4 W. J. Perry — Cultural Significance of the use of Stone 



whole of the rest of Europe contained no suitable stone, or that 

 the climatic and other conditions were not suitable ? Such an 

 assertion is ludicrous. How about the Alps, the Rhine Valley, 

 the valley of the Danube ? How about the whole of the 

 Balkans, which only contain a few dolmens near Adrianople ? 

 Obviously some selective factor in men's minds must have 

 caused some stone-bearing^ areas to be settled rather than 

 others. Certainly the presence of stone had, in itself, but little 

 causative effect. 



It is not necessary to show that vast areas of North America 

 are, in like manner, entirely devoid of the use of stone, which 

 is confined to the valleys of the Cumberland and Tennessee 

 Rivers. The assertion that the use of stone was determined 

 by its presence is still more insufficient, therefore, in North 

 America. The general map of distribution of the use of stone 

 throughout the Avorld serves likewise to emphasize the fact that 

 this practice has not arisen from the presence of suitable stone. 

 The theory of a spontaneous origin of the practice must 

 therefore be abandoned. 



The builders of megalithic monuments had the habit of 

 transporting large blocks of stone, often for great distances. 

 The following quotation from the late J. R. Mortimer, who 

 spent forty years in the excavation of mounds and barrows in 

 the Yorkshire Wolds, will serve as a beginning. Speaking 

 of the materials used in the construction of barrows, he says : 



" It was more the rule than the exception for clay, foreign 

 to the spot, to be used in the erection of these barrows. It 

 occasionally occurred in large quantities, and had sometimes 

 been fetched from a considerable distance. I have also 

 noticed, not infrequently, that clay, peaty matter, and some- 

 times fine loamy earth, brought from a distance, had been 

 specially placed near the interment and the cinerary urn. 

 Occasionally the interment rested on a few inches of clay, 

 and infrequently a thin layer of the same material covered 

 it. In Barrow No. 12 the grave in the chalk rock had a 

 flooring of oolitic flagstones ; while there were ten inter- 

 ments on a flooring of Liassic stones in Barrow No. 275 ; 

 and in Nos. 61, C 38 and 281, were cists of the same foreign 

 rock; while under the centre of Nos. 55 and 83 was con- 

 cealed a broken or incomplete circle of large oolitic sand- 

 stone blocks (Calcareous Grit) enclosing interments. 



^' The use of material from a distance in building these 

 barrows seems to have been practised over wide areas. 

 Canon Atkinson, when opening barrows on the Cleveland 



