ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



was something to be gained by adopting the new 

 discovery, and there was no sacrifice of religious 

 custom or principle. An exchange of products 

 between one country and another is not unnatural, 

 but a traffic in burial customs is unthinkable. 



Perhaps, however, it was not the form of the 

 dolmen which was brought by commerce, but 

 simply the art of architecture in general, and this 

 was adapted to burial purposes. To this there are 

 serious objections. In the first place it does not 

 explain why exactly the same types of building 

 (e.g. the dolmen), showing so many similarities 

 of peculiar detail, occur in countries so far apart ; 

 and in the second place, if what was carried by 

 trade was the art of building alone, why should 

 the learners go out of their way to use huge stones 

 when smaller ones would have suited their purpose 

 equally well ? That the megalithic builders knew 

 how to employ smaller stones we know from their 

 work ; that they preferred to use large ones for 

 certain purposes was not due to ignorance or 

 chance, it was because the large stone as such had 

 some particular meaning and association for them. 

 We cannot definitely say that large stones were 

 themselves actually worshipped, but there can 

 be no possible doubt that for some reason or other 

 they were regarded" as peculiarly fit to be used 

 in sanctified places such as the tombs of the dead. 

 It is impossible that the men who possessed the 

 skill to lay the horizontal upper courses of the 



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