The Dual Nature of the Megalithic Colonisation of Prehistoric Europe

Abstract

In a note in the last issue of these Proceedings, Professor C. Daryll Forde commented on some of the tentative conclusions set forth by the present writer in two articles in earlier issues, and went on to a general discussion of the morphology and diffusion of prehistoric burial chambers. During the last few years it has been generally held by archaeologists that the megalithic colonisation of western and northern Europe was dual in character, consisting of two separate movements—the one diffusing Passage Graves, the other diffusing Gallery Graves: this notion is implicit in the recent writings of Childe, Hawkes, Estyn Evans, Powell and Megaw. It has seemed to me abundantly clear that, even if these two sets of movements were ultimately from the same Mediterranean source (and this, too, is open to question), as far as western and northern Europe was concerned they were two distinct and separate movements. This conclusion Forde challenges, and regards all Gallery Graves as local developments from degenerate Passage Graves in the various regions of Europe to which the Passage Graves were diffused. It has seemed worth while to the present writer, before meeting Forde's detailed criticisms, to deal with his general thesis, and it is the purpose of this article to argue and describe the dual nature of the megalithic colonisation of Europe.

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