The capacity of the population of Europe for independent progress while
in the copper and early bronze stage--the "palaeo-metallic" stage, as it
might be called--appears to me to be demonstrated in a remarkable manner
by the remains of their architecture. From the crannog to the
elaborate pile-dwelling, and from the rudest enclosure to the complex
fortification of the terramare, there is an advance which is obviously
a native product. So with the sepulchral constructions; the stone
cist, with or without a preservative or memorial cairn, grows into the
chambered graves lodged in tumuli; into such megalithic edifices as the
dromic vaults of Maes How and New Grange; to culminate in the finished
masonry of the tombs of Mycenae, constructed on exactly the same plan.
Can anyone look at the varied series of forms which lie between the
primitive five or six flat stones fitted together into a mere box, and
such a building as Maes How, and yet imagine that the latter is the
result of foreign tuition? But the men who built Maes How, without metal
tools, could certainly have built the so-called "treasure-house" of
Mycenae, with them.