Megalithic tombs - large structures built out of large (and small) stones - were constructed in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age by farming communities in both western and north-western Europe.
They served as burial places and were often decorated with geometric designs such as lozenges, circles and concentric spirals.
Megaliths are thought to reflect territorial demarcation and, in the later period, increased social differentiation.
Many different regional types of megalith are found, such as the Irish court cairn and French 'allÈe couverte', two varieties of a rectangular stone tomb with no separation between the entrance passage and chamber; or the Dutch 'hunebed', an arrangement of stones consisting of a short passage leading to a long rectangular chamber, the entrance on one side of the structure being surrounded by a kerb of large stones.
Variations also occur through time: in Britain, for instance, gallery graves under long mounds occur at an earlier date than the splendid passage graves with their long entrance passage, corbelled (vaulted with courses of projecting stones) central chamber and massive stone-kerbed round mound.
The contents of the megalithic tombs also vary enormously through space and time. In general, however, they contained the bones of several individuals, not in articulation (connected together as a skeleton), and with few funerary offerings.
They are interpreted as tombs belonging to the community as a whole.
In addition there were a number of non-funerary megalithic monuments, such as menhirs (single large standing stones), alignments (standing stones laid out in rows) and stone circles, of which Stonehenge is the most splendid (but atypical) example.
