Dolmens have long been a somewhat peripheral subject of study in the southern Levant. James Fraser's book – based on his 2015 doctoral thesis (University of Sydney) and updated through early 2017 – will help make dolmens more central to the late prehistory of the region. The book is divided into two almost self-contained sections. Part I (chapters 1–6) is a critical discussion of “dolmens in the Levant,” encompassing a history of research, structural typology, chronology, and regional distribution. Part II (chapters 7–11) presents a detailed discussion of dolmens in the Wadi al-Rayyan (formerly Wadi al-Yabis), with chapter 12 in this section acting as a brief wrapping up of the book as a whole. Frequent cross-references satisfactorily stitch together the two parts.
In Part I Fraser develops several basic arguments which make important contributions to regional archaeology. Previous work on dolmens in Jordan, the Golan, Hawran and elsewhere has recorded large numbers of monuments. These monuments are diverse in architectural complexity (typology) and in their apparent date, yet researchers tend to privilege “megalithism” and so group all these monuments together. Fraser strongly argues that there was no unified, enduring regional megalithic tradition. Taking his cue from Glyn Daniel (The Megalith Builders of Western Europe, London: Hutchinson, 1958), Fraser abandons unified typologies and restricts the term dolmen to the trilithon, i.e. “an above-ground, rectangular stone chamber formed on each long side by one or, occasionally, two upright slabs, and closed by a single, massive roof-stone resting horizontally over the top. The chamber is always longer than it is wide, and always higher than it is wide” (pp. 5–6). This definition allows for the possible presence of “auxiliary features” such as curb-walls, platforms or terraces, and covering. These structures are found mainly in Jordan, and the available dating evidence places them in the Early Bronze I period (c. 3800–3100 bc). Other more elaborate structural types are the chamber tombs and gallery tombs that occur primarily in Golan and Hawran and which are dated to the Early Bronze IV period (c. 2500/2300–2000 bc). Fraser argues that the EB I and EB IV structures belong to two unrelated traditions (p. 337).
A large portion of Part I (pp. 90–175) is devoted to a systematic review of known dolmens (qua trilithons) across the southern Levant. This review convincingly supports two basic conclusions: dolmens correlate with EB I settlements in location, and dolmens occur only in areas of specific geology (hard limestone or basalt). Fraser uses these spatial correlations to argue that, contrary to the common view that they were the work of pastoralist groups, dolmens were “built by communities drawn to the escarpment by new economic opportunities afforded by the domestication of upland tree crops” (p. 179) during the fourth millennium bc. These EB I communities buried their dead in collective tombs which in areas of softer stone were cut into rock but in areas of hard rock were often above-ground dolmens.
Part II of the book develops these arguments via the example of dolmens found is surveys of the Wadi al-Rayyan. Here Fraser uses detailed description to examine dolmens as built elements of a landscape. Many of the details are fascinating. He presents evidence for quarrying of stone from which dolmens were built, and considers the probable method of construction; he argues that auxiliary features such as platforms and surrounding walls have the practical function of stabilizing dolmens on a slope; he shows that orientation of dolmen chambers varies according to local terrain, i.e. does not reflect astronomical or ideological factors. In the wider perspective, the Rayyan dolmens occur in clusters (cemeteries) on ridgelines near EB I village sites, as expected. However, a view-shed analysis (pp. 202–5) indicates that the dolmens were not visible from the villages, from agricultural land, or even from migration routes, but that the dolmens were “intervisible”. This conclusion suggests to Fraser that “dolmens are better approached as landscape elements that helped bind various communities together” (p. 205) rather than as territorial markers and “socio-economic competition between groups”.
Fraser takes a welcome hard-headed, almost empiricist, approach that examines functional interpretations before moving to social or ideological explanations. This strategy helps minimize the unexamined assumptions and the flights of fancy that commonly encumber dolmen studies in the Near East. At the same time, his movement into the social and ideological dimensions of dolmens in Wadi al-Rayyan is somewhat hesitant, and a more developed discussion would have been welcome. This reviewer has researched trilithons in south-central Anatolia, and reading Fraser's book has challenged some of her basic assumptions. For example, Fraser suggests that the Anatolian trilithons “may represent the independent development of another dolmen tradition” (p. 89). This is an intriguing possibility, the testing of which requires currently unavailable dating evidence. But Fraser's suggestion, that the south-central Anatolian dolmens may reflect the “Kura-Araxes expansion”, should not be entertained. Dolmens are not a typical Kura-Araxes burial form; moreover the reviewer has now recorded trilithons in Cilicia, where the Kura-Araxes imprint is nearly non-existent.
As a physical object the book is well made, and the double column format makes reading easy on the eye. The volume is lavishly illustrated with 195 figures (line drawings, black-and-white photographs, graphs, etc.) and 13 colour plates. Typographic problems are very few and minor (e.g. a misplaced comma on p. 41, a line spacing mistake on p. 240). The volume is directed very strongly to an audience specialized in the late prehistory of the southern Levant (hardly surprisingly in a PEF Annual contribution), and the text assumes the reader to have considerable background knowledge. The technical demands of the text in combination with the price of the volume will discourage many potential readers. This is unfortunate. While he focuses on trilithons in Jordan, Fraser grapples with matters and questions relevant to archaeological interpretation of “megalithic monuments” not just in the Levant. The book deserves a much wider audience than the intended one.
