1.Topography

When a dolmen was erected, a tomb had to be selected within his own area and obtaining a capstone from the mountain and carrying it to the tomb should be done first.  Dolmens were located at plains, hills or at the foot of mountains and they were distributed widely in rocks and rocky mountains making it easy to find capstones.

2.Quarrying

While there were several cases of carrying the rocks to get a capstone, most of them used the rock from the rockwall by refining it.  To get a capstone from the rock, an artificial hole was drilled by using a crack in the wall where water flows out.

Such a trace was confirmed at the base rock layers of dolmen groups at Daeshin-ri or Hyosan-ri, Hwasun-gun, Jeonnam.  About 600 dolmens were erected at these regions along the foot of the mountain because of the easy quarrying of the capstone.  Such work was used to quarry stone by hand since olden times and stone used for the pyramids in Egypt were subject to the same quarrying method.  According to experimental archaeology, a man could quarry 1.5 tons a day.

3.Carrying

A road should be opened to carry the quarried capstones.  There was no certain evidence of it, but a trace assumed as the road of carrying the capstone 222yds was examined around the Dolmen at Yeouigok, Jinan-gun, Jeonbuk.  According to this, a log 0.3fit in diameter was cut 10¡­13fit long and it was laid on the floor like a rail, logs were placed on the rail and then capstone raised on it was carried.  Raft wood was used around the river and the ice was used in the cold region to carry it.

In Japan, a Y-shaped log called Shu was used to carry the capstone.

4.People mobilized

The number of people mobilized to carry capstone was explained by some experiments.
An experiment conducted in Jindo, Jeonnam, Korea showed that 60 persons could drag capstone weighing 6.8 tons with an arranged road condition and 73 persons including a commander were mobilized.  An experiment in Gochang, Jeonbuk showed that 85 persons were mobilized to carry capstone weighing 9.8 tons and they dragged it 78ydss for 4 hours.

These experiments showed that a person could drag 120¡­160kg .  To erect a dolmen, a builder of a grave room, commander and food supplier should be mobilized.

5.Raising Capstone

           

Light capstone weighed about 2¡­3 tons, but most of them ranged from over 5 tons to several tons.  Large dolmens with thin and wide capstones were within 10 tons and a typical dolmen weighed 20¡­40 tons.  Table type dolmens required much work to build grave room and a base type dolmen required much difficulty in carrying a huge capstone.