case of the Indonesian island of Sumba teaches us – Christian Jeunesse ;


Megalithic techniques at Sumba Island (Indonesia): from quarries to abandonment – Noisette Bec Drelon, Christian Jeunesse ;



Chapter 17 :


Setting the wider frame. A comparison of recent megalith building traditions in Sumba (Indonesia) and Nagaland (India) – Maria Wunderlich ;



PART IV: MEGALITHS FROM INDIA AND SOUTHEASTERN ASIA ;



Introduction – Rabindra Kumar Mohanty, Johannes Müller ;



Chapter 18 :


Megalithic cultures in Southern Asia – Rabindra Kumar Mohanty ;



Chapter 19 :


Megalithic architectures in India – Rabindra Kumar Mohanty ;



Chapter 20 :


Northeast Indian megaliths: monuments and social structures – Tiatoshi Jamir, Johannes Müller ;



Chapter 21 :


Megalithic monuments of Jharkhand: archaeology and ethnography – Himanshu Shekhar, Rabindra Kumar Mohanty ;



Chapter 22 :


The stone jars of Southeast Asia and Northeast India: problems and prospects – Tilok Thakuria ;



Chapter 23 :


The dolmens of Karachi, Sindh (Pakistan) – Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro ;



Chapter 24 :


Megaliths in Vidarbha region (India) – Rabindra Kumar Mohanty ;


Mahurjhari Megalithic Site (India) – Rabindra Kumar Mohanty ;


Bhagimohari Megalithic Site (India) – Rabindra Kumar Mohanty ;



Chapter 25 :


Distributions and disparities in the megalithic burials of Vidarbha (India): a scrutiny – Virag Sontakke ;



Chapter 26 :


Social organisation of the megalithic people in Vidarbha, Maharashtra (India) – Shantanu Vaidya, Rabindra Kumar Mohanty ;



Chapter 27 :


Situating megalithic monuments in Tamil Nadu: content and context – K. RaJan ;



PART V: MEGALITHS FROM CENTRAL AND EAST ASIA ;



Introduction – Laurent Nespoulous, Anke Hein ;



Chapter 28 :


Monuments in the mountains: the megalithic graves of western China – Anke Hein ;



Chapter 29 :


Prehistoric cairns and dolmens in Manchuria (China) – Kazuo Miyamoto ;



Chapter 30 :


Dolmens and societies in the Korean Peninsula – Daisuke Nakamura ;



Chapter 31 :


Dolmens of the Korean Peninsula: Conservation and utilization in Hoseo (South Korea) – Joon-ho Son ;



Chapter 32 :


The development of stone art culture in ancient Korea – Takafumi Yamamoto ;



Chapter 33 :


From megalithic contexts in the Japanese archipelago, to megalithism as a context: Reflections for consideration, from the first sedentary societies to the first State societies – Laurent Nespoulous ;



Chapter 34 :


Prehistoric and protohistoric megaliths of the Japanese archipelago – Yoshio Kikuchi ;



Chapter 35 :


Bronze Age and Iron Age decorated megaliths and funerary complexes in Mongolia and Southern Siberia – Jérôme Magail, Yuri Esin, Jamiyan-Ombo Gantulga, Fabrice Monna, Tanguy Rolland, Anne-Caroline Allard ;


Digital 3D documentation of the Tamchinsky deer stone – Vladislav Kazakov, Vasily Kovalev, Kair Zhumadilov, Lyudmila Lbova, Aleksandr Simukhin ;



Chapter 36 :


Megalithic traditions in the Early Bronze Age of the Mongolian Altaï: the Chemurchek (Qie’muerqieke) cultural phenomenon – Alexey Kovalev ;



PART VI: MEGALITHS FROM CAUCASUS TO THE ARABIC PENINSULA ;



Introduction – Tara Steimer-Herbet, Viktor Trifonov ;



Chapter 37 :


In the shadow of monoliths. Göbekli Tepe and the monumental tradition of the Pre-Pottery Levant – Rémi Hadad ;



Chapter 38 :


The Bronze Age megaliths in the Caucasus: development trajectory of the architecture and the funeral practice – Viktor Trifonov ;



Chapter 39 :


The dolmens of the Balkans – Georgi Nekhrizov, Stanislav Iliev ;



Chapter 40 :


At the intersection of continents: Megalithism in Turkey – Bakiye Yükmen Edens ;



Chapter 41 :


Untangling megalith typologies and chronologies in the Levant – James Fraser ;



Chapter 42 :


Protohistoric cairns and tower tombs in South-Eastern Arabia (end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE) – Olivia Munoz ;



Chapter 43 :


Megalithism in the Middle East – Tara Steimer-Herbet ;



PART VII: AFRICAN MEGALITHS ;



Introduction – Jean-Paul Cros, Luc Laporte ;



Chapter 44 :


Megaliths of Africa: an overview – Alain Gallay (†) ;



Chapter 45 :


The Horn of Africa: five millennia of megalithism – Jean-Paul Cros ;



Chapter 46 :


Pastoral Neolithic ‘pillar sites’ of northwestern Kenya – Elisabeth Hildebrand, Katherine M. Grillo ;



Chapter 47 :


Megaliths in Madagascar – Mike Parker Pearson ;



Chapter 48 :


Megaliths of Nigeria: the footprints of ancient civilization – Abu Solomon Edet, Abubakar Sule Sani ;



Chapter 49 :


Megaliths from Senegal and The Gambia in their regional context – Luc Laporte, Hamady Bocoum, Adrien Delvoye, Jean-Paul Cros, Selim Djouad, Matar Ndiaye, Aziz Ballouche, Pierre Lamotte, Mathilde Stern, Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Laurent Quesnel ;


Earthern architectures and megalithism: the Soto monument (Senegal) – Adrien Delvoye, Khady Thiaw, Marylise Onfray, Matar Ndiaye, Philippe Gouézin, Abdoulaye Ndiaye, Vivien Mathé, Tioro Ba, Christian Camerlynck, Sire Ndiaye, Adrien Camus, Philippe Boulinguiez, Leonor Rocha, Pierre Lamotte, Aziz Ballouche, Hamady Bocoum, Luc Laporte ;



Chapter 50 :


Types of monumentalism and burial rites of the central and eastern Sahara – Alain Gallay (†) ;



Chapter 51 :


Neolithic monuments with standing stones in the northwestern Sahara – Robert Vernet ;



Chapter 52 :


The megalithic necropolises of the eastern Maghreb – Joan Sanmartí ;



PART VIII: EUROPEAN MEGALITHS ;



Introduction – Chris Scarre ;



Chapter 53 :


Larger than life: monumentality of the landscape and non-human imagery at Lepenski (Serbia) – Dušan Borić ;



Chapter 54 :


On the Atlantic shores. The origin of megaliths in Europe? – Luc Laporte, Primitiva Bueno Ramírez ;


Standing stones and sepulchral stone assemblies. Towards a convergence in thinking. The example of the megaliths in the Morbihan department, France – Philippe Gouézin ;



Chapter 55 :


First monumentalities in Western Europe: the necropolis of Fleury-sur-Orne, ‘Les Hauts de l’Orne’ (Normandy, France) – Emmanuel Ghesquière, Philippe Chambon, David Giazzon, Corinne Thévenet, Aline Thomas ;



Chapter 56 :


Early monumentality in northern Europe – Johannes Müller, Karl-Göran Sjögren ;


Old bones or early graves? A brief summary of megalithic burial sequences in southern Sweden based on radiocarbon dating – Malou Blank ;



Chapter 57 :


Beyond comparison: the diversity of megalith building – Richard Bradley ;



Chapter 58 :


Megaliths from north and northwest France, Britain and Ireland – Chris Scarre, Luc Laporte ;


The clay binder: a link between megalithic funerary architecture and monumental non-megalithic architecture based on examples from Champagne (France) – Vincent Desbrosse, Julia Wattez ;


aDNA and kinship in French Atlantic façade megalithic monuments – Olivia Cheronet, Daniel Fernandes, Iñigo Olalde, Nadin Rohland, Ludovic Soler, Jean-Paul Cros, Jean-Marc Large, Chris Scarre, Roger Joussaume, David Reich, Luc Laporte, Ron Pinhasi ;


Secrets in the stones: examining the presence of stones with inclusions in the passage tombs of Atlantic Europe – Patricia Kenny ;


A study of 26 Irish prehistoric stone circles and their inbuilt sunrise calendars – Terence Meaden ;



Chapter 59 :


Mediterranean megalithism: a long-term history – Jean Guilaine ;


The megalithic monument of Uzès (Gard, south of France) – Marie Bouchet, Philippe Cayn, Christian Servelle ;



Chapter 60 :


Megalithism versus cyclopeism: the case of prehistoric Menorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) – Cristina Bravo Asensio, Irene Riudavets González ;



Chapter 61 :


Small is Beautiful: Early megalithism and the first funerary architectures in south-central Portugal (southwestern Iberia) – Marco António Andrade, Rui Mataloto, André Pereira ;



Chapter 62 :


Megalithic art: Funeral scenarios in western Neolithic Europe – Primitiva Bueno Ramírez, Rosa Barroso Bermejo, Rodrigo De Balbín Behrmann ;


Don Bosco: a new Final Neolithic megalithic cemetery at Sion (Valais-Switzerland) – Manuel Mottet ;



Conclusion – Luc Laporte