ain why exactly the same types of building
(e.g. the dolmen), showing so many similarities of peculiar detail,
occur in countries so far apart; and in the second place, if what was
carried by trade was the art of building alone, why should the learners
go out of their way to use huge stones when smaller ones would have
suited their purpose equally well? That the megalithic builders knew how
to employ smaller stones we know from their work; that they preferred to
use large ones for certain purposes was not due to ignorance or chance,
it was because the large stone as such had some particular meaning and
association for them. We cannot definitely say that large stones were
themselves actually worshipped, but there can be no possible doubt that
for some reason or other they were regarded as peculiarly fit to be used
in sanctified places such as the tombs of the dead. It is impossible
that the men who possessed the skill to lay the horizontal upper courses
of the Hagiar Kim temple should have taken the trouble to haul to the
spot and use vast blocks over 20 feet in length where far smaller ones
would have been more convenient, unless they had some deep-seated
prejudice in favour of great stones.

Such are the main difficulties involved by the influence theory. On the
other hand, objections have been urged against the idea that the
monuments were all built by one and the same race. Thus Dr. Montelius in
his excellent _Orient und Europa_ says, "In Europe at this time dwelt
Aryans, but the Syrians and Sudanese cannot be Aryans," the inference
being, of course, that the European dolmens were built by a different
race from that which built those of Syria and the Sudan. Unfortunately,
however, the major premise is not completely true, for though it is true
that Aryans did live in Europe at this time, there were also people in
Europe who were not Aryans, and it is precisely among them that
megalithic buildings occur.

The French archaeologist Dechelette also condemns the idea of a single
race. "Anthropological observations," he says, "have long since ruined
this adventurous hypothesis." He does not tell us what these
observations are, but we presume that he refers to the occurrence of
varying skull types among the people buried in the megalithic tombs.
Nothing is more natural than that some variation should occur. We are
dealing with a race which made enormous journeys, and thus became
contaminated by the various other races with