Rough Stone Monuments and Their BuildersPeet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric)
History
Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders
Peet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric)
Megalithic monuments; Prehistoric peoples
Within their huts these people led a life of the simplest description.
Their weapons and tools, though occasionally of copper, were for the
most part of stone. Flint was the most usual material. In Scandinavia it
was often polished, but elsewhere it was merely flaked. The implements
made from it were of simple types, knives, borers, scrapers, lanceheads,
and more rarely arrowheads. Many of these were quite roughly made, no
more flaking being done than was absolutely necessary to produce the
essential form, and the work being, when possible, confined to one face
of the flint.
In the Mediterranean obsidian, a volcanic rock, occasionally took the
place of flint, especially in Sardinia and Pantelleria. Axes or celts
were often made of flint in Scandinavia and North Germany, but elsewhere
other stones, such as jade, jadeite, and diorite were commonly used.
We can only guess at the way in which the megalithic people were
clothed. No doubt the skins of the animals they domesticated and of
those they hunted provided them with some form of covering, at any rate
in countries where it was needed. Possibly they spun wool or flax into a
thread, for at Halsaflieni two objects were found which look like
spindle-whorls, and others occur on sites which are almost certainly to
be attributed to the megalithic people. There is, however, nothing to
show that they wove the thread into stuffs.
The love of personal decoration was highly developed among them, and all
branches of nature were called upon to minister to their desire for
ornament. Shells, pierced and strung separately or in masses, were
perhaps their favourite adornment, but close on these follow beads and
pendants of almost every conceivable substance, bone, horn, stone, clay,
nuts, beans, copper, and occasionally gold.
One small object assumes a great importance on account of its wide
distribution. This is the conical button with two converging holes in
its base to pass the thread through. This little object, which may have
served exactly the purpose of the modern button, occurs in several parts
of the megalithic area. There are examples in Malta made of stone and
shell. Elsewhere it is most usually of bone. It occurs in Sardinia, in
France, in the rock-tombs of Gard, and in the corridor and rock-tombs of
Lozere and Ardeche, in Portugal in the _allee couverte_ of Monte
Abrahao, in Bohuslaen (Sweden), and at Carrowmore in Ireland. Outside the
megalithic area it has been found in two of the Swiss lake-dwellings and
in Italy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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