ABSTRACT
De Vreeze offered a comprehensive study of dolmen construction at Damiyeh, remarkable for being the only such study to have significantly added to Conder's earlier account. In the Near East, the spectacular discovery of carved monoliths at early Neolithic Gobekli Tepe has endowed monumentality with a far greater antiquity than the technical processes of quarrying, extracting, transporting and placing megalithic slabs helped promote a degree of social cohesion integral to the development of early complex societies. The perimetral quarrying techniques that Martinez-Torres described in Spain are probably similar to those used at Tell er-Ras, given the similar limestone quarry-scapes that characterise the several zones. The construction processes demonstrate a capacity for stone working and engineering that presages the construction of large, stone monuments and fortification systems that are considered a hallmark of Early Bronze urban expression in the southern Levant.
