The original stick of rock
QUESTION Was there a history of carving menhirs in France during Roman times?
In the Asterix series, the indomitable Gaul’s sidekick, Obelix, was a menhir sculptor and delivery man in the Roman era of the 1st century BC. In reality, the region’s megaliths were carved much further back in prehistory.
A megalith is a large stone that has been set on its own or with other stones to create a man-made monument.
they consist of menhirs, dolmens, tumuli and druidical altars. the oldest of these are menhirs, whose name is derived from the Welsh or Brythonic maen (‘a stone’) and hir (‘long’).
there are more than 50,000 dolmens and menhirs found across europe. the greatest single concentration of these can be found at Menec Field, near Carnac, in Brittany, France. there are 1,169 stones, with an average height of 10 ft.
Also in Brittany, at Plouarzell (close to Finistere), is the Menhir de Kerloas, standing 33ft tall and weighing more than 150 tonnes — the largest erect standing stone in France.
the epoch of the megaliths starts with the beginnings of agriculture and the creation of stable, as opposed to nomadic, communities about 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. Using vines and ropes made of roots, the farmers dragged these giant blocks of rock many miles before erecting them.
Agriculture requires a precise measuring of time and it’s thought that early megaliths were raised to help understanding of the movements of the stars and the seasonal rhythms.
the menhir circles of Stonehenge, erected about 5,000 years ago, are orientated depending on the sunrise hours and the winter and summer solstices.
Later, these powerful constructions took on a religious significance: places of sun worship, burial and other religious rites. the megalithic era died out about 3,500 years ago — 1,000 years before the rise of the Roman republic, with the start of the Bronze Age. this was the era of the fortified village and more sophisticated agriculture where man was less reliant on nature. Henry Baines, Maidstone, Kent.
QUESTION Why was Neanderthal man named after the 17th-century German theologian Joachim Neander?
NEANDERTHAL man was the first specimen to be recognised as an early human fossil.
they were generally shorter and stockier than modern humans, with features including heavy bones, large brow ridges across a sloping forehead and larger brains.
they also possessed a more sophisticated culture than was at first assumed, for evidence suggests that neanderthals were the first humans to have burial rites and to wear clothes, as well as probably speaking their own language.
neanderthals lived alongside modern humans in europe as far back as 300,000 years ago, but disappear from the record between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago ( the date varies according to geographical locality).
their part played in later human evolution is a touchy subject.
One view is that neanderthals were not, in fact, our direct ancestors and they were a separate species that was perhaps out-competed or exterminated by other early humans. Another opinion is that it was the neanderthal groups which evolved into modern man, or that at least some interbreeding with other humans took place. tests conducted on surviving neanderthal DNA have failed to resolve the issue.
As characteristic skeletons began to be uncovered in the 19th century, Irish anatomist William King (1809-1886) first suggested the name
Homo neanderthalensis in 1864 to distinguish neanderthal remains from modern human Homo sapiens. however, it is very unlikely that he was thinking of German theologian Joachim neander.
neander (1650-1680) was a beloved lay preacher and poet in his day. he composed many hymns and held services in the beautiful setting of what was once called Gesteins, the valley of a river named dussell between the German towns of Mettmann and erkrath.
the river was once a narrow gorge of limestone cliffs pierced by rushing waters, though extensive stone removal has since obliterated the cliffs.
neander became something of a hermit over the years, spending much of his time in a cave near dussell. the river came to be known as neander River after his death and the river’s valley, neander Valley or Neandertal.
Tal is German for valley, having replaced the Thal of the slightly outdated 19th- century dialect — hence why neandertal and neanderthal are sometimes confused.
It was in the neander Valley in 1856 that labourers in a mining operation discovered unusual looking bones embedded in the clay they were removing from a cave.
Believing they’d found the remains of a bear, the workers turned their find over to a local naturalist, Johann Carl Fuhlrott, who took it to anatomist and anthropologist hermann Schaaffhausen. the two agreed it was the remains of an ancient human being and announced their discovery in 1857.
So the etymology of neanderthal man is not really meant to go back to Joachim neander but, instead, to the location of one the most important findings in anthropological history. Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts.
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