Westen Europe

In Weatrn Eurpoe, where Plleolithic paintings and sculptures abound no comparably developed towens of the time of Catal Hoyuk have been found. However, in succeeding millennia, perhaps as early as 4000BCE, the local Neolithic populations in several areas developed a monumental aechitecture employeing massive rough-cut stones.The very dimensions of the stones, some as high as 17 feet and weighing as much as 50 tons, have prompted historians to call them megaliths (great stone) and to designate Neolithic architecture employing megaliths as megalithic.

NEWGRANCE 

One of the most imprassive megalithic monuments in Europe is also one of the oldest . The megalithic tomb at newgrangein Ireland, north of dublin, may have been constructed as early as 3200 BCE and is one of the oldest burial monuments in Eurpoe.It takes the from of a passage grave, that is a tomb with a long stone corridor leading to a burial chamber all covered by a great timulus (earthen burial mound). Passage graves have been found also in England, France,Spain and Scandinavia.All attest to the importance of honoring the dead in Neolithic Scocitey, Some mounds contain more then one passage grave. The Newgrange tumulus is 280 feet in diameter and 44 feet tall.Its passageway is 62 feet long and is an early example of aconstruction technique uaes in other later ancient culture and even today-the corbeled vault.At Newgrange, huge megaliths form the ceiling of the passage and the burial chamber.The stones are held in place by their own weight. Those on one side countering the weight of the megaliths on the other side of the p[assageway. Some of the stone are decorated with incised sprial and other abstract motifs.A special feature of the Newgrange tomb is that at the winter solstice the sun illuminates the passageway and tah burial chamber.

STONEHANGE 

The most famous megalithic monument in Europe is Stonehange  on the Salisbury Plain in southern England. A henge is an arrangement of megalithic stone in a circle, often surrounded by a ditch, The type is almost entirely limited to Britain. Stonehange is a complex of rough cut sarsen ( a form of sand stone )stones and smaller”bluestone”(various volcanic rocks)built in several stages Over hundred of years. The final hange took the form of concentric post and lintel circel. The outer ring, almost 100 feet in diameter, consists of a huge sarsan megaliths.Inside is a ring of blue stone , which in turn encircle a houseshoe(open and faceing east) of trilithons (three stone constructions) five lintal topped paris of the largest sarsens,each weighting 45 to 50 tone.Standing apart and to th east is the “ heel stone”which, for a person looking outward from the center of the complex, would have marked in point where  the sun rose at the summer  solstic, Stonehange seem to have been a kind of astronomical observatory and a remarlable accurate solar calender.The megalithic tombs , tamples and hange of Europe are enduring testaments to the rapidly developing intellecutual powers of Newlithic human as well as to their capasity for heroic physical effort.