Row of stones
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In archeology, a row of stones is a row of menhirs (upright megaliths ). One speaks of such a row when at least three menhirs are arranged within sight of one another in context with one another. The distances vary between 0.2 and 100.0 m. Several rows of stones next to each other are called avenues or "multiple rows of stones". These can consist of up to eleven rows with dozen of menhirs ( Carnac in Brittany ).
Occurrence
Rows of stones occur mainly in Western Europe including Western Switzerland ( Clendy , Lutry ), but also in Denmark, Sweden and Corsica (Palaggiu) and on Sardinia ( Biru e 'Concas , Pranu Muteddu ). They are extremely common in Brittany ( Cojoux , Champ des Roches , Kerlescan , Kermario , Kerzerho , Lagatjar , Le Menec , Le Petit Menec , Leïtan , Pierres Droites , St. Barbe and St. Pierre-Quiberon).
The Upper Erme stone line is around 3.3 km long . The row of stones on the moor west of "Fox Tor" in Bodmin Moor in Devon is about 550 meters long . Even plants made of small stones like Hwylfa'r Ceirw , (English The Path of the Deer ), and a double row of stones at Llandudno in Wales are sometimes referred to as a stone row. Among the more than 40 rows of stones in Ireland , the stone row of Eightercua near Waterville in County Kerry and the Graves of the Leinstermen in County Tipperary stand out due to the stone heights.
The stone rows of Hartashen in the Ashotsk Valley in northwestern Armenia , which are sometimes referred to as prehistoric and located near several Kurgan , were examined by scientists in 2010. Their striking resemblance to rows of stones in Europe suggests a prehistoric background. However, the researchers found that they are not to be associated with the prehistoric tombs, but rather as part of modern military entrenchments.
Dating
The row of stones discovered in 2004 on Cut Hill in north Dartmoor in Devon , England, is the first to be dated. The peat under stone 1 was calibrated to 3700-3540 BC using the radiocarbon method. The peat above it is calibrated to 2476–2245 BC. The row of stones at Searle's Down in Cornwall was covered by the inner stone circle of a burial mound. The outer stone circle of the hill provided a date of calibrated 2040–1620 BC. And the excavator Frances Griffith assumes that there was no major hiatus between the construction of the stone row and the burial mound .
Aubrey Burl (1926–2020) had previously suggested a typological dating of rows of stones from the British Isles and France. According to this, multiple rows (e.g. the row of stones from Yelland ), in which the stones are arranged parallel or fan-shaped, should be between 3000 and 1500 BC. Long individual rows with more than seven stones from the period between 2100 and 1600 BC. Chr., While short rows with six or fewer stones from the Bronze Age, between 1800 and 1000 can be assigned. The basis for the dating of rows of stones was their orientation and, connected with this, an astronomical dating, the proximity to other datable structures or general formal similarities to other buildings. Some rows of stones in Dartmoor run parallel to Bronze Age field boundaries, which are calibrated to 1700–1600 BC. To be dated. However, they can either have been erected beforehand and have determined the orientation of the later walls, or they can have been built after the field systems were established in the territories determined by them.
In Denmark, the 154 m long row of stones (Danish Stenrækken ) at Myrhøj near Ertebølle and the approximately 90 m long double row at Refsnæs (Stenrækkerne ved Refsnæs) in Eastern Himmerland are the most remarkable. In the Swedish Bohuslän there is the row of stones at Hällevadsholm in Svarteborg and on the Stenehed burial ground . In Germany, the phenomenon of stone rows is only known in a 53 m long row, which is no longer completely preserved, which connects the two megalithic complexes Hekeser Steine from Berge-Hekese , in the district of Osnabrück , Lower Saxony.
Different order of monoliths
Nonlinear stone setting of menhirs, e.g. B. as semicircular, D- or U-shaped, like Achavanich in the Scottish Highlands or Saint-Pierre-Quiberon in Brittany, are used in the British Isles as stone settings , in France as enclosures ( Enceintes ), in the rest of Western Europe in general with the Breton word for stone circle, called Cromlechs (Cromlech von Almendres in Portugal).
An oval enclosure made of closely set stones was found under the Tossen-Keler tumulus , near Penvénan (Brittany). Today it stands on the Quai of Tréguier . There are also some square enclosures (French: Quadrilatére) such as Crucuno and de Mario near Carnac and Lagatjar near Brest in Brittany. The formation of Le Manio, however, represents the curbs of a former hill. The French archaeologist Pierre-Roland Giot (1919-2002) assumes that the modest number of circles and enclosures in Brittany is due to the fact that many of them in the course destroyed over time or installed in other systems.
See also
literature
- Aubrey Burl: From Carnac to Callanish: The Prehistoric Stone Rows of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany 1993
- Pierre-Roland Giot: Prehistory in Brittany. Menhirs and dolmens . Editions d'Art Jos le Doaré, Chateaulin 1991, ISBN 2-85543-076-3 .
- Kenneth McNally: Standing Stones and other Monuments of early Ireland . Appletree Press, Belfast 1984, ISBN 0-86281-121-X .
- Jürgen E. Walkowitz: The megalithic syndrome. European cult sites of the Stone Age (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Vol. 36). Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2003, ISBN 3-930036-70-3 .
Web links
- Rows of stones by Biru´e Concas (last accessed on December 14, 2012)
- Pranu Muteddu (last accessed December 14, 2012)
Remarks
- ^ Announcement from the State Office of Saxony-Anhalt archaeological cooperation with armenia
- ↑ Ralph M. Fyfe, Tom Greeves: The Date and Context of a Stone Row: Cut Hill, Dartmoor, South-West England. In: Antiquity. Volume 84, 2010, pp. 55-70.
- ^ Frances M. Griffith: Archaeological Investigations at Colliford Reservoir, Bodmin Moor, 1977-1978. In: Cornish Archeology. Volume 23, 1984, pp. 49-140.
- ^ Aubrey Burl: From Carnac to Callanish: The Prehistoric Stone Rows and Avenues of Britain, Ireland and Brittany. Yale University Press, New Haven 1993, ISBN 0300055757 ; ISBN 9780300055757 .
- ↑ Ralph M. Fyfe, Tom Greeves: The Date and Context of a Stone Row: Cut Hill, Dartmoor, South-West England. In: Antiquity. Volume 84 (No. 323), 2010, p. 56; doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00099762 .