Macalisteu — Temair Breg : Remains and Traditions oj Tara. 385 



their tombs. It also means that the barbarians had nol the usual conser- 

 vatism of the savage, but that they were sufficiently interested in the met 

 of the strangers to give up their own ways in favour of the ways of unknown 

 people two thousand miles away. All 1 his is possible; but it is in the lasi 

 degree unlikely. It may be taken for granted that if an amber or tin merchant 

 goes among a barbarous people, he goes to buy amber or tin, and uot to teach 

 new ideas in religion or in art to the natives with whom tie has to deal. II 

 carries with him the commodities which he knows by experience they will 

 accept in barter, not plans of cumbersome tombs or designs for their artistic 

 enrichment. 



It is, indeed, a fair criticism of the theory that would derive New Grange 

 and allied monuments from the Mycenaean tombs, that tJu resemblance between 

 them is too great. There was certainly a trade in tin and amber between the 

 Aegean culture-centres and the northern tribes. But how would this trade 

 be carried on ? Not, surely, by single caravans, travelling the whole distance ; 

 but by a number of independent caravans, each oscillating back and forth 

 along one stage of the journey. At the meeting-points, each of them would 

 exchange its goods with the caravan of the next stage. Such traders would 

 no doubt exchange stories and news as well as merchandise, and in this way 

 rumours of the great tombs of Mycenae could conceivably be carried to the 

 north of Europe. But it may be questioned whether these rumours, vague as 

 they would necessarily be, could inspire the northerners to try to build tombs 

 to the Mycenaean model. An imitation with no better guidance than a 

 description carried across Europe by word of mouth could hardly be so 

 successful as it actually is. 



So far as the plan of New Grange and its construction are concerned, the 

 building can be completely explained as the evolution, and (so to Bpeak) the 

 glorification of a dolmen of the alter ever, rte type ; and we need not go so far 

 afield as Mycenae to look for satisfactory prot 'types. I may say at once that 

 I am utterly unable to accept theories of culture-development that do n « • t 

 recognize the possibility of the co-existence of more than one independent 

 culture-centre. 1 cannot side with those who seek to derive all the world's 

 civilization from one region, \\ bet her it be Egj pt, Crete, India. Mesopotamia — 

 or even Atlantis: Given anywhere a religion that requires a periodical 

 visit to the tombs, then a dromos-tholos structure of some kind will evolve 

 naturally, without necessary relations with any other centre. That the 

 religion which centred in the Mycenaean tombs was such, may be inferred 

 from the elaborate tholos, which was not in itself a burial-place, but a kind of 

 chapel, an ante-room to the tomb-chamber proper. That the religion winch 

 centred in New Grange was likewise such, is indicated by a very interesting 



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