Boat Engravings and Maritime Technologies in the Megalithic Ages 4700–2500 cal BC

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Negotiating Watery Worlds: Impacts and Implications of the Use of Watercraft in Small-Scale Societies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent research into megalithic temporality, mobility, and symbolic identity suggests that the rise of long-distance maritime journeys began in Europe as early as the megalithic era. Megaliths emerged in northwest France (~4700–4200 cal BC) and then spread over the seaways along Europe’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. These discoveries prompt a radical reassessment of the early megalithic horizons and open a new scientific debate regarding the rise of seafaring and advanced maritime technologies, the mobility of megalithic societies, and the emergence of megalithic architecture among sea mammal hunting societies in northwest France. Engravings of boats and whaling sceneries are so far restricted to Brittany and suggest the central role of this region not only for the emergence and diffusion of megaliths but also for the development of maritime technologies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Negotiating Watery Worlds: Impacts and Implications of the Use of Watercraft in Small-Scale Societies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37654.0