Drenthe.
The most southern group of these monuments belonging to the northern division is one of the most extensive, though unfortunately one of the least known. It is situated almost exclusively in the province of Drenthe, in North Holland, where the Hunebeds—giants' beds or graves, as they are locally called—are spread over an area extending some twenty miles north and south, and probably ten or twelve miles in the opposite direction. This tract of country is a bare open heath, which even now is only partially cultivated, or indeed capable of cultivation, and at no time could have supported a population at all in proportion to so extensive a group of monuments.
As long ago as 1720, Keysler drew attention to them, and gave a representation of one in order to show its similarity to Stonehenge.[374] The engraving, however, is so defective that it is impossible to make out what it represents, and as no dimensions or statistics are given, it adds very little to our knowledge. A short paper on the subject appeared in the 'Journal of the Archæological Association' in 1870, but unfortunately without any illustrations,[375] and we are consequently dependent for our knowledge of them almost entirely to a work published at Utrecht in 1848, by the late Dr. Janssen, keeper of the antiquities in the museum at Leyden. This work is in many respects most painstaking and satisfactory; but, though it is hardly correct to say it, is without illustrations, the Hunebeds are represented by conventional symbols, which no one would guess were intended for buildings of any sort without a most careful study of the book. I have ventured to try to translate one of these into ordinary forms, in woodcut No. 120, but without at all guaranteeing its correctness. It is, however, sufficiently accurate to explain the general nature of the monuments.
Within the area above described, Janssen measured and described fifty-one Hunebeds still existing, and they were probably at one time much more numerous, as he regrets the loss of four which he remembers in his youth; and several others have been very much ruined in very recent times. This, fortunately, is not likely to happen again, as, with a liberality and intelligence not shown by any other government in Europe, the Dutch have purchased the Hunebeds and the ground on which they stand, with a right of way to the nearest road, so that, so far as possible, they will be protected from future depredations.
Of these fifty-one monuments only one is a dolmen, in the sense in which we usually understand it, meaning thereby a single cap stone, supported by three, or, as in this instance, by four uprights. This one is near Exlo, and is one of the few that formed a chamber in a tumulus. A few have three cap stones, and from that number they range up to ten or twelve, with at least double that number of supports. They are all, in fact, of the class which the French call "allées couvertes," or "grottes des fées;" Calliagh Birra's house ([woodcut No. 80]) and the dolmens at Glen Columbkill are of the same class. But the Drenthe dolmens have one peculiarity not found either in France or Ireland: that they are all closed at both ends, and the entrance, where there is one, is always on the longer side. In this respect they more resemble the Scandinavian examples, such as the tomb at Axevalla ([woodcut No. 116] ), or that at Uby ([woodcut No. 114]).
120. Plan of Hunebed near Emmen.
The annexed attempted restoration of one near Emmen will give a fair idea of their general arrangements. It is 49 feet long over all, and internally from 4 to 6 feet in width. It is roofed with nine or ten stones, some of considerable dimensions. Some of these Hunebeds have a range of stones round them, not arranged in a circle or oval form, but, as in this instance, following the lines of the central chamber. This is the case with another near the same place, which is 125 feet in length over all. When closely examined, however, it does not seem to be one Hunebed, but three ranging in a straight line, with a small space between each. Two have five and one six cap stones. As a rule, each cap stone stands on two uprights, and though frequently they touch one another, as often they form really independent trilithons. It was no doubt this fact that induced Keysler to compare these monuments with Stonehenge, though in fact no two sets of rude-stone monuments could well be more dissimilar either in arrangement or construction. As will be seen from the annexed view of one near Ballo[376] ([woodcut No. 121]), they are formed of unshaped granite boulders. Sometimes, it may be, artificially split, but certainly untouched by the chisel. All that has apparently been done has been to select those most appropriate in form for the purposes to which they were to be applied, and then rudely to heap them one upon the other, but in such a manner as to leave wide gaps everywhere between the stones composing the structure.
121. Dolmen at Ballo. From a Photograph.
The first question that arises with regard to these Hunebeds is, were they originally covered with earth or not? That some of the smaller ones were and are is clear enough, and some of medium size are still partially so; but the largest, and many of the smaller, do not show a vestige of any such covering; and it seems impossible to believe that on a tract of wretched barren heath, where the fee-simple of the land is not now worth ten shillings an acre, any one could, at any time, have taken the trouble to dig down and cart away such enormous mounds as would have been required to cover these monuments. It seems here clearer than almost anywhere else that, even if it had been intended to cover them, that intention, in more than half the cases, was never carried into effect.
It may be taken for granted that these Hunebeds were at one time much more numerous in Drenthe than they now are, but it is a much more difficult point to ascertain whether they extended into the neighbouring provinces or not. One is found in Gröningen, and one in Friesland, and none elsewhere. It may, of course, be that in these more fertile and thickly inhabited districts they have been utilised, or removed as incumbrances from the soil, while in Drenthe their component parts were of no value, and they are useful as sheep-pens and pigstyes; and to these uses they seem to have been freely applied. It may be, also, that there are no granite boulders in the neighbouring provinces, and that they are common in Drenthe. There certainly seem to be none in Guelderland, a country in which we would expect to find monuments of this class, as it is the natural line of connection with the German dolmen region; and unless it is that there were no materials handy for their construction, it is difficult to understand their absence.
As these Hunebeds have been open and exposed for centuries at least—if they were not so originally—and have been used by the peasantry for every kind of purpose, it is in vain to expect that anything will now be found in them which can throw much light on their age or use. We can only hope that an untouched or only partially plundered example may be found in some of the numerous tumuli which still exist all over the country. I confess I do not feel sanguine that this will be the case. I would hope more from the digging up of the floor of those which are known, and a careful collection of any fragments of pottery and other objects which may be found in them. Nothing of any intrinsic value will be found, of course; but what is perfectly worthless for any other purpose may be most important in an antiquarian sense. Judging them from a general abstract point of view, they do not seem of high antiquity, and may range from the Christian era down to the time when the people of this country were converted to Christianity, whenever that may have been. This, however, is only inferred from their similarity to other monuments mentioned in the preceding pages, not from any special evidence gathered from themselves or from any local tradition bearing on their antiquity.
When we have examined the megalithic remains of Brittany and of the north of France, we shall be in a better position than we now are to appreciate the importance of the gap that exists between the French and Scandinavian provinces; but in the meanwhile it may be convenient to remark even here that it hardly seems doubtful that the Hunebeds of Drenthe and the Grottes des fées of Brittany are expressions of the same feeling, and, generally, that the megalithic remains of the southern and northern divisions of the western parts of the European continent are the works of similar if not identical races, applied to the same uses, and probably are of about the same age.
These two provinces are now separated by the Rhine valley. It is probably not too broad an assertion to say there are no true Rude-Stone Monuments in the valleys of the Rhine or Scheldt,[377] or of any of their tributaries, or, in fact, in any of the countries inhabited by the Germans and Belgæ. The dolmen-building races were, in fact, cut in two by the last-named race on their way to colonise Britain. When that took place, we have no exact means of knowing. According to Cæsar, shortly before his time, Divitiacus ruled over the Belgæ of Gaul and Britain as one province;[378] and the inference from all we know—it is very little—is that the Belgian immigration to this island was of recent date at that time. Whether it was one thousand or ten thousand years, the fact that interests us here is that it took place before the age of the rude-stone monuments. If we admit that the peoples who, from Cadiz to the Cimbric Chersonese, erected these dolmens were one race—or, at least, had one religion—and were actuated by one set of motives in their respect for the dead, it seems impossible to escape from the conclusion that, whether they came direct from the east, or migrated from the south northward, or in the opposite direction, they at one time formed a continuous community of nations all along the western shores of Europe. They were cut across only in one place—between Drenthe and Normandy—and that by a comparatively modern people, the Belgæ. If this is so, the separation took place in the pre-dolmen period, whenever that may have been. If the original races in Belgium had been in the habit of erecting dolmens before they were dispossessed by the intruders, we should find remains at least of them there now, as we do both north and south of that district. As the case now stands, the conclusion seems inevitable that it was after their separation that the northern and southern families, though no longer in contact, adopted, each in its own peculiar fashion, those more permanent and megalithic forms which contact with a higher civilization taught them to aspire to, without abandoning the distinctions which separated them from the more progressive Celts and the thoroughly civilized Romans.
NOTE.
The map opposite is compiled partly from the two by M. Bertrand, mentioned p. 326, and partly from one which accompanies Baron de Bonstetten's 'Essai sur les Dolmens,' 1864. It has been corrected, in so far as the scale would allow, from the information since accumulated; and may be considered as representing fairly our knowledge of the distribution of dolmens at the present day. Till, however, the Governments of this country and of Denmark condescend to take up the subject, such a map must necessarily remain imperfect in its most vital parts.
Footnotes
[321] 'Samlingar för Norders Fornälskare,' Stockholm, 1822-1830.
[322] 'Scriptures rerum Danicorum medii ævi,' 9 vols. folio, Hafniæ, 1722 et seq.
[323] 'Historic Danicæ,' lib. xvi. Soræ, 1644, in fol.
[324] The following list of the kings of Denmark, copied from Dunham's, and giving the dates from Suhm, and Snorro's 'Heimskringla,' will probably suffice for our present purposes:—
Suhm. Snorro. A.D. B.C. Frode I. 35 17 Fridlief 47 -- Havar 59 -- Frode II. 87 -- Wermund 140 -- Olaf 190 -- A.D. Dan Mykillate 270 170 Frode III. 310 235? Halfdan I. 324 290 Fridlief III. 348 300 Frode IV. 407 370 Ingel 436 386 Halfdan II. 447 " Frode V. 460 " Helge and Roe 494 438 Frode VI. 510 " Rolf Krake 522 479 Frode VII. 548 " Halfdan III. 580 554 Ruric 588 " Ivar 647 587 Harald Hildetand 735 " Sigurd Ring 750 -- Rajnar Lothbrog 794 -- Sigurd Snogoge 803 -- Herda Canute 850 -- Eric I. 854 -- Eric II. 883 -- Harald Harfagar -- 863 Gorm the Old (died?) 941 -- Harald Blatand 991 -- Sweyn 1014 -- [325] 'Samlingar,' &c. i. plate 11, fig. 38, p. 104.
[326] Loc. sup. cit., fig. 39.
[327] Stokes, 'Life of Petrie,' p. 260.
[328] Beowulf, loc. sup. cit.
[329] Engelhardt, 'Guide illustré du Musée à Copenhague,' p. 33.
[330] The woodcut is copied from a drawing in Sjöborg, ii. fig. 214. It is repeated by Worsaae, loc. sup. cit., both copying from some original I have not cared to trace.
[331] 'Historia Danica,' viii. p. 133.
[332] 'Danicorum Monument,' libri sex, i. p. 12.
[333] 'Primæval Antiquities of Denmark,' p. 113.
[334] At one time I was, on the authority of a Saxon charter, inclined to believe that this tumulus was the grave of Cissa, Saxon king of Winchester, who was contemporary with Arthur. I am now informed by the Rev. Mr. Jones, who has carefully gone into the matter, that the Charter No. 1094, which is taken from the 'Codex Winton.' fol. 54, refers to Overton in Hants, and not to Overton in Wilts, because Tadanliage (Tadley) is mentioned as part of it. As I cannot dispute the competency of so eminent an authority on such a question, its identification with the tomb of King Cissa must for the present be withdrawn, but it by no means follows in consequence that it may not be of his age.
[335] 'Prehistoric Times,' p. 153.
[336] The slaves of the Scythian kings were strangled (Herodotus, iv. 71 and 72).
[337] "Si quis, hominem diabolo sacrificaverit et in hostiam more paganorum dæmonibus obtulerit, morte moriatur."—Balusius, Capt. Reg. Franc. i. 253.
[338] The wood-blocks of these and other illustrations of Dr. Thurnam's paper were lent to Sir John Lubbock, and used by him in his 'Prehistoric Times,' Nos. 146-156, where they will be more accessible to many than in the 'Archæologia.'
[339] An argument for secondary interments has been attempted to be founded (Lubbock, 'Prehistoric Times,' p. 156) on an edict of Charlemagne, in which he says:—"Jubemus ut corpora Christianorum Saxonum ad cœmeteria ecclesiæ deferantur et non ad tumulos paganorum (Balusius, 'Cap. Reg. Franc.' i. p. 154). If the expression had been "in tumulos," there might have been something in it; but a fair inference from the edict seems to me to be that even in Charlemagne's time converted Saxons insisted on being buried—probably in tumuli—near where the tombs of their fathers were, and probably with pagan rites, in spite of their nominal conversion.
[340] 'Archæologia,' xlii. p. 195.
[341] Nothing would surprise me less than the discovery of an interment in the upper part of the barrow at West Kennet, between the roof of the chamber and the dolmen. Many indications in the West Country long barrows lead us to expect that such might be the case, but it by no means follows that it would be secondary. On the contrary, it would probably be, if not the first, at least the chief burial in the mound.
[342] I have tried hard to follow Worsaae's argument in respect to this point ('Zur Alterthumskunde des Nordens,' 1847), but without success. As he is personally familiar with the country and its monuments, he may be perfectly correct in what he states, but as there are neither maps nor illustrations to this part of the work, it is almost impossible for a stranger to judge; and as, like all Danes, he is a devout believer in the three-age system, it is difficult to know how far this may or may not influence his view.
[343] 'Prehistoric Times,' p. 107.
[344] 'One Year in Sweden,' ii. p. 183.
[345] Engelhardt, 'Catalogue illus.' p. 33. Suhm makes it 991, but this seems more probably to have been the date of the death of his son Harald Blaatand.
[346] 'Annalen for Nordk. Oldk.' xii. p. 13.
[347] 'Hist. danica,' x. p. 167.
[348] 'Guide ill.' p. 33.
[349] 'Primæval Ant. Denmark,' p. 104.
[350] Engelhardt, 'Cat. ill. du Musée,' p. 33.
[351] 'Proceedings Soc. Ant. Scot.' v. p. 265. If Ragnar was taken prisoner by Ella of Northumberland, it must have been in the latter half of the ninth century. Suhm places his death nearly a century earlier, 794.
[352] 'Primæval Ant. of Denmark,' p. 112.
[353] 'Annalen for Nord. Aldk.' vi. pl. x.
[354] Holmberg, 'Scandinavien Hallristingar,' p. 3.
[355] Ibid. p. 21. 'Soc. des Ant. du Nord,' ii. pp. 140 et seq.
[356] Sir James Simpson, appendix, vol. vi. 'Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland,' passim.
[357] Madsen, 'Antiquités préhistoriques du Danemark,' 1869.
[358] 'Samlingar,' i. pl. iii. fig. 6.
[359] Olaus Wormius, 'Danica Monumenta,' pp. 8 and 35.
[360] 'Essai sur les Dolmens,' p. 9.
[361] 'Heidnische Alterthümer von Uelzen,' Hanover, 1846.
[362] Madsen, 'Antiquités préhist.' pl. 8.
[363] 'Antiquitates Septentrionales,' pp. 320 and 519, pl. xvii.
[364] Madsen, plates 13 and 14.
[365] Bateman, 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 23. Lewellyn Jowett, 'Grave Mounds,' pp. 14 and 15, &c.
[366] Sjöborg. loc. sup. cit.
[367] Now destroyed. Sjöborg, iii. pl. 10, p. 143.
[368] Vide ante, footnote, p. 15.
[369] The woodcut is reduced from a plate in Worsaae's 'Alterthumskunde Scandinaviens,' but both it and the Amrom group are found in the 'English Archæological Journal,' xxiii. p. 187.
[370] Archæol. Journal,' loc. sit. p. 185.
[371] Bähr, 'Die Gräber der Liven,' Dresden, 1850, pl. i. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, no scale is engraved on the plate, and no dimensions are mentioned in the text.
[372] Not yet published, so far as I know.
[373] 'Die Gräber der Liven,' p. 51.
[374] 'Ant. Septent.' p. 5, pl. ii.
[375] It is by no means clear whether Mr. Sadler, who is the author of this paper, ever visited the spot, or compiled his information from Janssen's book, which, however, he never mentions. Be this as it may, it is the best paper I know of on the subject, and well worthy of perusal.
[376] The woodcut is from a photograph kindly lent me by Mr. Franks. It is sufficient to show the nature of the construction, but the camera is a singularly unintelligent interpreter of plan or arrangements.
[377] There are several dolmens, as before stated, in rugged mountainous parts of Luxemburg, but they seem to belong to the old races that in those corners were not swept away by the Belgian current.
[378] Cæsar, 'Bell. Gall.' ii. p. 4.
| Suhm. | Snorro. | |
| A.D. | B.C. | |
| Frode I. | 35 | 17 |
| Fridlief | 47 | -- |
| Havar | 59 | -- |
| Frode II. | 87 | -- |
| Wermund | 140 | -- |
| Olaf | 190 | -- |
| A.D. | ||
| Dan Mykillate | 270 | 170 |
| Frode III. | 310 | 235? |
| Halfdan I. | 324 | 290 |
| Fridlief III. | 348 | 300 |
| Frode IV. | 407 | 370 |
| Ingel | 436 | 386 |
| Halfdan II. | 447 | " |
| Frode V. | 460 | " |
| Helge and Roe | 494 | 438 |
| Frode VI. | 510 | " |
| Rolf Krake | 522 | 479 |
| Frode VII. | 548 | " |
| Halfdan III. | 580 | 554 |
| Ruric | 588 | " |
| Ivar | 647 | 587 |
| Harald Hildetand | 735 | " |
| Sigurd Ring | 750 | -- |
| Rajnar Lothbrog | 794 | -- |
| Sigurd Snogoge | 803 | -- |
| Herda Canute | 850 | -- |
| Eric I. | 854 | -- |
| Eric II. | 883 | -- |
| Harald Harfagar | -- | 863 |
| Gorm the Old (died?) | 941 | -- |
| Harald Blatand | 991 | -- |
| Sweyn | 1014 | -- |
[CHAPTER VIII.]
FRANCE.
It is only in very recent times that the French have turned their attention to the study of their Rude-Stone Monuments; but since they have done so, it has been in so systematic and scientific a manner that, had it been continued a few years longer, little would have been left to be desired by the students of that class of antiquities in France. War and revolution, however, intervened just as the results of these labours were about to be given to the world, and how long we may now have to wait for them, no one can tell. The Musée de St.-Germain was far from being complete in July last, and only the first parts of the great 'Dictionnaire des Antiquités celtiques' had been published at that time. We can now hardly hope that the necessary expenditure will be continued which is indispensable to complete the former, and it is difficult to foresee in what manner the materials collected for the dictionary can now be utilised.
Even when much further advanced towards completion, it is hardly to be expected that the museums of St.-Germain and Vannes can rival the royal collections at Copenhagen; and if the French had confined themselves only to collecting, they would not have advanced our knowledge very much; but, while doing this, they have also gathered statistical information, and have been mapping and describing, so that our knowledge of their monuments is much more complete than of those of the Danes. To borrow a simile from kindred sciences, it is as if the Danes had attended exclusively to the mineralogy of the subject: collecting specimens from all parts, and arranging them according to their similarities or affinities, wholly irrespective of the localities from which they came. The French, on the other hand, have founded a science similar to that of geology on their knowledge of the minerals; they have carefully noted the distribution of the various classes of monuments, and, so far as possible, ascertained their relative superposition. The first is, no doubt, a most useful process, and one that must to a certain extent precede the other; but unless we map the various rocks on the surface and ascertain their stratification, it hardly helps us in studying the formation or history of our globe.
In 1864 M. Bertrand published in the 'Revue archéologique' a small map of France, showing the distribution of dolmens as then known; and three years afterwards another, on a much larger scale, intended to accompany the 'Dictionnaire des Antiquités celtiques,' and containing all that was then known. Were a second edition of this map published now, it would, no doubt, be much more full and complete; but the main outlines must still be the same, and are sufficient for our present purposes. From these maps and the text which accompanies them we learn that the greater number of the rude-stone monuments in France are arranged at no great distance on either side of a straight line drawn from the shores of the Mediterranean, somewhere about Montpellier, to Morlaix, in Brittany. There are none east of the Rhone, none south of the Garonne, till we come to the Pyrenees, and so few north of the basin or valley of the Seine that they may be considered as wanderers.
Referring to the table at the end of this chapter, which is compiled from that of 1864, we find that thirty departments contain more than ten monuments. Thirty others, according to M. Bertrand, contain from one to eight or nine; and the remaining twenty-nine either contain none at all or these so insignificant as hardly to deserve attention.
From this table we learn, at least approximately, several facts of considerable interest to our investigation. The first is that, of the three divisions into which Cæsar divides Gaul, the northern in his day belonged to a race who had had no stone monuments. There are none in Belgium proper, and so few in French Flanders, or indeed in any part of Gallia Belgica, that we may safely assert that the Belgæ were not dolmen-builders. In the next place, I cannot help agreeing with M. Bertrand in his conclusion that the Celts properly so called have as little claim to the monuments as the Belgæ.[379] We know something of the provinces occupied by the Celts six hundred years before Christ from Livy's[380] description of the tribes who, under Bellevesus, invaded Italy. Their capital was Bruges, and they occupied the departments immediately around that city; but they had not then penetrated into Brittany, nor north of the Seine, nor into any part of Aquitania.[381] But they occupied the whole of the east of Gaul up, apparently, to the Rhine and the country on the east bank of the Rhone. According to the French statistics, there are 140,000 barrows or tumuli in the departments of the Côte-d'Or, Vosges, Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, Doubs, Jura, and Ain, but not one single dolmen;[382] and there are none to the east of the Rhine. As we proceed westward, the tumuli become rarer, and the dolmens are gradually met with. The Averni, for instance, were one of the Celtic tribes that accompanied Bellovesus, and in their country dolmens are found; but perhaps we need only infer from this that in a hilly country like Auvergne the older people still remained, and followed their old customs in spite of its partial occupation by the conquering Celts. We do not know at what period the Celts first invaded Gaul, but there seems no reason for supposing that it could not be very long before they first came in contact with the Romans; and if we may judge from the rate of progress which they made in subduing the rest of the country in historic times, their first invasion could hardly have been a thousand years B.C. All the tumuli in the east of France which have been dug into have yielded implements of bronze and metal,[383] and if they belonged to the Celts, this would fairly accord with the conclusions at which archæologists have arrived from other sources with regard to the Bronze age. It is not, however, worth while following up the question here; for unless it could be proved that the dolmens either succeeded or preceded the tumuli, it has no bearing on our argument. The fact of their occupying different and distinct districts prevents any conclusion of the sort being arrived at from geographical or external considerations. Their contents, if compared, might afford some information, but up to the present time this has not been done, and all we can at present assume is that there were two contemporary civilizations, or barbarisms, co-existing simultaneously on the soil of France. My impression is, however, that the Celtic barrow-builders were earlier converts to Christianity, and left off their heathenish mode of burial long before the less easily converted dolmen-builders of the west ceased to erect their Rude-Stone Monuments.
We are thus reduced to the third of the great provinces into which Gaul was divided in Cæsar's time, to try and find the people who could have erected the stone monuments of France, and at first sight it seems extremely probable that they were erected by the Aquitanians. Both Cæsar[384] and Strabo[385] distinctly assert that the people of the southern province differed from the Celts in language and institutions as well as in features, and add that they resembled more the Iberians of Spain than their northern neighbours. When, however, we come to look more closely into the matter, we find that the Aquitania of Cæsar was confined to the country between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, and where, however, few, if any, dolmens now exist. They are rather frequent in the Pyrenees[386] and the Asturias, where remnants of the dolmen-building races may have found shelter and continued to exist after their congeners were swept from the plains; and there are one or two on the left bank of the Garonne, but except these there are none in Aquitania proper. If, however, we apply the term Aquitania to the province as extended by Augustus up to the left bank of the Loire, we include the greater part of the provinces where dolmens are found; but here again, when we look more closely into it, we find that the northern districts of this great province were, in Augustus' time, inhabited by Celts, or, at all events, that Celts formed the governing and influential bodies in the states. Indeed, the fact seems to be that, during the six centuries which elapsed between the invasions of Italy by the Gauls and the return invasion of Gaul by the Romans, the Celts had gradually extended themselves over the whole of central France from the Garonne to the Seine, and had obliterated the political status of the people who had previously occupied the country, though there is no reason to suppose they had then at least attempted to exterminate them. It must thus be either that the Celts were the builders of the dolmens, which appears most improbable, or that there existed in these provinces a prehistoric people to whom they must be ascribed.
Without at all wishing, at present at least, to insist upon it, I may here state that the impression on my mind is every day growing stronger that the dolmen-builders in France are the lineal descendants of the Cave men whose remains have recently been detected in such quantities on the banks of the Dordogne and other rivers in the south of France.[387] These remains are found in quantities in the Ardèche[388] and in Poitou.[389] If they have not been found in Brittany, it may be that they have not been looked for, or that the soil is unfavourable to their preservation; but they have been found in Picardy, though possibly not exactly of the same class. It is, of course, dangerous to found any argument on such local coincidence, as new discoveries may be made in the east of France or elsewhere; but in the present state of our knowledge the Cave men and the dolmens seem not only conterminous but their frequency seems generally to be coincident.
As we know next to nothing of the languages spoken in the south-west of France before the introduction of the Romance forms of speech, philology will hardly assist us in our enquiry. There is, however, one particle, ac, which I cannot help thinking may prove of importance, when its origin is ascertained. In the table at the end of this chapter, I have placed the number of the names of the cities having this termination in each department[390] next to M. Bertrand's number of dolmens. The coincidence is certainly remarkable, more especially as it is easy to account for the comparative paucity of names with this termination in Brittany by taking into account the enormous reflex wave of Celtic population from England that overwhelmed that country in the fourth and fifth centuries, and changed the nomenclature of half the places in the district: still, Carnac and Tumiac, Missilac, and others, as names of monuments, and Yffignac, as the name attached to the port which I believe was the place of embarkation for England, with many others that remain, are sufficient to attest that more previously may have existed.
The question remains, what is this particle? The first impulse is to assume that it is the Basque definite article. The Basques, for instance, say Guizon, "a man," Guizónac, "the man," and Guizónac, "the men," besides using it in other cases, while their local proximity to the dolmen country would render such a connection far from improbable. Against this, however, it may be urged, that ac, as a terminal syllable, hardly ever occurs in the Basque provinces, and the names to which it is attached in France hardly seem to belong to that language. Another suggestion has been made,[391] that it is equivalent to the Greek word πὁλις, which would be exactly the signification for which we are looking, though in what language this occurs is by no means clear. For our present purpose, however, it is of little consequence what it may or may not be. It is sufficient to know that its occurrence is, as nearly as may be, coincident with the existence of dolmens. It does not occur to the eastward of the Rhone, nor do dolmens, though both are frequent on the right bank of that river; and it is not to be found in the east of France, in those countries which we have reason to believe were at the dawn of history essentially Celtic, and where the tumuli of the Bronze period exist in such numbers. It does, however, occur in that part of Cornwall south of Redruth and west of Falmouth,[392] where all the rude-stone monuments of that province are found, but it is not found anywhere else in Great Britain or Ireland.
Nor is it found in the Channel Islands, though dolmens abound there; but this may be accounted for by the subsequent colonisation of these islands, as of Brittany in more modern times, by races of a different origin, who have to a great extent obliterated the original nomenclature of the country.
Equally interesting, however, for our purposes is the fact that, though the ac-termination occurs frequently in the departments between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, no dolmens exist in that region except, as before mentioned, a few at the roots of the mountains. This, at first sight, might seem to militate against the universality of the theory; but I, on the other hand, only take it to express that the ac-people were driven from that country by Ibero-Aquitanians before they had adopted the fashion of stone monuments. If we knew when Aquitania was first occupied by the people whom Cæsar and Strabo found there, it would give us a date before which dolmens could hardly have existed; but as we have no materials for the purpose, all that can be said is that, just as the dolmen races were cut in two by the Belgæ before the use of stone for funereal monuments had been introduced, so here the same phenomenon occurred, and the people we have to deal with were driven north of the Garonne, west of the Rhone, and south of the Seine, before they took to building dolmens—assuming, of course, that they once had extended beyond those limits; but this, except in the case of Aquitania proper, does not at present seem capable of being proved.
Before the Romans came in contact with them, and our first written accounts describe them, they had ceased to be a nation politically, and their language also was lost, or, at least, except in the one syllable ac, we now know nothing of it. If, therefore, it may be argued, the nationality of this people was lost before the Christian era, and their language had become extinct, these monuments must belong to a long anterior period. There are, however, certain considerations which would make us pause before jumping too hastily to this conclusion. There are, throughout the whole dolmen region of the south of France, a series of churches whose style is quite distinct from that of central and northern France. The typical example of this style is the well-known church of St.-Front, Périgueux. But the churches at Cahors, at Souillac, at Moissac, Peaussac, Tremolac, St.-Avit-Sénieur, and many others, are equally characteristic. The cathedral at Angoulême, the abbey church at Fontevrault, and St.-Maurice at Angers,[393] and the church at Loches—all these churches are characterized by possessing domes, and the earlier ones by having pointed arches which look very much more as if they were derived from the horizontal arches of the tumuli than from the radiating arches of the Romans, which the Celts everywhere adopted; and, altogether, the style is so peculiar that no one the least familiar with it can ever mistake it for a Celtic style. All belong to the same group, and as distinctly as, or even more so than, the ac-termination, mark out the country as inhabited in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by a people differing from the Celts. Though, therefore, both their nationality and their language may have been superseded by those of the more enterprising and active Celts before the time of Cæsar, it is evident they retained their old feeling and a separate internal existence to a period at least a thousand years later.
There is still another trait that marks this country as a non-Celtic country in historical times—it is in the south-west, and there only, in France that Protestantism ever flourished or took root. To the Celt, the transition was everywhere easy from the government of the hierarchy of the Druids to that of the similarly organized priesthood of Rome. But it required all the cruel power of the Inquisition—the crusades of Simon de Montfort—the exterminating wars against the Camisards of the Cevennes—-and, in fact, centuries of the most cruel and unrelenting persecution down to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and, indeed, to the French Revolution—to exterminate this people and extirpate the faith and feelings to which they clung. If they have in their veins, as I fancy they must have, any of the blood of the Cave people, they belong to one of the least progressive people of the earth, and we should not therefore be surprised if it required two thousand years of Celtic aggressiveness, coupled with Celtic ferocity, entirely to obliterate this race, if, indeed, that is done even now, which I very much doubt.
Before leaving this part of the subject, there is one other question which it may be as well to allude to here, as these investigations into the distribution of the rude-stone monuments seem destined to throw a new and important light upon it. Few questions have been more keenly debated among the learned than the relationship stated to have existed between the Cimbri and the Gauls. A great deal has been, and can be, said on both sides,[394] but the difficulty appears to me to have arisen principally from the erroneous assumption that on other people except the Celts existed in France.
There is no trace of Celts or of a Celtic language in the Cimbric Chersonese or the north-west corner of Europe, which is generally assumed to be the country occupied by the Cimbri, and no such people as the Cimbri are found settled in any part of France in historical times. If, however, we assume that the relationship may have been between the Cimbri and the Aquitanians, the case assumes a totally different aspect. As we do not know what the language of the Aquitanians really was, no assistance can be obtained from it, but our very ignorance of it leaves the field open for any other evidence that may be adduced, and that of the monuments seems clear and distinct. It seems almost impossible that there should be so much similarity between the monuments of the two countries without some community of race, and the great likeness that exists between those on the southern frontier of the northern dolmen province and those on the northern edge of the southern dolmen field seems almost to settle the question.
From history we only know of the existence of this relationship by the mode in which they fought together against Marius in the late Roman wars. If they were then geographically separated by the Belgæ and the Celts having thrust themselves between them, the separation must have been recent, for a barbarian people could hardly be brought to acknowledge the ties and duties of relationship after a long interval of time.[395]
As may be gathered from the table, page 376, or the map opposite page 324, the rude-stone monuments are pretty evenly distributed over the whole of the area extending from the English Channel to the Mediterranean Sea. Our knowledge of them is, however, practically confined to the northern portion of this zone, known as Brittany. The information which is available regarding those of Languedoc and Guienne is of the most meagre description. Hundreds of English tourists have visited Brittany, and many of them have drawn the monuments there and at least described them intelligibly; but I do not know one English book that mentions those in the departments of Lot or Dordogne, and almost the only information regarding them is to be picked up from the local "Statistiques;" but as these are very rarely illustrated, they do not suffice. No form of words will convey a correct idea of any unknown architectural monument except by comparing it with one that is known; and unless both have some well-defined features of style, it is even then very difficult, and with rude unshaped stones, almost impossible, by words to convey what is intended.
122. Dolmen at Sauclières.
It is to be regretted that we do not know more of the southern examples,[396] as they are different in several essential features from those of the north; and it is probable that any one who was familiar with all could point out a gradation of style which would aid materially in determining their age. Whatever that may turn out eventually to be, no one will, I presume, contend that all are of one age or even of one century. It is far more probable that they extend over a considerable lapse of time, probably a thousand years, and if this is so, there must have been changes of fashion even among Cave races as their blood got more and more mixed; and it would be interesting to know where and—relatively at least—when this took place. My present impression is that the southern are the most modern, for this among other reasons.—I look on the sequence of a cist in a barrow to a dolmen or chamber in a tumulus as very nearly certain, and from that the sequence to the exposed free-standing dolmen, and from that to the dolmen on the tumulus, as nearly, if not quite as, probable. The latter form, so far as I know, never occurs in Brittany, while on the other hand it is common in the south of France.[397] If they are of the same age as similar monuments in Scandinavia and Ireland, they must be of comparatively modern date. There are also some monuments, trilithons of hewn or partially hewn stone, as this one at Sauclières ([woodcut No. 122]), which at least look more modern than their northern congeners.
The monument, however, that seems capable of throwing the greatest amount of light on their age is the dolmen of St.-Germain-sur-Vienne, near Confolens, in Poitou. As will be seen from the woodcuts opposite, its cap-stone, measures 12 feet by 15 feet, and is of proportionate thickness. The mass was originally supported by five columns of Gothic design, but one having fallen away, it now rests only on four; but their interest arises from the fact that the style of their ornamentation belongs undoubtedly to the twelfth century or thereabouts—certainly not earlier than the eleventh. In order to explain away so unwelcome an anomaly, it has been suggested, that some persons in the twelfth century cut away all the rest of the original rude stones which supported the cap-stone, and left only the frail shafts which we now see. If this were so, it would in no way alter the argument to be derived from it. If men could be found in the twelfth century to take the trouble and run the enormous risk of such an operation, their respect for the monument must have been quite equal to that implied in its erection; but the fact is that each of the five columns is composed of three separate pieces—a base, a shaft, and a capital,[398] and we see them now as they were originally erected.[399]
There may be doubts about the tomb of the Moals at Ballina ([page 233]), but doubt seems impossible with regard to this: it is a dolmen pure and simple, and it was erected in the twelfth century. In itself the fact may not be of any very great importance, but it cuts away the ground from any à priori argument as to the age of these monuments. It does not, of course, prove that they are all modern, but it does show that some of them at least were erected after the time of the Romans, and at an era extending even far into the middle ages.
123. Dolmen at Confolens.
124. Plan of Dolmen at Confolens.
It is amusing, however, to see how the French antiquaries resist such a conclusion. Dr. de Closmadeuc, for instance, one of the most distinguished antiquaries of Brittany, opened a perfectly virgin tumulus at Crubelz. After penetrating through three distinct but undisturbed strata, he reached the roof of the enclosed dolmen or chamber. In this he found the usual products of cremation and the inevitable flint arrow-heads, but he refers in triumph to the "absence de toute trace des métaux." "Aucun doute," he adds, "n'est donc possible. Ce dolmen appartient bien à cette classe de monuments primitifs de l'âge de pierre." So far all is clear; but there are still difficulties, for he goes on to say: "Nous tenons peu de compte des débris de tuiles antiques rencontrées à la superficie du tumulus, et même sous les tables du dolmen. Il est raisonnable d'admettre que ces fragments de tuiles qui dénoncent l'industrie gallo-romaine, ont accidentellement pénétré dans l'intérieur."[400]
Let us pause a moment to consider what is involved in such a supposition. These tiles, which it is admitted are scattered in quantities over the surrounding plain, must have climbed to the top of the mound, penetrated through three undisturbed strata of earth, and finally penetrated "accidentally" between the close-fitting slabs forming the roof of the chamber. The hypothesis will not bear a moment's examination, but anything, however absurd, is to some minds preferable to admitting that any dolmen or tumulus can be subsequent to Roman times. It is astonishing, however, what effect that shibboleth, "no trace of metal," has on the mind of most antiquaries. It is, of course, true that before the metals were introduced no trace of them could be found in the prehistoric barrows of the rude savages that occupied Europe in the earliest times. We do not, at the present day, bury metal objects in our graves, and but for the coffin nails it would be as fair to argue that the graves in Kensal Green are prehistoric because the interments show no trace of metal implements. At all events, there are many burying races now existing who do not use coffins, nor bury metal objects in their graves; and all these this argument would make prehistoric. To me it seems much more logical to assume that, in those countries which had been occupied by the Romans, the natives, though reverting after their departure to their original modes of sepulture, had at least been so far civilized as to know that bronze daggers and spear-heads were not likely to be of much use in the next world, and had come to the conclusion that the personal ornaments of the dead might as well remain with their living friends. This hypothesis would at least account for the absence of metal in the long barrows of Gloucestershire, and at West Kennet, as well as at Crubelz, though Roman pottery was found in all these instances. In fact, it is the merest negative presumption to assume that, because no metal is found in a grave, it must be prehistoric. It may be of any age, down to yesterday's, in so far as such proof is concerned.
Even the presence of metal, however, does not disturb the faith of some antiquaries. The Baron de Bonstetten, for instance, opened a tumulus not far from Crubelz. At one foot (30 centimetres) below the undisturbed surface the usual deposit of flint implements was found; and two feet (60 centimetres) below them two statuettes of Latona in terra-cotta and a coin of Constantine II. were found, but without this in the least degree shaking his undoubting faith in the prehistoric antiquity of the tomb![401]
Numerous other Roman coins have been found in these French monuments, but their testimony is disregarded. In the Manné er H'roëk, commonly called the Butte de César, about half a mile south from Locmariaker, near the surface, eleven medals of the Roman emperors, from Tiberius to Trajan, were found, together with fragments of bronze, glass, and pottery, but there were no signs of a secondary interment.[402] In like manner, in another monument at Beaumont-sur-Oise, Roman moneys were found, but, as M. Bertrand is careful to explain, in a stratum above the stone and flint implements, which, of course, he believed to mark the true date of the monument.[403] It seems impossible, however, that all these Roman coins can have been accidentally placed there. Those of Valentinian and Theodosius in the mound at New Grange were precisely in the same position as those of Titus, Domitian, and Trajan in the Butte de César or those of Beaumont, and so were those of Constantine found at Uley, in Gloucestershire (ante, p. 165). Those of Valentinian at Minning Lowe were in the tomb itself; so probably might others have been found in the other tombs had they not previously been rifled. It is not easy to assign a motive for placing these coins in the upper part of the mound externally. Their being found in that position at New Grange, Uley, Locmariaker, and Beaumont, is, however, sufficient to prove it was not accidental, and their value is so small that they could not have been buried there for concealment. They must have had something to do with some funereal rite or superstition, the memory of which has passed away. No ancient British or Gaulish coins have ever been found in similar positions, and no Christian coins, which, had their presence been purely accidental, would probably have been the case. The inference seems to me inevitable that they were looked on as valued relics or curiosities, and placed there intentionally by those who raised the mounds it may be very long after the dates which the coins bear.