Pressing issues
Four different monoliths from the Occitane region, each with an element or association that may suggest late neolithic or early bronze age origins, and each with an element that may suggest a function related to pressing juice from fruit, be it an output canal for liquid, carved slots for a structure to potentially house wooden press levers and wide hard areas for action. Despite having surfaces for pressing and canals for collecting, it seems that evidence that these monoliths originated for fruit/grape pressing is patchy, slim and largely insufficient.
An image of a simple lever press is posted in the comment below. Other primitive fruit-press adaptions to a pressing basin might include a cross beam to help those who might be pressing fruit with their feet to afford directed pressure.
Alcohol was a way to preserve excess fruit harvests and wine was a Celtic product from a least 2,500 ybp so simple wine pressing troughs need to be kept in mind. Rituals and cultural practises with waters and herbs may also have adapted with new fermentation ideas, allowing neolithic stones to modulate and change their morphology through the iron ages and into the early medieval years. Again with these factors in mind, ideas of fruit press explanations for these examples of large carved monoliths are far from conclusive.
Top left: Saint Michel de Grandmont.
Aside this low 'basin' can be found a wide cluster of imposing and characterful neolithic dolmens and a wide range of basins including a monolithic throne - all monolithic carvings in keeping with chalcolithic and bronze age finds in the equally mineral hills of the Albera region in the north of Spain (geographically situated on the south side of the intervening flatland belt that stretches between the Mediterranean and Atlantic). Small-scale cups and canals confirm neolithic and bronze age dates. Whilst they are apparently missing from the Grandmont site, there exist examples of basins without cups and canals in direct association with megaliths (see below) so dates from as early as the neolithic remain active. With wine known from at least 2,500 ybp and a potential for 'transforming' fermenting and preserving repeated baskets of collected fruit produce, this basin must be considered as a potential pressing basin or 'wine pressing trough'. Two tall and rectangular carved mortice joints are visible to the near side, suggest a structure; potentially the wooden 'uprights' to hold a press with the beam weight landing on a carved indent opposite. It looks as if the indents may have damaged a pre existing circumference wall and that any collection for juice from a press would have been less that optimised. The photographer and researcher Laurent Crassous has isolated stones and canals with a debit and collection point ideal for heating water via the suns rays. Uses of fire free warm water are many from cleaning to bathing, babies and Epicurean pleasure. The large Grandmont basin may originally have naturally warmed water with the walls rounded by seated persons, with there having been a later attempt to put the 'sun trough' to use as a grape press. The carved marks that appear to be perfect for a press would also have been perfect for a bench to seat more people in communal contact with water and herbs - the bench's wooden feet kept away from the water.
Top right: le roc de la Fougasse - Morenci. The stone is found under a ridge that includes chalcolithic buriel sites, and petroglyphs that are difficult to date. The top surface may seem idea for a press, but in detail is not flat. The canals around the 'stump' of stone seem to make a journey for any liquids without being adapted for either collection or heating. This monolith may probably be closer to a podium for rites and cultural events. There may just be the faded goodbyes of petroglyphs on the surface of the disc - too difficult to assert.
Lower left: Pierre du Sacrifce de la Peyregade. The surface of the monolith is tilted and the trench has been effected by man but not in a way that might help a targeted use for juice collection or waming water. Cups and canals on the surface of this monolith help to date this stone to between the late neolithic and the early bronze age.
Lower right: Pierre du Sacrifice de la Causse de Lunas. 5.5m long, 3m wide and 1.25m high. Cups, canals and a faint 'neolithic' cross help to push the origins of this stone into a late prehistoric timescale. The stone is above the shadows of surrounding valleys and might have functioned for heating water by induction. A raised carved 'bar' splits the basin into two which may have helped with heating strategies if combined with hot stones (potential for dichotomies: cleaning rinsing, hot cold, two colours of herb and so on). The general appearance of the monlith might be described as being that of a simple boat. As with the Grandmont basin there are carved mortice joints for an additional structure - here two on each side. The joints are not opposite each other, and whilst arguments that the stone was adapted as a press at a later date in its chronology are intriguing, there does not seem to be an obvious functional synergy that comes from true design. There is a chapel down in the valley that dates to the fifth century, and attempts to add Christianized structure to the sacred trees and stones of the local landscape may have led to a re-appropriation of a locally sacred stone, with wine and Monks often associated.
The monoliths of each diagonal are within tens of kilometers of each other, and then around 150km between.
AJM 20.10.19
Pressing issues
Four different monoliths from the Occitane region, each with an element or association that may suggest late neolithic or early bronze age origins, and each with an element that may suggest a function related to pressing juice from fruit, be it an output canal for liquid, carved slots for a structure to potentially house wooden press levers and wide hard areas for action. Despite having surfaces for pressing and canals for collecting, it seems that evidence that these monoliths originated for fruit/grape pressing is patchy, slim and largely insufficient.
An image of a simple lever press is posted in the comment below. Other primitive fruit-press adaptions to a pressing basin might include a cross beam to help those who might be pressing fruit with their feet to afford directed pressure.
Alcohol was a way to preserve excess fruit harvests and wine was a Celtic product from a least 2,500 ybp so simple wine pressing troughs need to be kept in mind. Rituals and cultural practises with waters and herbs may also have adapted with new fermentation ideas, allowing neolithic stones to modulate and change their morphology through the iron ages and into the early medieval years. Again with these factors in mind, ideas of fruit press explanations for these examples of large carved monoliths are far from conclusive.
Top left: Saint Michel de Grandmont.
Aside this low 'basin' can be found a wide cluster of imposing and characterful neolithic dolmens and a wide range of basins including a monolithic throne - all monolithic carvings in keeping with chalcolithic and bronze age finds in the equally mineral hills of the Albera region in the north of Spain (geographically situated on the south side of the intervening flatland belt that stretches between the Mediterranean and Atlantic). Small-scale cups and canals confirm neolithic and bronze age dates. Whilst they are apparently missing from the Grandmont site, there exist examples of basins without cups and canals in direct association with megaliths (see below) so dates from as early as the neolithic remain active. With wine known from at least 2,500 ybp and a potential for 'transforming' fermenting and preserving repeated baskets of collected fruit produce, this basin must be considered as a potential pressing basin or 'wine pressing trough'. Two tall and rectangular carved mortice joints are visible to the near side, suggest a structure; potentially the wooden 'uprights' to hold a press with the beam weight landing on a carved indent opposite. It looks as if the indents may have damaged a pre existing circumference wall and that any collection for juice from a press would have been less that optimised. The photographer and researcher Laurent Crassous has isolated stones and canals with a debit and collection point ideal for heating water via the suns rays. Uses of fire free warm water are many from cleaning to bathing, babies and Epicurean pleasure. The large Grandmont basin may originally have naturally warmed water with the walls rounded by seated persons, with there having been a later attempt to put the 'sun trough' to use as a grape press. The carved marks that appear to be perfect for a press would also have been perfect for a bench to seat more people in communal contact with water and herbs - the bench's wooden feet kept away from the water.
Top right: le roc de la Fougasse - Morenci. The stone is found under a ridge that includes chalcolithic buriel sites, and petroglyphs that are difficult to date. The top surface may seem idea for a press, but in detail is not flat. The canals around the 'stump' of stone seem to make a journey for any liquids without being adapted for either collection or heating. This monolith may probably be closer to a podium for rites and cultural events. There may just be the faded goodbyes of petroglyphs on the surface of the disc - too difficult to assert.
Lower left: Pierre du Sacrifce de la Peyregade. The surface of the monolith is tilted and the trench has been effected by man but not in a way that might help a targeted use for juice collection or waming water. Cups and canals on the surface of this monolith help to date this stone to between the late neolithic and the early bronze age.
Lower right: Pierre du Sacrifice de la Causse de Lunas. 5.5m long, 3m wide and 1.25m high. Cups, canals and a faint 'neolithic' cross help to push the origins of this stone into a late prehistoric timescale. The stone is above the shadows of surrounding valleys and might have functioned for heating water by induction. A raised carved 'bar' splits the basin into two which may have helped with heating strategies if combined with hot stones (potential for dichotomies: cleaning rinsing, hot cold, two colours of herb and so on). The general appearance of the monlith might be described as being that of a simple boat. As with the Grandmont basin there are carved mortice joints for an additional structure - here two on each side. The joints are not opposite each other, and whilst arguments that the stone was adapted as a press at a later date in its chronology are intriguing, there does not seem to be an obvious functional synergy that comes from true design. There is a chapel down in the valley that dates to the fifth century, and attempts to add Christianized structure to the sacred trees and stones of the local landscape may have led to a re-appropriation of a locally sacred stone, with wine and Monks often associated.
The monoliths of each diagonal are within tens of kilometers of each other, and then around 150km between.
AJM 20.10.19