88 COENISH DOLMENS. 



dolmen-building raee.^*' Those who hold this theory maintain 

 that the building of dolmens marks an era in the history of 

 civilisation. When a race reaches a certain stage in its history 

 it builds dolmens, and in time the erection ceases because the 

 race grows out of the phase. 



I reject this theory entirely, and, in ojDposition to it, I hold 

 that they were erected by one particular race, and that they 

 ceased to be built because that race mysteriously disappeared. 



If dolmens were built at all eras, and by many races, then 

 we ought to find them scattered promiscuously over Europe and 

 Asia, but this is exactly what we do not find, for the dolmens are 

 distributed in a well defined zone or band. If they mark a 

 phase through which all races have passed, then races will pass 

 through the phase at different times in the world's history, some 

 earlier and some later. It follows, therefore, that some races ought 

 to have been in the dolmen-building phase in historical times, and 

 some even should be building dolmens now. But history records 

 no account of any people buildmg dolmens, nor, with the 

 solitary exception of the Khasias of the North Eastern India,'" do 

 any people erect dolmens in the present day. 



Besides this, there are countries in which we can trace a 

 regular progress from the earliest Stone period right down to 

 the Iron age, but no dolmens occur in these countries. For 

 instance, in Austria we find the earliest traces of Palaeolithic 

 Man in the alluvia of the valley of the Danube,^^ and we have a 

 series of Neolithic weapons, as well as relics fi-om the Bronze 

 and Iron ages,^^ in different parts of the country. Here then, is 

 a region in which the inhabitants must have passed through the 



i6. Le Prehistorique, by M. de Mortillet, p. 590. 



Also, this opinion is advanced by Mr. H. M. Westropp, in a paper entitled 

 Cromlechs and Megalithic Structures, which is printed in the The Journal of the 

 Ethnological Society for 1869. Some scientists, like M. Cartailhac, find the problem 

 so difficult that they are unable to give any opinion. La France Prehistorique, 



p. 200. 



17. The Khasias are not in the elementary Period in which the dolmen phase is 

 supposed to occur, as they are in the Iron Age, and so, by the theory, are long past 

 the stage in which dolmen building should occur. See Himalayan Journals by .Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, vol. ii, pp. 277, 320. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. v, 



pp. 37-41- 



18. G. Cotteau, Le Prehistorique en Europe, pp. 195, 204. 



iq. Ancient Stone Implements in Great Britain by Sir John Evans (■2nd edition), 

 p. 529- 



