Ancient European Stone Monuments Said to Originate in Northwest France

[left-of-center2012]

Thousands of years ago, megaliths began to appear in Europe — standing stones, dolmens, stone circles. They vary from single stones to complexes like Stonehenge. There are about 35,000 such monuments in Europe, many along the Atlantic coast of France and Spain, in England, Ireland, Scandinavia and throughout the Mediterranean.

A scientist who analyzed 2,410 radiocarbon dates of megaliths and their surroundings reported on Monday that the first such tombs appeared in France, about 6,500 years ago, and then spread along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, as well as to England, Ireland and Scandinavia.

“It took me 10 years of my life for this research,” said the scientist, Bettina Schulz Paulsson, a prehistoric archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She combed the literature in 11 languages, assessed the validity of the dating tests, and used a statistical method called Bayesian analysis to narrow the dates further. She reported her findings in the journal PNAS, concluding that the building of megalithic graves appeared and spread along the coast of France, Spain and Portugal and the Mediterranean within a period of 200 to 300 years.

Dr. Schulz Paulsson found that the oldest megalithic graves dated from about 4800 to 4000 B.C. in northwest France and other areas like the Channel Islands, Corsica and Sardinia. But northwest France is the only one of these areas that showed evidence of earthen grave monuments that preceded the first megaliths, dating back to around 5000 B.C. These graves, in the geological area known as the Paris basin, indicate the beginnings of monument building that are lacking in the other areas.

Some of the more famous and elaborate megaliths, like Stonehenge, came near the end of the construction of megalithic monuments, around 2500 B.C.

Full article at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/science/megaliths-archaeology-tombs.html?action=click&module=Discovery&pgtype=Homepage

The Dolmen di Sa Coveccada, an ancient megalithic grave, in Sardinia, Italy.
Credit: Bettina Schulz Paulsson

[Ghost Dog]

1. In Brittany, that is: at Carnac.

... But it seems odd that Dr. Schulz Paulsson appears to dismiss similar dates obtained at sites in the British Isles, especially in Ireland.

It is interesting to see acknowledged the importance at such early dates of maritime routes for trade and cultural diffusion, along the Atlantic seaboard as well as around the North and Baltic seas and of course the Mediterranean.

[Igel]

2. There are megalithic sites across the Mediterranean to Turkey.

(Beyond, too, but it's harder to imagine the connection between those and, say, Indonesia. Not impossible. Just harder.)

Some are from before 5k BCE.

Is she drawing a distinction between graves and non-graves?