ABSTRACT
Lukis (op. cit.) was also the first to identify the monuments as tombs rather than altars, but it is now clear that burial was only one of their functions. It seems most likely that passage graves served as ritual centres for communities of early farmers, in much the same way as Medieval communities were served by parish churches. In some areas, it has been possible (cf. Patton 1991b) to establish a hierarchical ranking of passage graves, based on comparisons of size: if the smaller monuments can be compared to parish churches, we can perhaps think of the larger passage graves as megalithic ‘cathedrals’, serving a larger community at a higher level of social organisation.
