Large Megalith That Predates Stonehenge Exhibits Science Savvy of Neolithic People

Large Megalith That Predates Stonehenge Exhibits Science Savvy of Neolithic People

By Roff Smith & Nature journal

The Neolithic farmers and herders who constructed an enormous stone chamber in southern Spain practically 6,000 years in the past possessed an excellent rudimentary grasp of physics, geometry, geology and architectural ideas, finds an in depth research of the positioning.

Utilizing information from a high-resolution laser scan, in addition to unpublished photographs and diagrams from earlier excavations, archaeologists pieced collectively a possible building course of for the monument generally known as the Dolmen of Menga. Their findings, revealed 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 research would have concerned comparable strategies and demanded an analogous degree of engineering.

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“These people had no blueprints to work with, nor, as far as we know, any previous experience at building something like this,” says research co-author Leonardo García Sanjuán, an archaeologist on the College of Seville in Spain. “And yet, they understood how to fit together huge blocks of stone” with “a precision that would keep the monument intact for nearly 6,000 years”.

“There’s no way you could do that without at least a basic working knowledge 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 type the partitions, pillars and roof of an enormous chamber measuring round 28 metres lengthy, 6 metres vast and three.5 metres excessive. The biggest of those blocks, one of many capstones that types 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 enormous slabs from the quarry to the positioning with out breaking them would have required specific care, the researchers say, significantly with the comfortable sandstone used for the roof. They counsel that this might have been carried out utilizing specifically constructed wood tracks to cut back friction because the stones had been dragged alongside, a lot because the builders of Stonehenge are thought to have carried out.

One other activity 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 had been carved into sides that meant they locked in opposition to their neighbours when the weights and ramps had been eliminated.

“I’ve always been amazed by the engineering skills needed to build this dolmen,” says Michael Parker Pearson, an archaeologist at College School London. “This paper reveals just how precisely that has to have been done, with an extraordinary eye on dimensions and angles. With such big stones, they could not have afforded to make mistakes when manoeuvring them into position. If even just one was a few centimetres out, that would have been hard to correct once 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 sort of thing we see at Stonehenge a thousand years later, with the mortise and tenon joining of uprights and lintels.”

However in contrast to Stonehenge, the Dolmen of Menga is in a seismically lively, earthquake-prone space. Regardless of this, after practically 6,000 years, the stonework continues to be cosy and safe, says García Sanjuán. “These people really knew what they were doing.”

This text is reproduced with permission and was first revealed on August 23, 2024.