The megalithic monuments of Western Europe cover a period of over 2,000 years, from the earliest neolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age, and have excited the popular imagination for centuries. Based on the evidence of recent excavations, and the most up-to-date and controversial theoretical perspectives of archaeology, is the first account to put the megalithic traditions of Brittany in a social context and to develop a social model to account for their emergence and development.