Editing Neolithic architecture (section)

===Megalithic architecture===
{{see also|Megalithic architectural elements}}
[[Megalith]]s found in Europe and the Mediterranean were also erected in the Neolithic period. These monuments include megalithic tombs, [[temple]]s and several structures of unknown function. Tomb architecture is normally easily distinguished by the presence of human remains that had originally been buried, often with recognizable intent. Other structures may have had a mixed use, now often characterised as religious, ritual, astronomical or political. The modern distinction between various architectural functions with which we are familiar today, now makes it difficult for us to think of some megalithic structures as multi-purpose socio-cultural centre points. Such structures would have served a mixture of socio-economic, ideological, political functions and indeed aesthetic ideals.

The megalithic structures of [[Ġgantija]], [[Tarxien Temples|Tarxien]], [[Ħaġar Qim]], [[Mnajdra]], [[Ta' Ħaġrat Temples|Ta' Ħaġrat]], [[Skorba Temples|Skorba]] and smaller satellite buildings on [[Malta]] and [[Gozo]], first appearing in their current form around 3600 BC, represent one of the earliest examples of a fully developed architectural statement in which aesthetics, location, design and engineering fused into free-standing monuments. [[Stonehenge]], the other well-known building from the Neolithic would later, 2600 and 2400 BC for the sarsen stones, and perhaps 3000 BC for the blue stones, be transformed into the form that we know so well. At its height Neolithic architecture marked geographic space; their durable monumentality embodied a past, perhaps made up of memories and remembrance.

In the Central Mediterranean, Malta also became home of a subterranean [[Skeuomorph|skeuomorphised]] form of architecture around 3600 BC. At the [[Ħal-Saflieni Hypogeum]], the inhabitants of Malta carved out an underground burial complex in which surface architectural elements were used to embellish a series of chambers and entrances. It is at the Neolithic Ħal-Saflieni Hypogeum that the earliest known skeuomorphism first occurred in the world. This architectural device served to define the aesthetics of the underworld in terms that well known in the larger megaliths. On Malta and Gozo, surface and subterranean architecture defined two worlds, which later, in the Greek world, would manifest themselves in the myth of [[Hades]] and the world of the living. In Malta, therefore, we encounter Neolithic architecture which is demonstrably not purely functional, but which was conceptual in design and purpose.