4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



A study of the megalithic epoch has its historical and its geographi- 

 cal sides ; the historian being concerned with its appearance in time ; 

 the geographer with place. The anthropogeographer embracing both 

 in his consideration asks the pertinent question : Why has this epoch 

 occurred at a certain place at a certain sequence in culture history 

 and not elsewhere at another time ? 



It is unnecessary to remind you that culture history is not limited 

 to written records, and that concerted actions of races, whether re- 

 corded or not, constitute their history. Those inventions that have 

 most profoundly influenced culture, like the discovery how to make 

 fire, are more important in results than great battles that have brought 

 about dynastic changes. 



Monoliths, as expressions of a desire to perpetuate the memory of 

 ancestors or to commemorate past events, are naturally found only 

 where the race had arrived at a self consciousness of its own power. 

 Their geographical distribution 1 over the earth's surface corresponds 

 roughly with the awakening of that consciousness. The megalithic 

 custom, therefore, has an independent origin among different people, 

 and its prevalence among widely separated races by no means implies, 

 much less proves, acculturation or contact. It is autochthonous and 

 its origin, being mental, can be traced to what for a better name we 

 call psychic influence. 



The megalithic habit is necessarily dependent on the nature of con- 

 venient rock formations and other geological conditions. 



It is self evident that except in so far as the production of megaliths 

 is dependent on transportation of material used, the distribution of 

 monoliths is largely geographical, correlated with that of stones 

 suitable fot their manufacture. Great plains or sandy deserts furnish 

 scanty material for construction of monoliths, and if megaliths are 

 used by people living in this environment the distribution of rivers 

 and the direction of their flow, by which they were transported from a 

 distance, must be given weight. Monumental structures are not to be 

 expected in cold regions where the earth's surface is covered with 

 snow or ice clad ; while generally children of the deserts, they occur in 

 forested regions, and are commonly found in those regions of the 

 earth that show a long continued habitation by man. They are tropi- 

 cal and warm temperate zone structures and exotic elsewhere. 



1 Evidences of great human antiquity are commonly found in regions where 

 megaliths occur. It takes a long time to develop this habit or phase of thought, 

 and monumental structures are not the product of a few years. 



