Arts , Humanities & Social Science

Abstract

All monuments have a dynamic and complex relationship with time, place, culture, and scholarship. The root of monument architecture, and the earliest known human made structure, are the pre-history megaliths located along the coastlines of France and England. This paper traces back a 100-year historical thread of text and drawings made on megaliths by explorers and scholars such as LT S P Oliver (1879), Edgerton (1944), Hawkins (1966), and Service & Bradbery (1979). Recent scholar on megaliths constructs our "modern" understanding of these mysterious stones. The central framework for this paper positions monuments as "metaphorical mirrors of culture”, with each megalith scholar informs the next and builds upon a "story," searching for an explanation as to why these stone monuments remain with consequences on culture and scholarship.