Orientation of Trb-West Megalithic Monuments

News from the west: ancient DNA from a French megalithic burial chamber.

Recent paleogenetic studies have confirmed that the spread of the Neolithic across Europe was neither genetically nor geographically uniform. To extend existing knowledge of the mitochondrial European Neolithic gene pool, we examined six samples of human skeletal material from a French megalithic long mound (c.4200 cal BC). We retrieved HVR-I sequences from three individuals and demonstrated th...

A Pattern of Islands: the Neolithic monuments of north- west Brittany

Coastal distributions such as that of the Neolithic chambered tombs of Brittany raise important questions about prehistoric beliefs and understandings relating to sea and shoreline. Concepts of liminality come particularly to the fore where headlands and islands are selected as places for the disposal of human remains. The density of chambered tombs recorded by Du Châtellier on the islands of t...

Beyond TRB 218

Megalithic science and some Scottish site plans

'A cairn supported at its edge by large stones may be removed .... The ring which is left looks like a stone circle.' (Thorn, 1967, 65). Professor A. Thorn has surveyed a large number of archaeological sites (Thorn, 1967; 1971). These surveys provide the basis from which he deduces the existence of the Megalithic Yard (MY), Megalithic Geometry and Megalithic Astronomy. In considering his eviden...

Monuments to Academic Carelessness

In 1942, Katherine Frost Bruner published an article titled ‘‘Of psychological writing: Being some valedictory remarks on style.’’ It was published in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, the journal for which she served as editorial assistant between 1937 and 1941. Her collection of advice to writing scholars has been widely quoted, including by several editions of The Publication Manual...