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The Ancient Indigenous Architecture of Scythoid
Big-Game Hunters Clickable terms are red on the yellow background |
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Map 1. Types of human dwellings (after R.
Biasutti) |
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Megalithic Cairns, Clochns, Brochs and Nuragi |
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GENERAL ARCHITECTONICS
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FOLK ARCHITECTURE Cliff-Dwellings and Burial Rock-Cut Caves
Rectangular
Longhouses Out of Straw and Mud
Earth
lodges and Subterranean Sancturaries Semidugout Zemlyankas of Lapponoid Cremators
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TYPES OF DWELLINGS
Tungusoid teepes,
pile-huts and lake-dwellings
Pelasgoid conical rondavel roundhouses
Megara, palatial
temples and columnal palaces
Flat-roofed
labyrinth architecture of Oriental farmers
Rectangular wicker longhouses with
thatched roofs
Gotho-Frisian
wurts, terps and half-timber longhouses
Dome-shaped beehive huts
Irregular
multi-peaked marquee nomadic tents
Epi-Aurignacian
tepees and pile-dwellings
Bascoid Cyclopean megalithic
architecture
Megalithic
tombstones and tholoi graves
Lapponoids lean-to and semidugout pit-house
Turcoid
dwellings and burials in rockcut caves
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ANCIENT SETTLEMENTS
Lakeland,
marshland, lowland, grassland and desert ecosystems
Multicellular
labyrinths in arid subtropical lowland
Tell-sites
in oases of subtropical shrublands
Multicellular
labyrinths in arid subtropical lowland
Tell-sites in
oases of subtropical shrublands
Oppidans:
hillforts towering on high rock promontories
Getic boroughs:
villages in alluvial lowlands
Palatial poleis
and cultic spas in seaside harbours
Straight streets
and alleys of lake-dwellings |
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The Cultures of
Beehive-Dwellings
The modern Siberian tribes combine temporary light summer
tents with permanent winter dwellings. The Chukchee build a round tent (chum)
with a low entrance that is similar to the Mongolian yurtas. Their
earliest Palaeolithic prototypes can be examined in the Mousterian sites of
the Ukraine (Molodova, Kostienki, Avdeevo, Dobranichevka, Mezin, Mezhirich,
Judinovo) and south Siberia (Malta, Buret). These huts were built from large
whale jawbones and crossed mammoth tusks covered with hides. They were low
dome-shaped constructions of round design resembling anthills or beehives.
The surrounding wreaths of stone served as low basement walls and helped to
anchor the hides. In France they leant against rocks in caves or lay under
cave overhangs (abri). The mammoth hunters used them either as
portable summer tents or as permanent winter dwellings in caves. The Mousterian design can be recognised easily according to
round circular shapes, where the Aurignacian tradition preferred tall conic
post-dwellings. The Mousterian mammoth-bone anthills gradually developed into
the round Chukchee chum, while the latter type grew into the
Tungus and North-American conic tepees. Palaeo-Siberian tribes build
light overground chums but in winter they resorted to warmer
subterranean dugouts or semidugouts of similar design. There were two
entrances, one accessed from above through the upper hole open for smoke,
whereas the other led along the horizontal line. The former was used by
hunters in moments of danger, the latter was determined for womens everyday
use. It ran from the central chamber through a longer corridor to a low entrance
at the hill-slope over the waterside. The Eskimos cut such constructions into
glaciers or built them from large blocks of frozen snow. The typology of modern beehive-dwellings and dome-like
habitations coincides with the cultural areas of the Bronze Age mound graves.
Their types can be divided into several groups: (1) beehive-dwelling
tradition in Africa (Khoisan pontok),
(2) Berber tunnel-dwellings, (3) Aegean tholos
tombs, (4) European rotundas, (5) Muslim copula-shaped mosques, (6)
Scythian mazars or mausolea,
(7) Siberian yarangas and chums.
Related types may be found in Arnhem Land in Australia and in the
construction of the Fuegan toldo tents in South America. Hamites. The Sudanic beehive
dwellings are common among the Fula, the Dinka and the Maasai, who are
African pastoralists of remote Asiatic origin. Ethnologists assume that the
beehive architecture domesticated in north-eastern Africa and then spread
south by the Neolithic travels of the Khoisan pastoralists (Hrbek 1966: I,
157; Briggs 1955). The Khoisanids could naturally import beehive technology
to the Kalahari desert but could not borrow from the Neolithic Hamitoids
their Palaeo-Mongoloid physiognomy. The remains of Palaeo-Mongolian traits in
the countenance of the Khoisan tribes must be of earlier date because their
leaf-shape flake-tool tradition lasted almost 60,000 years. Archaeology
suggests that the Mousterian leaf-shape complex may have survived in the
Aterian, Nubian and the Stillbay culture for ages in its present distribution.
Tholoi. The earliest records of the beehive tholoi in the Near East come from the
Neolithic sites Yarim Tepe of the Halaf Culture, Jericho A and Tepe Gauru.
The pastoralist culture of Jericho A (8,000 BC) in Palestine built round
domelike houses, mostly semidugouts with doors cut into the earth. These
abodes were huddled to one another like cells in a honeycomb and formed
many-room labyrinths. The site was surrounded by high ramparts and ditches
cut into the rock. The central point was a wooden tower whose walls contained
numerous remains of human sacrifices. The site Khirokhitia (from 5,750 to 5,610 BC) on Cyprus
brought evidence of beehive houses with low entrances, circular roofs and
round walls. Most beehive houses were about 10 metres in diameter and had
small courtyards enclosed by walls. They were huddled in groups of smaller
families suggesting the inner hierarchy of relations. They could serve as
abodes for the living as well as funeral architecture for the dead. There
were heavy stones on some skeletons to prevent them from escaping. Their
pottery may be classified as a kind of Asymmetric Ware, some low ornithomorphic bowls with comb
incisions resembled the Uralic goose-shaped types with handles, spouts and
asymmetric peaks (Mongait 1973: 219). Pontok. The beehive houses with their dome
constructions, formed by vertical and horizontal laths, were common to the
Dinka, Madi, Musangane, Maasai, Musgu, Khoisan and Kafirs (Table 9). The
Galla had low domed huts strewn with straw and concentrated in throngs. The
Shilluk, Nuer, Lango, Barea, Atvot, Lua, Jikani have similar huts though
their beehive morphology is a little bit spoiled by pointed roofs. The round
conic shapes (huts called tikul in
Ethiopia) betray an older adstratum of Aurignacian fishermens post-dwellings
typical of the eastern coasts of Africa. The Nuer villages, separated by
twenty-mile rings of pastures, contain from 50 to 400 inhabitants
(Evans-Pritchard 1985: 102; Africa 1963, I: 165ff.). The main area of beehive architecture is found among the
cattle-breeders of South Africa. The Khoisan pontok is a construction
with a very low entrance, made of intertwined boughs and mud. Owing to the
low entrance, it can be entered only by creeping on all fours. The beehive
patterns are characteristic of the Khoisan, Bechuana and Kafir tribes, who
live in round huts built of boughs and straw. The eastern Zulu and Kafir
tribes build conic huts rondavels on post constructions. They resemble
the patterns of Tungus conic post-dwellings tepees but lack crossed
poles at the top. Pointed conic huts are spread along migration corridors of
Epi-Levalloisian fishermen, while round beehives are common in savannahs
occupied by big-game hunters. Most settlements with beehive architecture in South Africa
are organised into family clusters according to the principles of patriarchal
subordination. Every warrior is subordinated to his older brothers and
uncles. His hut is surrounded by a cluster of smaller beehive premises
belonging to his wives. Any new person born or wedded to the father of the
family was supposed to build her own beehive annex that could serve also as
her abode after death. Among the Khoisans the dead were buried under a heap
of stones, wrapped into a hide. Every passer-by was obliged to add a boulder
to the heap as a mark of piety. This practice explains why some graves grew
into big stone mounds. Kraal. The pastoralists in South Africa live in
villages fortified by outer corrals that the Dutch called the kraal. Their aim is to hinder cattle
from going astray and to provide protection against assaults from outside.
The Khoisans call it as and make it
from logs, boughs and stones. The gateway is very narrow, it allows just one
calf to pass through. Besides, there is an inner corral functioning as a
secret meeting-place for men. It serves as a sanctuary for the local cult and
a parliament for the council of elders. Women and children have no access to
it. The Kafir call it isibajou, the
Bechuana kotla and the Manganya
near Lake Nyasa baolo. Both fences
are circular in form and the inner circle often consists of stone seats in a
circle (Vlach 1911: 295). Honeycombs. In West
Sudan the beehive-dwellings are reported from the Fula, Ashanti, Musgu,
Dahome (Schlette 1958: tab. 11a-c; Frobenius 1933: map 34, fig. 178-180). The
Fula are pastoralists but the Bosso beehive-dwellers are mostly fishermen.
The Ashanti attach beehives to the south suburbs of villages, in Timbuktu the
beehives encircle square houses on both longitudinal sides (Graft-Johnson
1955: fig. 7). The Fula live in cupola-shaped houses sudu arranged into circular settlements. Their beehive-dwellings
form large groups of 10-30 huts, called sare,
interrelated by a network of mutual entrances, passages, doors and staircases
(Kandert 1984: 143). A low entrance leads to an antechamber and this to the
main hut, the fathers room. His room leads to his first wifes room and
the oldest daughters room. The priority of the first wife is not threatened
by new outer annexes built for younger wives. The hierarchy of huts descends
further to the houses belonging to younger daughters and sons. Similar
subordination rules in the hierarchy of premises from communal council houses
to kitchens and storehouses. Such cellular honeycombs mirror the inner social
hierarchy of large patriarchal families with many wives, dependents and
slaves.
Table 1. Conic and round beehive-dwellings in
Africa Tunnel-dwellings. One side branch
of beehive-dwellers developed a special tradition of tunnel-dwellings. These were typical of many megalithic
cultures and may have arisen as a compromise with oblong quadrangular huts.
Tunnel-dwellings were very common among the Berbers, Maasais, Khoisans and
Toda people in India. The Tuaregs constructed tunnel tents from camel hides.
The Somono fishermen in Niger covered such constructions with mats (Frobenius
1933: 224). The Berber winter dwellings were cellars dug into a hillock or a
mound. A narrow passage led into a circular hall that branched crosswise into
side-cells. Its cross branching resembled passage graves and rock-cut graves
in Europe. In America tunnel-shaped huts were characteristic of the Huron
tribes. The Polynesian tunnel-dwellings were long boat-like communal huts. Fogous. Some tribes in northwest Africa combined
overground oval huts with subterranean winter dwellings. These Erdhuser, fogous, dugouts or souterrains
preserved the circular pattern of summer beehive huts. Such fogous with clusters of adjacent
chambers have a characteristic map of distribution in Africa from Mali to
Gibraltar (Frobenius 1933: map 29). A large circular central hall was usually
extended by subterranean passages into adjacent chambers. The central hall
had two accesses: one leading through a horizontal corridor for women and the
second in the ceiling that served as a chimney. It was also used as an
entrance for grown-up men who used it on ceremonial occasions or in emergency
cases. The architecture of fogous in northwest Africa seems
to suggest that the local Aterian and Capsian tradition was independent of
the Hamitic and Khoisan beehive dwellers in eastern and southern Africa. It
is impossible to prove an uninterrupted continuation but there are striking
parallels to the subterranean beehive dwellings common in the Megalith
cultures of western Europe. Its builders were probably subdued by the Fula
and other Hamitic conquerors who came as colonists from the east. The Fula
established themselves as a royal caste, while the Bussangsi or Gunsi
cellar-dwellers live in their nearest neighbourhood as a caste of slaves.
They may belong to the southernmost promontories of the European passage
graves. Subterranean beehive houses were common in Scotland until the
end of the 19th century but in the heartland of Eurasia they were
superseded by more advances forms. Civilised societies developed the
Cyclopean beehive houses (tholoi) into monuments of megalithic
architecture. We may only speculate that their hybrid remains found
continuation in the Muslim mosque, Scythian and Roman mausolea
as well as the early Christian rotundas. A more reliable criterion can
be found in megalithic monuments that spread from the Scythian starting-point
to the Dekkan Mountains in India (3,000 BC) and eastward as far as Polynesia.
Another migration corridor led from Mongolia to Alaska and farther southward
as far as the Fuego Islands (11,500 BC). The beehive architecture preserved its original style only at
the farthest ends of the world, in South Africa, America and Australia. In
Southeast Asia beehives are rare, and so is the Mousterian stonework
technology. Few reliable Mousterian digs come from the isle of Timor in the
valley of river Gasi-Liu (Guber 1966: 29). The beehives are presently common
only to the Bhil and Urulan in South India (Buschan 1923: II, 540). These
tribes may be related to the Ghond cattle-breeders and the builders of
megalith monuments in the Dekkan Mountains (3000 BC). They also popped
up in the Andaman Islands and in Australia they became relatively
widespread. One of the earliest cultures in Australia applied domelike
dwellings made of boughs and twigs. In the end of the last century they were
160 cm in height and 3 metres in diameter. They served for large families of
as many as twelve people. In Kimberley in North Australia the beehives are
accompanied by cave-paintings with binocular motifs and palm prints (Elkin
1956; Jelnek 1972: 519). Their descendants may be sought in the Aranda using
the leaf-shape lance tjatta. Another related group of beehive-dwellers that
practice mummification in Queensland. Yurta. Palaeo-Siberian beehive-dwellings are
important as a starting-point of Amerindian colonisations. In Siberia the
Eskimo, Itelman, Chukchee, Nivx, Aleuts and Youkaghirs build yurtas similar to the Khoisans
beehive-dwellings. The Soyots called such round tents yarənga, while the modern Koryaks call them yayungi. The inner framework is made
of crooked boughs or large whale jawbones so as to form a domed cage. The
construction is overlaid with hides, skins, straw or grass, while the access
is ensured by a subterranean tunnel (Schlette 1958: 102ff.). The original
idea of low entrances was to save heat inside the tent. Almost all pastoralists in Asia divided their life between
summer camps with portable tents and winter camps with fortification and
earth-houses. The Buryats build permanent hexangular or octangular log-cabins
(buxək) with vertical walls
and a flat conical roof and summer yurtas
of similar shape. The roof has a central hole over the hearth for rising
smoke, against the door facing the south there is a wooden platform with
idols of gods and vessels for milk and wine offerings. The northern part was
occupied by the bed, the western part had a mother floor (əxəugə)
for ritual things. The Chukchee and Koryaks build semispherical yarangas from deer fells (Levin 1956:
231). Valkaran. The Amour Nivxs
built subterranean earth lodges 1.5 metre deep with spherical wooden
constructions covered by earth. They were accessed from rectangular
antechambers. The coastal Chukchee and Greenlanders built subterranean
whalebone huts (valkaran) whose
inner frame was formed by whales jawbones and ribs (Levin 1956: 913).
Similar varieties are reported from Neolithic finds. Wigwam.
After arrival in North America (11,500 BC) the beehive-dwellers spread
their seats along the western coasts as far as Peru and Patagonia. A side
branch of their colonists separated in the Plains. In the Prairies they
developed their specific fluted leaf-shaped projectiles known in the Clovis
and Folsom culture. Their descendants became Algonquin buffalo-hunters who
built snakelike mounds known as Mound Effigies. The Algonquin tent wigwam was
a round domelike construction made of intertwined boughs. In the Prairies and
the Plains Indians it was covered with hides, in southern areas it was
covered also by mats (Bernatzik 1962: 772). In Middle and South America their
Quechua and Aymara relatives built beehive tholos-graves called chullpas. Toldo. The Alakaluf Indians in South Chile
built the beehive hut toldo by intertwining a copula from rods and
boughs covered with hides or rags (Jelinek 1972: 273). Their style
exhibited irregular shapes of four-pitched marquees and was common to the
Tehuelche llama-breeders. It was reminiscent of tents erected by Tibetans,
Sarmatians, Arabs and Bedouins. These
ethnic groups differed from tholos-builders also in weapons. They
applied leaf-shaped or stemmed projectiles in contrast to lanceolate
spearheads. Cliff-dwellings. Some
Palaeo-Algonquin tribes continued to live in caves or under rock overhangs.
Beehive cells huddled under cliffs were common to the ancient Incas. A
surprising complex of beehive constructions in multi-cellular honeycombs was
discovered under cliff-overhangs in the culture of Colorado cliff-dwellings. A typical honeycomb
settlement was found at Mesa Verde in the Colorado Canyon in the southwest of
North America. Its builders may be identified with the Folsom people, who
produced fluted flake-shape projectiles excavated at the Lindenmeier site in
east Colorado. Another complex of cliff-dwelling was discovered along the
river Rio Grande del Norte. The honeycomb cliff-dwellings contained mens
houses for communal and ritual meetings. The Indians called these large round
buildings kivas, while the Spaniard referred to them as estufas
(Stingl 1966: 36). Extract from Pavel Blek: Prehistoric Dialects II. Prague 2004,
p. 389395 |
The Architecture of
Mound Graves and Megalith Buildings
The Mousterians were cave men seeking shelter in caves but in
summertime they made round huts of beehive design. In the Ukrainian sites
Molodova and Mezhirich they built temporary shelters from mammoth bones and
covered them with hides weighed down by heavy stones (Chernysh 1959: 48ff.).
Their Mesolithic descendants can be sought in big-game hunters with round
beehive-dwellings set on a stone basement. In the Bronze Age they began to
breed cattle and build permanent stonewalled settlements on inaccessible
rocks and hills. Their dead were buried under large heaps of stones and in
stonewalled subterranean chambers from big blocks of stone that archaeologist
denote as megaliths (Greek megalos
large, lithos stone). Rocks and
large megalith stones retained importance in their building arts up to the
Middle Ages, when their fortified abodes began tower on rocks as castles surrounded
by bastions.
Table 2. Cyclopean megalith
architecture The funeral architecture of Megalith constructions imitates
the design of temporary beehive dwellings used in everyday nomadic life. Its
earliest patterns were preserved in South Africa. The Kafir, Zulu, Bechuana
and Khoisans (Vlach 1911: I, 293-306) bury their dead under heaps of stones
and make beehive huts (pontok) from straw and clay. The inner
construction is built of boughs set on a circular wreath of stones and
covered with straw. Circular wreaths of stones form hearths in their huts,
inner courtyards and fences (isibajou) as well as outer corrals and
pens for cattle (kraal). Their Rozwi relatives in Great Zimwabwe were
able to develop this primitive architecture into royal palaces enclosed by
huge medieval castles. In the 15th century they subdued
neighbouring tribes in six provinces and united them into the empire of
Monomotapa. Their kings lived in large fortified stonewalled castles
surrounded by high bastions. The transition from small beehive huts to large megalith
buildings was a question of cultural progress and military power. The first
beehive dwellings in Neolithic Europe were due to the Sesklo and Dimini
culture in Greece and the Khirokitia settlement in Cyprus. In the Iron Age
their prototypes developed into the Mycenaean tholos buildings of
domelike shape. Their Combed Ware with asymmetric bird-shaped snouts made
archaeologists suspect that their builders arrived from the north Balkan area
(Mongait 1973: 216). Their cultural patterns correspond to Scythian and
Sarmatian nomadic invaders, who made frequent raids and conquered peasant
communities in Greece. When they reigned over thousands of slaves, they could
force them to collective labours on building megalith monuments of amazing
grandeur. The ancient Greeks
described them as a mythic race of one-eyed giants called Cyclopes. Cyclopean walls in Greece
developed a specific technique of dry walling without mortar. Large blocks of
stone with a neatly cut surface were piled up on one another as high as a
cupola-shaped ceiling. Most megalith monuments could build oval arcs and
round ceilings thanks to the discovery of corbelled vaults. Wedge-shaped stones were compressed by their
weight into round arcs, domes and cupolas. Larger ceilings were overlaid by
long stone slabs. The Iberian and Scottish megalith constructions used double
walls filled with earth. The broch
buildings in Britain were high castles applying the method of building towers
from two stone layers filled with clay. The outer wall was receding to the
centre, while the inner exhibited a cylindrical shape. In the Bronze Age most
fortifications Europe were baked into monoliths by burning the inner lining
out of clay and wood. The inside wooden construction was covered with stones,
earth and clay and then kindled up, burnt and baked into one hard block. Tholos. The Greek
Cyclopes were described as one-eyed giants tending their herds out at grass
in the mountains. Their transient beehive tents designed for nomadic life
grew gradually into large circular stone tombs called tholoi. Tholos was a domelike construction with
a low entrance corridor called dromos.
It could serve as a communal town-hall towering above the ground level but most
of its applications were subterranean chamber graves for individual or
collective burials. Burial mounds were built on a hilltop and their
underground chamber was accessible by the long horizontal corridor dromos. A typical tholos is represented by the Atreus Treasury (1500 to 1200 BC) in
Mycenae. It is 13 metres high, 14.6 metres in diameter and its dromos corridor, cut horizontally into the hill-slope, is 30 metres long.
Similar tholos graves have been excavated at Argos,
Pylos and Iolkos in Thessaly. Yet the ancient Greeks applied the term tholos also in reference to the central town-hall in Athens (-5th
c.) and other communal houses of Mycenaean design. The term referred to a
large variety of Cyclopean architecture pursuing circular patterns. Domelike
graves, town-halls and royal palaces were surrounded by circular courtyards,
circular central squares (agora) and circular bastions. Such complexes
of Cyclopean buildings were reported as most abundant from Thrace, Thessaly,
Messenia, Mycenae and Crete. Remarkable Cyclopean monuments were found also
at Orchomenos, Vafia, Faria, Heraia and Pylos (Snodgrass 1971). The people who built them may be deciphered
as the Thracian Myssians (Mssoi),
Mycenaeans and probably also the Pre-Greek Messeneans of Nestors kin at Pylos. Agora. The Mycenaean hilltops with outer ramparts
had an inner courtyard (agora), a meeting-place for public
gatherings and a marshalling yard for troops of warriors. In Athens the agora served also as a marketplace and
its dominant building was a tholos
serving as a town-hall for magistrates and the council of elders. These
public spaces consisted of circular wreaths of stones used as seats for
elders. The Troyans and the Phaiaks are believed to have sat on large stones
positioned in a circle (Od. VIII, 1-16). The Thracian archaeological
site Sarmizegetusa in Dacia consisted of three concentric circles of vertical
piers. The outer circle served as a ring of seats for elders. This site
contained also stone alleys enclosing two rectangular sanctuaries (Hoddinott
1981: 151-3, Daicoviciu 1972: 207ff.). Acropolis. The Cyclopean
Megalith buildings were usually situated on fortified hills encircled by high
ramparts and bastions. Such a fortified acropolis is known from the
Mycenaean castle accessed through the Lion Gate (15th century BC).
The Acropolis of Athens was occupied by several temples whose visitors had to
pass through a monumental gate called Propylai. Similar fortified
sites are reported from Orchomenos (14th century BC), Tiryns
(-860), Thorikos, Kakovates, Marathon, Valpheio in Laconia and Perati in
Attica (Buchholz 197?: 42). Thessaly knows several places called Moschochorion, where chorion stands for castle and Moschoi is a hint at their Myssian
rulers. In Asia Minor such castles are called moseyn, probably in allusion to the same Cyclopean caste of
warriors, who lived in the same type of fortified settlements as the Moschoi and Mossynokoi (Bouzek 1978: 81).
Table 3. Megalithic tombstones and tholoi graves Mausolea. The Greek, Thracian and Anatolian Cyclopes had
distant relatives in the Scythians. The Scythian tribes Massagetai, Apasiakoi
and Xorazmii built similar
constructions but called them maussoleia.
These were quadrangular buildings with a central dome-shaped chamber. The
tombs were reserved for high sovereigns, whose corpses were mummified in
coffins. Herodot reports that
mummification and embalmment was a common practice in Scythia. In the
Middle Ages Muslims replaced them by mazars
(> Uzbek mozor), tombs of Muslim
saints. The Greeks were familiar with the Maussōleion built in
Halikarnassos for the king Maussōlos after 354 BC. Megalith people. In the 4th millennium BC the
rocky mountainous parts of western Europe were colonised by a group of
megalith builders favouring stonewalled monument. The archaeologists call
them also round-headed bowmen
in reference to their brachycephalic skulls and military arts applying bows
and arrows. Their descent has to be identified to Berber Imazhigen skilled in building copular cairns. The
earlier enquiries assumed that they had first appeared in Almeria about 3,200
BC and a few centuries later they landed on Cornwall to rummage Britain as
far as east Scotland. Another stream of their colonists was supposed to
continue northward as far as Scandinavia (Daniel 1958; Piggott 1954).
However, newer studies prove that in Scandinavia there had been megalith
tombs without bronze weapons as early as 3,800 BC and their first appearance
should be dated to 4,000 BC (Bray, Trump 1982: 189, 249). Their builders may
be identified as the Basques, Picts, Scots and Scandinavians. Such
attributions sound fantastic but Geoffrey of Monmouth derived Picts and Scots
from Scythian colonists (Hist. Brit. IV, 17). He also mentioned a
people of Basclenses who had resided in the Orkney Islands but had
arrived from the Basque country in Spain
(Hist. Brit. III, 12). The round-headed bowmen spread their Megalith buildings along
their migration routes from Africa to Spain, Brittany and the British Isles. Arthur Evans and Siret derived passage
graves from the Mycenaean and Cretan tholoi and associated their
origin with the Mycenaean Cyclopean architecture. Other archaeologists
refuse a direct link to Greece and the Hgelgrber of central Europe
because their Iberian descent looks more probable (Daniel 1958: 75, 129; Davidson 1951). Some
authors seek their cradle in North Africa because the bell-beaker pottery bore
clear resemblance to the Tassian
culture in Egypt (4,200 BC). Both cultures were remarkable for slim
bell-shaped pottery covered by horizontal belts of fine triangular, fir-tree
patterns. The Tassian people represented a highly esteemed upper caste that
compelled slaves to build royal pyramids with embalmed and mummified burials.
When their remote relatives arrived in Britain and buried their dead in
megalith monuments, they were accompanied by a short race of slaves forced to
building labours. A proof of their existence can be seen in urns with their
cremated ashes placed in common pits on the outer periphery of henges. Cairn. The travels of the Megalith people from
Cornwall to Wales, Ireland and Scotland are lined by large heaps of stones
reminiscent of the Greek beehive mounds tholoi. These cairns or carns changed in size,
some were mounds exposed to denudation, some were heaps of stones on small
burials and some may betray old dolmens fallen in ruins. Their subterranean
chambers were dry-walled circular rooms with corbelled vaults containing from
five to fifty burials. Visitors could enter them through a low entrance, a
horizontal corridor or an antechamber that led to three, five or even seven
smaller chambers (Childe 1942: 52). The smaller types look like burials of
common people, while the larger ones must have sheltered remains of higher
dignitaries. In Britain they did not exceed the size of a small mound but in
the Spanish sites Los Millares, Palmella and Alcala their size could
challenge the splendour of Egyptian pyramids. Between Tunisia and Sicily is
an island Pantelleria with sese cairns (plural sesi) with as many as 11 burial chambers. The cairns were closely associated with hut-circles (Dartmoor, Trowlesworthy,
Standon), whose original form could be guessed from the beehive houses in Scotland and
Arran. They were inhabited by ancestors of modern Scots from the Bronze Age
till the beginning of the 19th century.
Such subterranean abodes in the north served for the living but looked
liked typical funeral barrows in the south. These dwellings were subterranean
constructions protruding above the ground level only as a complex system of
low molehills arching up and down like waves. Their clusters formed small
villages composed of members of large clans. Higher molehills belonged to
patriarchs, lower adjacent molehills were occupied by their dependents. One
subterranean beehive abode was inhabited from the Bronze Age until the last
century (the last one was recorded in 1823). The souterrain dwellings
similar to molehills in Skara Brae could have similar roofs but their walls
had a quadrangular ground-plan. Broch. A higher stage of development was reached, when
the megalith people began to reign over small chieftaincies and their
sovereigns sought protection in fortified castles called brochs or raths.
A typical broch was a large circular castle, a semiconical building
with double walls, round chambers and circular courtyards. No less than 425 brochs
of diameter from 25 to 35 ft. are still traceable in Scotland. They have been
preserved best in the Shetlands, Orkneys, Outer Hebrides, Caithness and Skye
(Childe 1942: 264; 1935: 217). In south Scotland they were reconstructed and
rebuilt into medieval castles. Rath. Another type of hut-circles may be seen in the pounds, described as circular
enclosures surrounded by stonewalls containing from 3 to 20 hut-circles. They
are reported mostly from Cornwall (Rough Tor, Grimspound) and served as
family farmsteads or sanctuaries. The Irish have special terms rath, cashel or cahel for
hut-circles and fortified settlements of such design. Most of them are
circular castles with subterranean chambers or a souterrain fogou
(Skara Brae). They were encompassed by numerous ditches, fosses and ramparts
protecting them against possible assails from without. The rath at
Cush in Limerick was occupied from 500 to 1,100 AD. Cromlech. The stone circles in Avebury are often called cromlechs in allusion to the Breton
words crom crooked and lech stone. In Stonehenge they
contained the Altar Stone, the Trilithon Horseshoe and an avenue which
provided an access from outside. Their original purpose was probably to serve
as an agora for communal and
ceremonial meetings. In their area secret sodalities and councils of elders
held their gatherings, seated in a circle at the Round Table like the king
Arthurs thanes. Henge. The Megalith people built their agoras and sanctuaries in the form of
a henge. This was a circular
structure surrounded by an earth wall. Their oldest specimens found at
Avebury I and II were unfossed stone circles without peripheral ditches
(Childe 1942: 107). Stonehenge and Woodhenge were the best-known solar
sanctuaries enclosed by several concentric circles of stone piers and several
ditches. Stonehenge implied henges made of large stones, while
Woodhenge indicated a common use of wooden constructions. Talayots. British megalith buildings had many close
parallels in France, Italy and Spain. In Sardinia there appeared a local
Megalith tradition of building towers called nuraghi. Most of them are dated from 1,500 to 238 BC. Their
tunnel-like roofs seem to suggest a Berber influence. The same conic tunnel
shape was peculiar to talayots
(Naveta des Tudons) found on Menorca. The builders of huge mounds at Los
Millares can be identified with the Basques, an ancient people who still
indulge in stonework, stone-vaulting and stonewalled bridges. In the British Isles, France and Scandinavia we find a large
variety of megalith constructions of mixed origin. After arriving in North
Europe, the Megalith People absorbed many local autochthonous populations and
changed their lifestyle by assimilative influences. There were several types
and local groups, long barrows with an inner timberwork structure,
pear-shaped barrows and horned barrows. Special varieties have been
identified in the Clyde-Carlingford group and the Boyne group (Childe 1942;
Daniel 1958; Piggott 1954). In the British Isles it is common to draw a clear difference between
the long cists and gallery graves of the Clyde-Carlingford group (north-east
Ireland, Galway) and a complex of the Severn-Cotswold group in South Wales.
Special subtypes are seen in the wedge-shaped cairns (Paris cists), horned
cairns, court cairns, heel-shaped cairns and the Medway cairns (Childe 1942:
47-8).
Such secondary
cultural hybrids have to be derived from several primary archetypes. Their
classification presupposes analysing various types of chamber graves
into a few original pure forms: (A1) round
barrows of cupola shape for collective burials (Greek tholos,
German Kuppelgrber, French dolmens à couloir, Danish dyss,
plural dysser). (A2) entrance graves have
a side entrance not exceeding the circular ground- plan, e.g. Scilly-Tramore
graves from Cornwall (Bray, Trump 1982: 84). (A3) passage graves,
round domelike barrows of pear-shaped design with a long passage approaching
the round inner chamber from the waterside (British passage graves, Dutch hunebed
Huns bed, Danish dyss, German Ganggrber, Riesenhuser, giants houses, Swedish
Jttestugor). (B) gallery graves
(French alle couverte,
galleries couvertes, Sardinian domus de janas house of fairies) associated with the Seine-Oise-Marne group of rock-cut graves. (C) shaft-and-chamber
graves derived from shaft graves and catacomb pit burials (Italian tombe
a fossa, Catalonian fossa graves) accompanied by alignments of
stone rows and standing menhirs. At the foot of a deep pit there is a
side niche or larger chamber for burials and offerings. (D1) long barrows (Clyde-Carlingford
culture, Windmill Hill culture), long quadrangular tombs with long-headed
skeletons). (D2) cist graves in
boxes composed from stone slabs were typical of the TRB culture (German Trichterbecherkultur, Danish Tragtbaegerkulturen,
French la civilisation des gobelets à entonnoir). (E) barrows with cremations
in the Wessex culture. These types of chamber graves must
correspond to different ethnic groups and populations. Types A1-13 represent
round barrows with brachycephalous roundheads while D1-D2 correspond
to long barrows with dolichocephalous longheads. The latter belonged to the
tall longheaded people of Nordic race that had prevailed in northern Europe
since the early Neolithic times. Their people practiced burials in cists, and
after meeting the Beaker Folk, they began to cover them with long barrows.
Their opposition gave rise to J. Thurnams traditional saying in British
archaeology, long barrows - long heads, round barrows - round heads. The
long-headed people with long barrows were Europids speaking an early form of
Indo-European, while round-headed bowmen may be identified with the Scots
speaking a Q-Celtic language with the labialised sound kw-
similar to Basque. Their descendants assimilated to Indo-Europeans but Basque
has preserved much of its Berber character.
The megalithic cists of Western Europe represent a mixed phenomenon
composed of two heterogeneous components. Their culture was influenced by
long-term contacts with the Megalith People who taught the Trichterbecherkultur to build mounds from big slabs of stone
and slate. The Trichterbechervolk built groby skrzynkowe in Poland,
box graves with face urns on the Vistula as well as groby pytowe
(slab graves) in Podolye and Pokutye. Similar types are evidenced in groby
podpytowe (graves without boxes but covered by slabs), groby deskowe at
Uwile near Gusiatyn and groby bryowe at Rakowkta. Other heterogeneous layers are concealed in the gallery
graves and barrow with cremated human ashes. The latter may be attributed to
short round-headed Celts with cremation burials referred to as cultures of cinerary
urns. The former seem to be associated with rock-cut caves used in the
Seine-Oise-Marne culture for burying the dead. Their builders were
lake-dwellers who mixed fishing with agriculture and built alignments of
standing stones called stelae and menhirs.
They were probably erected by the Eburones and other autochthonous
population of Palaeo-Iberian stock (Irish, Cymri, Hiberni). In England to any standing menhir there is a
local ghost story attached, which tells how a beloved pair or a family were
turned into stones. The mound cultures of America even shaped some menhirs
into human figures. The megalith peoples should be divided into (a) spherolithic
cultures with circular buildings, tholoi and beehives that may be
attributed to the Bascoids, (b) conolithic
cultures with conical tepees, post-dwellings and pyramids (Turcoids,
Pelasgoids), (c) tetralithic cultures with long barrows, cist burials
and long quadrangular houses (the Campignian shell-gatherers, Trichter-bechervolk,
Danubian peasants), (d) monolithic
cultures with stelae, shaft burials and lake-dwellings which were
built by Aurignacian tribes, (e) pyrolithic cultures with cremations
and urnfields due to the short-sized Celts. Hgelgrber. The western megalith
graves neighboured on their poorer relatives in the Middle Danube area that
built lower mound-graves with an inner wooden construction. Some authors
derive this Hgelgrberkultur from
the tholos tomb architecture that
flourished in Mycenae about 1,600 BC. Then between 1,500 and 1,400 BC
groups of Thracian nomadic herdsmen carried its art from the Balkans to
central Europe and farther westward to the Rhineland. Their invasion is
reflected in the spread of the Otomani, Wietenberg and Gava cultures,
contaminated a lot with that of the Urnfielders. Then it made its way
through South Bohemia and Switzerland to the Rhine. It is often referred to as the Middle Danube culture including
the Fulda-Werra group, East Hessen complex, the Middle Rhine group and the
Lneburg variety (Filip 1966: 514ff.). The western promontories can be seen
in the Rhine complex (the
Hagenau, Middle Rhine, Lower Rhine, Lneburg, East Hessen groups) and the Alsatian complex. Important centres include
the Wrtemberg group, the South-Bohemian mound graves and the
Carpathian group. The bearers of the Hgelgrberkultur
may be identified with the Thracian Bēssi, who built fortified hill-forts in the Carpathians
and called their hills Beskyds. Their origins may be traced back to
the Sesklo-Dimini cattle-breeders, who built hill-forts with circular walls
on higher rocks and hills. They kept herds of the bos taurus and reared domestic pigs. They buried their dead in
large mounds from 4 to 18 meters high. The inner wooden framework was covered
by earth and rimmed by stone wreaths (Filip 1948: 190-1). Kurgan. The Bronze Ages colonisations of mound graves may be traced easily in
the distribution of hill-fort settlements and fortified castles. As brave
warriors making regular raids on peaceful peasant communities, they had to protect their families in unassailable
castles. Their natural heartland was in the steppes of Central Asia abounding
in kurgan cultures. The first kurgans made appearance in the Kuban and the
Maikop culture in the 4th millennium BC. Their inner core was
formed by a wooden chamber with a wheel-cart, weapons and offerings. Siberian
mound grave cultures seemed to stem from the Serovo culture (5,200 BC) situated near Lake Baikal. Their builders carried
megalith stone architecture as a latent germ with their tents. The germ could
wither away for centuries but germinate into astounding lofty pyramids if a
local chieftain had captured a great number of slaves for their construction.
About 3,000 BC there appeared a complex of megalith buildings
in South India. The original burial patterns of its builders can be deduced
easily from the present-day Khasi. Their cemeteries are farther away from
the village. They are divided into sections belonging to different clans. A mawlynti
and a mawkyet consist of three rows of standing stones covered with
horizontal stones in the shape of a table. Mawbynnas and mawnams
are larger tombs for relatives made out of 3, 5, 7, 9 or 11 standing stones
and several table-stones. The standing stones symbolise men, the lying stones
women. In a mawnam the middle standing stone represents the father,
while the neighbouring stones stand for brothers and nephews. A lying stone
may symbolise the memory of the fathers grandmother (Camerling 1928:
223ff.). Khasis after depositing the bones in the tribal ossuary sacrifice a
cock. Then a small bamboo ladder with three rungs is set up to enable the
spirit to climb into the tomb. When they carry the bones to the ossuary, if a
stream must be crossed, they make a rough bridge of branches of trees and
grass, and lay a train of leaves to guide the spirit to the cairn (Crooke
1926: 228). The souls buried in a proper way may seek a paradise in the
Creators house where they may chew betel forever, while others are bound to
transform into birds and insects. It is only the Creator whom the Khasi
worship, while other deities are deemed to be malicious. The latter are
supplied with offerings to avert their evil will and misdeeds (Majumdar 1961:
148; Schlenther 1960: 28). Chullpa. After arriving
in the New World the Megalith People could erect such patent examples of
monumental architecture in Peru but its germs became stunted in humble
conditions when exposed to the severe climate of Canada and Patagonia. In
Peru and Ecuador they built up astounding monuments of the Andean
civilisations. Their clansmen Incas, Aymaras, Quechuas and Chibchas formed
under their rule class-divided societies dominated by the royal caste of the Misca people. The Aymaras built
stone tombs called chullpas that
contained mummies with head deformations. The Incas resembled the Colorado
Cliff-Dwellers in building beehive houses under rock overhangs. Their
dwellings were round oval houses with thatched roofs. The Uru and the Chipaya constructed round oval houses and buried their dead in
stonewalled tombs chullpas. The
royal families of these tribes practised endogamy, mummification and human
sacrifices. They engaged in fishing, breeding lamas and travelling on balsa
rafts (Steward 1948: II, 552-578). Extract from Pavel Blek: Prehistoric Dialects II. Prague 2004,
p. 395406 |
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2 H. A. Bernartzik: Die
neue grosse Vlkerkunde. Wien Prag 1962.
