Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ix. (191 5), No. 1. 29 



Remarks on Mr. W. J. Perry's Communication. 

 By Professor G. Elliot Smith, M.A., M.D.., F.R.S. 



One of the most puzzling features of the geographical 

 distribution of megalithic monuments hitherto has been 

 the apparently haphazard way in which certain sites 

 have been selected and others left by the builders of these 

 curious stone structures. Mr. Perry has provided the 

 explanation. The coincidence of the distribution of the 

 monuments and the mines is far too exact to be due to 

 mere chance. Ancient miners in search of metals or 

 precious stones, or in other cases pearl-fishers, had in 

 every case established camps to exploit these varied 

 sources of wealth ; and the megalithic monuments repre- 

 sent their tombs and temples. 



That the chief exploiters of the Iberian (and probably 

 also the Indian) mines in question were the Phoenicians 

 can now be regarded as definitely established. 1 But 

 it is not so obvious why the Phoenicians should have 

 built monuments of the characteristically " megalithic " 

 type. It is probable that they recruited for these special 

 expeditions men who were expert gold-miners, in much 

 the same way as in our own times one sometimes meets 

 prospectors who have worked in turn at Ballarat, Cool- 

 gardie, the Transvaal and Klondyke. 



There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that the 

 Phoenicians may have recruited many of their miners 

 from the Black Sea littoral, and especially from Colchis, 

 the land of the Golden Fleece, and that these men built 



1 See L. Siret, op. cit. supra; and my article "The Influence of 

 Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the East and in America" in the forth- 

 coming (January) Bulletin of the Tohn Rylands Library. 



