INTRODUCTION 



with higher fulcra, until the stone is level with the 

 top of the clay slope, on to which it is then slipped. 

 With a little help it now slides down the inclined 

 plane to the bottom. Here a fresh slope is built, 

 and the whole procedure is gone through again. 

 The method can even be used on a slight uphill 

 gradient. It requires less dragging and more 

 vertical raising than the other, and would thus 

 be more useful where oxen were unobtainable. 



When the stones were once on the spot it is not 

 hard to imagine how they were set upright with 

 levers and ropes. The placing of the cover-slab 

 was, however, a more complicated matter. The 

 method employed was probably to build a slope 

 of earth leading up from one side to the already 

 erected uprights and almost covering them. Up 

 this the slab could be moved by means of rollers, 

 ropes, and levers, until it was in position over the 

 uprights. The slope could then be removed. 

 If the dolmen was to be partly or wholly covered 

 with a mound, as some certainly were, it would 

 not even be necessary to remove the slope. 



Roughly speaking, the extension of megalithic 

 monuments is from Spain to Japan and from 

 Sweden to Algeria. These are naturally merely 

 limits, and it must not be supposed that the 

 regions which lie between them all contain mega- 

 lithic monuments. More exactly, we find them 

 in Asia, in Japan, Corea, India, Persia, Syria, and 



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