부산대학교 도서관

Standing stone. The term derives from Celtic words for stone (men) and long (hir), and it is generally applied to individual standing stones (monoliths) in Europe and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in the world. While menhirs characteristically occur singly, some scholars have used the term rather loosely, for example when referring to individual stones within a row, circle or other configuration. The date and function of a menhir is seldom clear, for they are not often associated with datable archaeological finds such as burials, and their sites are rarely excavated. A range of megalithic stone-built monuments (see Megalithic architecture §1) is known to belong to the Neolithic period (c. 6500–c. 2300 bc) and the Bronze Age (c. 2300–c. 750 bc), and these single stones are usually placed in the same time bracket, namely between c. 3500 and ...