NA TURE 



[November 28, 1907 



NOTES ON ANCIENT BRITISH MONUMENTS.' 

 II.- — The Cornish Cromlechs. 



FROM the point of view of orientation, the in- 

 terest in barrows, tumuli, chambered cairns, 

 dohiiens and cromlechs lies in the assumption that they 

 were built for live men to dwell in. That they all 

 represent different stages of the same structure — stages 

 depending upon decay due to the action of rain, or 

 wanton destruction in the interests of agriculture — 

 can be gathered from a complete study of the whole 

 evidence. 



Borlase, in his " Dolmens of Ireland " (p. 426), 

 refers to some of it. Mr. John Bell, of Dundalk, a 

 famous antiquary, disinterred no less than sixty crom- 

 lechs from cairns or barrows in Ulster. Many 

 " cairns," indeed, on the early Ordnance maps are 

 marked dolmens in subsequent editions, the interior 

 stone framework being the only thing remaining 

 after the covering of soil had been re-distributed over 

 the fields, an ordinary "agricultural" operation. 



Borlase insists upon' the fact that large tumuli were 

 not essential ; " all 

 that was neccs- 

 sarv was that the 

 walls of the cell 

 or crypt should be 

 impervious to the 

 elements and lo 

 wild animals " {]i. 

 427). As a corol- 

 larv to this, " in 

 distinction from 

 the cist, it was 

 the intention and 

 object of the 

 builders that ac- 

 cess should be had 

 to it [the cell or 

 crypt] from with- 

 out." 



It was this in- 

 tention which has 

 provided us with 

 " creeps," " fou- 

 gous," " allees ou- 

 vertes," and " al- 

 lies couvertes," 

 and these, as T 

 shall show, are of 

 as high import- 

 ance as the cell 

 itself from the 

 orientation point 



of view. They all constituted, not only entrances, but 

 " outlooks " for the man inside ; and it matters not 

 whether the cell was as e.xtensive, as complicated, as 

 carefully built, and the creep as long, as at Maeshowe, 

 or whether we deal with a cell of the simplest and 

 rudest form, with a bare entrance and outlook, such 

 as the creephole in one of the stones at Trevethy. 



Archaeologists, as a rule, though not, I think, uni- 

 versallv, consider the whole series of structures we 

 are now dealing with as having originally, what- 

 ever their present stage, been constructed for tombs. 



For them there is little difference between such a cell 

 with an entrance such as the barrows and cromlechs 

 reveal ; and a cist, which is simply a rude small coffin 

 built up of five or six stones, in which there is only 

 room for the bodv, and to which there is no entrance 

 at all. The evidence on which they rely is that cer- 

 tain things have been found in these cells, which they 

 consider can only have been associated with burials. 



1 Continued fioni p. 59. 



NO. 1987, VOL. yy] 



The argument against this view does not only de- 

 pend upon the details of structure, such as revealed 

 in Maeshowe, perhaps the most perfect cell now re- 

 maining, but upon their association with other stone 

 monuments, especially with stone circles; so that as 

 the Gorsedd we see to-day is but a survival of the 

 ancient stone circle which was associated with living 

 men, the cromlechs must, in all probability, have been 

 also associated with living men. They are not merely 

 tombs. I hold that they were never meant for lombs, 

 and to argue that they were built for sepulchral pur- 

 poses because people have since been buried in them 

 is to denv that a church was built for the worship 

 of God because we find corpses in it. 



If we consider frankly and fairly the position of the 

 first priests and leaders of the people who controlled 

 the worship and the daily life of the early inhabi- 

 tants of Britain, we can arrive at a quite plausible 

 theory concerning these cromlechs. 



The circle builders had to look after the welfare of 

 ihe surrounding population, and see what they could 

 do to help them in every way; and when we consider 



-Cromlech ( 



, Farm 



that, I think much of the mystery surrounding 

 the cromlech is at once cleared away. In the first 

 place, there is no doubt in my mind that these people, 

 who had command of the sea, and came over here and 

 built the circles and cromlechs along our shores, and 

 cared very little for going inland where they could 

 not be supported by their constantly returning ships, 

 were Semitic in their origin, or familiar with the 

 Semitic peoples. In any case they must have lived 

 somewhere, and with some kind of shelter. 



Now we know from Robertson Smith that Semitic 

 worship was carried on in caves, and one reason for 

 this might have been that the priests really lived in 

 caves. 



Now the cromlech was really an improvement upon 

 the natural or artificial cave, and, further, if there 

 were no caves, some shelter must have been provided.. 

 The easiest wav to protect the priests and priestcraft 

 from the elements and from animals was by erecting 

 such a structure as stones would enable them to do. 



