August 28, 2024
3 min learn
Large Megalith That Predates Stonehenge Exhibits Science Savvy of Neolithic People
A survey of the Dolmen of Menga means that the stone tomb’s Neolithic builders had an understanding of science
Archaeologists used laser scans and diagrams from earlier excavations to analyze the development of the Dolmen of Menga.
Cavan Photographs/Getty Photographs
The Neolithic farmers and herders who constructed an enormous stone chamber in southern Spain almost 6,000 years in the past possessed rudimentary grasp of physics, geometry, geology and architectural ideas, finds an in depth examine of the positioning.
Utilizing information from a high-resolution laser scan, in addition to unpublished images and diagrams from earlier excavations, archaeologists pieced collectively a possible building course of for the monument often called the Dolmen of Menga. Their findings, printed on 23 August in Science Advances, reveal new insights into the construction and its Neolithic builders’ technical skills.
The dolmen pre-dates the principle stone circle at Stonehenge in the UK by about 1,000 years, however the building course of described within the examine would have concerned comparable strategies and demanded an identical stage of engineering.
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“These individuals had no blueprints to work with, nor, so far as we all know, any earlier expertise at constructing one thing like this,” says examine co-author Leonardo García Sanjuán, an archaeologist on the College of Seville in Spain. “And but, they understood easy methods to match collectively big blocks of stone” with “a precision that will hold the monument intact for almost 6,000 years”.
The dolmen’s stones are fitted along with excessive precision, suggesting that the individuals who constructed the tomb understood ideas of science and engineering.
Basic Picture/Alamy Inventory Photograph
“There’s no method you can try this with out a minimum of a fundamental working data of science,” he provides.
Tremendous-solid construction
To assemble the dolmen, its builders transported 32 large stone blocks from a quarry round one kilometre away and used them to kind the partitions, pillars and roof of an enormous chamber measuring round 28 metres lengthy, 6 metres large and three.5 metres excessive. The biggest of those blocks, one of many capstones that varieties a part of the roof, is 8 metres lengthy and weighs an estimated 150 tonnes. By comparability, the most important stone used to construct Stonehenge weighs about 30 tonnes.
Transporting these big slabs from the quarry to the positioning with out breaking them would have required explicit care, the researchers say, significantly with the tender sandstone used for the roof. They recommend that this might have been accomplished utilizing specifically constructed wood tracks to cut back friction because the stones have been dragged alongside, a lot because the builders of Stonehenge are thought to have accomplished.
One other job that demanded precision and talent was finessing the upright slabs into sockets carved 1.5 metres deep into the bedrock. The laser scans revealed that the builders used counterweights and ramps to maneuver the uprights rigorously into the sockets, tilting them at exact, millimetre-scale angles. The stones have been carved into sides that meant they locked in opposition to their neighbours when the weights and ramps have been eliminated.
Inside of the megalithic monument Dolmen of Menga Antequera with the Lovers’ Rock within the background.
stu.dio/Alamy Inventory Photograph
“I’ve at all times been amazed by the engineering abilities wanted to construct this dolmen,” says Michael Parker Pearson, an archaeologist at College Faculty London. “This paper reveals simply how exactly that has to have been accomplished, with a unprecedented eye on dimensions and angles. With such massive stones, they might not have afforded to make errors when manoeuvring them into place. If even only one was a couple of centimetres out, that will have been arduous to appropriate as soon as an upright stone was set in its trench.”
Parker Pearson provides that the prehistoric engineers’ understanding of physics and geometry resulted in a ‘super-solid monument’. “It’s the kind of factor we see at Stonehenge a thousand years later, with the mortise and tenon becoming a member of of uprights and lintels.”
However not like Stonehenge, the Dolmen of Menga is in a seismically lively, earthquake-prone space. Regardless of this, after almost 6,000 years, the stonework remains to be cosy and safe, says García Sanjuán. “These individuals actually knew what they have been doing.”
This text is reproduced with permission and was first printed on August 23, 2024.
