ABSTRACT
The great stone monuments or ‘megaliths’ of Western Europe have for centuries excited the popular imagination, and, not surprisingly, they attracted the interest of the earliest antiquarians and archaeologists. Each subsequent generation of archaeologists has made its own discoveries and comments, and offered interpretations of these impressive but enigmatic monuments. Recent years have seen a renewed interest in megalithic studies, involving a shift away from traditional concerns with typology, chronology and megalithic ‘origins’, towards attempts to understand the social significance of the monuments. Recent contributions to megalithic studies have drawn on a wide variety of theoretical approaches, ranging from Processual (cf. Renfrew 1973, 1976) to Post-structuralist (cf. Shanks and Tilley 1982, Tilley 1984) and Neo-Marxist (cf. Bender 1985), all focusing on the social dimensions of monument construction and megalithic ritual.
