they are rare, but they abound over a wide strip running from the Breton coasts of the English Channel to the Mediterranean shores of Hérault and Ca

measured over 60 feet in height, being thus not much shorter than th

s broken at two points in such a way that the whole forms three groups. The most westerly, that of Ménec, consists of eleven lines of menhirs and a cromlech, the total number of stones standing being 1169, the tallest of which

nes. Outside Brittany alignements are unusual, but a fine example, now ruined, is said to have existed at Saint Pantaléon north of

vered by the sea even at low tide. Excavations carried out within the circles brought to light rough pottery and axes of polished stone. Two fine circles at Can de Ceyrac (Gard) have diameters of

he corridor-tomb in which the chamber is indistinguishable from the passage, and the whole forms a long rectangular area. This is the allée couverte in the narrower sense. In the department of Oise occurs a special type of this in which one of the end-sl

te, called La Pierre

Congrès Préhist

upright with a hole in its centre. Tombs of this kind often contain from forty to eighty skeletons, some of which are in the contracted position. The skulls are in some cases trep

suring 13 feet by 10. The corridor which leads out to the edge of the mound is 40 feet in length. Twenty-two of the upright blocks used in this tomb are almost entirely covered with engraved designs. These are massed together with very little order, the main object hav

d of turquoise known as calla?s, pieces of pottery, flints, and a peculiarly fine celt of jadeite together with a flat ring-shaped club-head of the same stone. The tomb was concealed by a huge

mound at Fontenay-l

lius, Orient

th a separate entrance passage. The megalithic tombs of Brittany all belong to the late neolithic period, and contain tools

assage (a) with a staircase at one end and two niches (b b) in its sides leads into a narrow rectangular chamber (c). The total length is nearly 80 feet. Another tomb of the same type, La Grotte du Castellet, contained over a hundred skeleto

ction of La Grotte d

l'histoire de

tery of two different peoples living side by side. But it has since been shown that the cremation mounds belong to a much later period than those which contain megalithic gra

-deity, from the tombs of the

rground. In the shallower tombs were either two rows of bodies with a passage between or separate layers parted by slabs or strata of sand. In the deeper were seldom more than eight bodies, in the extend

surrounded by a circle of stones. Within the chamber, which is usually round, lies, under a layer of shells, a mass of mingled human

-East Spain. The cover-slab, measuring 10 feet by 8, is supported by seven rough uprights with considerable spaces between them. In the same region is a ruined dolmen surrounded by a circle nearly 90 feet in circumference, consisting of seven large stones, some of which appear to be partly worked. Circles are also found round dolmens in And

th. The chamber contained human bones and "lanceheads of stone and bronze." A famous tomb of a similar type exists at Marcella in Algarve. The chamber is a fine circle of upright slabs. It is paved with stones, and part of its area is divided into two or p

ch are built usually of stone blocks on the surface, but occasionally are cut in the solid rock. Other tombs in the same district show the common megalithic construction consisting of a base course of upright slabs surmounted by several courses of hor

mb at Los Millares,

ainting in red. The whole tomb is covered with a circular mound. In the best known example at Los Millares

ofed with four slabs. Within it on its axial line are three stone pillars placed directly under the three meeting-points of the four slabs, but quite unnecessary for their

om its narrow end, the roof far above his head. The rough surface of the blocks lends colour to the feeling that this is the work of Nature and not o

resemblance to those of Munster in Ireland (cf. Fig. 7). In Alemtejo, south of Cape de Sin

he chamber walls seem to have been reinforced by an outer lining of slabs. Remains of eighty human bodies were found in th

circular chamber in the same group has a much longer passage, which bulges out into two small rounded antechambers. These tombs have been excavated and yielded some pottery vases, together with objects o

towers having a circular or rarely a square base and sloping slightly inwards as they rise. Th

plan of the Talayot o

Carta

chamber roofed by corbelling, with the assistance sometimes of one or more pillars. From analogy with the nuraghi of Sardinia, which t

'Es Tudons, pl

Carta

es access through a narrow slab-roofed passage (b) to a long rectangular chamber (c), the method of whose roofing is uncertain. All the naus are built with their fa?ades to the south or south-east, with the exception of that of Benigaus Nou, the inner end of which i

cent in Majorca. One of these has a kind of open antechamber cut in the rock,

atic slabs. The subterranean dwellings are faced with stone and roofed with flat slabs supported by columns. In each village was one building of a different type. It stood above ground and was semicircular in plan. In its centre stood a horizontal slab laid across the t

OF CO