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CHAPTER 43
CHAMBERED TOMBS AND PASSAGE GRAVES OF WESTERN AND NORTHERN EUROPE
VICKI CUMMINGS, MAGDALENA S. MIDGLEY†, AND CHRIS SCARRE
INTRODUCTION
ACROSS swathes of north-west Europe a number of early farming communities constructed chambered tombs as part of a broader monumental tradition that also included standing stones, stone settings, and enclosures. In France the first chambered tombs date to the early/mid-fifth millennium BC and in Britain and northern Europe similar structures appear during the early fourth millennium BC. Some were exclusively of timber and earth, but the most striking are those that were constructed of stone. This group of Neolithic monuments is known by many names: dolmens, passage graves, long cairns, long mounds, tumuli, and chambered cairns. They share the presence of a chamber, within which the remains of the dead were interred (see Fowler and Scarre, this volume; Sjögren, this volume). The precise configuration of these monuments, however, varies considerably in different regions. Some chambers were constructed with massive (megalithic) stone slabs, whilst others were built using dry-stone walling. Equally, some contained large numbers of inhumations, whilst others contained only single inhumations or cremations. The Neolithic chambered tombs were used in regionally varied ways and had different histories of use and re-use.
These monuments have been the focus of interest since antiquarian times. Their high survival rate has meant that generations of archaeologists have been able to study them, generating an enormous literature, which this chapter can do no more than summarize. In order to illustrate the variety represented by chambered tombs we will present brief overviews of the regional sequences in three key areas of northern and western Europe: (1) France and Iberia; (2) northern Germany, Holland, and southern Scandinavia; and (3) Britain and Ireland. In the second part of the chapter we will discuss some key themes, and indicate potential areas for future research.
NEOLITHIC CHAMBERED TOMBS OF FRANCE AND IBERIA
In Iberia, three principal categories of chambered tomb can be identified: the closed megalithic chamber, the megalithic passage grave, and the dry-stone corbel-vaulted or ‘tholos’ tomb. The last term remains widely in use but refers simply to the constructional technique; it does not indicate a derivation from the Bronze Age tholos tombs of the Aegean. The megalithic passage graves are the most abundant and widespread of the three categories, but the earliest Iberian funerary monuments may have been small box-like cists. In Galicia, the sequence began c. 4300 BC with a series of simple megalithic chambers covered by a cairn or mound (Arias and Fano 2003). Passage graves appeared c. 3800 BC, and over time became increasingly elaborate. Chambers expanded in size and projected above the enclosing mounds; passages became progressively longer and were preceded by forecourts. The emphasis on ceremony, access, and display climaxed in the late fourth millennium BC, when chambers sometimes attained a length of 7m or 8m (Criado 1989). The process then reversed during the third millennium, when closed chambers under mounds of modest dimensions once again became dominant.
Small closed megalithic chambers may also have been the earliest form in the central Alentejo region of southern Portugal. Their origin may lie in the late sixth millennium BC, but the well-known passage graves of the Alentejo mostly d
ate to the fourth millennium (Oosterbeek 2003; Calado 2006, 82). Largest of all the Alentejan passage graves is the Anta Grande de Zambujeiro, with chamber orthostats up to 6m in height and weighing over 20 tonnes. The dominant materials are granites and related rocks, and the geology and acidic soil mean that (as in Galicia) human remains are not generally preserved. Multiple inhumation is however attested in the contemporary passage graves of the limestone Estremadura region immediately to the north-west. The engraved schist plaques found in many of these south-west Iberian passage graves are also consistent with the practice of multiple inhumation, even where human remains do not survive. At Cabeço da Arruda 1 near Lisbon, 11 such plaques were found with the remains of at least 19 individuals. In the Alentejo, much larger quantities of plaques were recovered from tombs such as Olival da Pega (134) and Escoural (167), suggesting correspondingly large numbers of inhumations (Lillios 2008).
Iberian megalithic tombs can be of mixed megalithic and dry-stone construction, but the use of dry-stone is a particular feature of the so-called ‘tholos’ tombs constructed in southern Spain and Portugal from the end of the fourth millennium BC. They include famous examples such as Los Millares in Alméria, the Cueva de Romeral at Antequera, and the Alcalar tombs in the Algarve. Tholos tombs are typically circular dry-stone chambers covered by a tall corbelled vault. Radiocarbon dates suggest that they were built within a relatively restricted period around 3100–2900 BC (Sanjuán 2006). The construction of these chambers appears unconnected with the corbel-vaulted passage graves of Brittany which may be as much as 1,500 years older.
A notable feature of Iberian chambered tombs is their carved and painted decoration. Recycled decorated menhirs have been identified in several tombs, such as Dombate in Galicia, where a carved slab bearing a series of ‘whale’ motifs appears to have been in place before the chamber was built around it, suggesting that it was originally a decorated free-standing menhir (Bello Dieguez 1997). In addition, at Dombate all the orthostats of the passage and chamber have traces of painted art on their bases, where they have survived through being protected by the build-up of deposits. The motifs were painted in red and black on a white-cream foundation layer of carefully sieved kaolin. Since this white-cream foundation layer continued across the interstices between the stones it is clear that the painted decoration formed a continuous surface around the chamber’s interior. A complete decorative scheme of painted motifs is preserved at Antelas in Portugal (Jorge 1998). AMS dating of the charcoal incorporated in the paint of these and other sites places the decoration in the late fifth or early fourth millennium, and at least one case indicates a repainting of the chamber several centuries after its initial decoration (Steelman et al. 2005).