Figure 58.
Megalithic sepulchre at Acora (Peru).
In some cases the dolmen, which alone is visible from without, is placed upon a mound, covering a hidden sepulchral chamber, whilst in others the crypt is replaced by a simple stone cist, generally of rectangular shape. We may mention in this connection the dolmen of Bekour-Noz at St. Pierre Quiberon, which is remarkable for its great size, and rises from the midst of a cemetery in which a great many coffins have been found. The bones they contained were unfortunately dispersed at the time of their discovery.
Dolmens are scattered about in great numbers in the Kouban basin and all along the coasts of the Black Sea occupied by the Tcherkesses. These curious vestiges of an unknown civilization are still an unsolved enigma to us, as are those of Western Europe; they are generally formed of four upright slabs surmounted by a fifth laid horizontally, and one of the supporting slabs is nearly always pierced with a small round or oval opening. Excavations have brought to light arrow-heads, rings, and bronze spirals, but Chantre, an authority of considerable weight, and who has moreover had the advantage of actually seeing these megalithic monuments of the south of Russia, attributes the objects found beneath them to secondary interments, and does not hesitate in assigning the more ancient monuments themselves to the Stone age. We must not omit to mention the dolmens found in the southern portion of the island of Yezo (Japan),[4] nor that described by Darwin at Puerto Deseado (Patagonia). They are both very similar to those of Europe.
To resume, dolmens, called Hünengräber in Germany, stazzona in Corsica, antas in Portugal, and stendos in Sweden, have all alike one large flat horizontal slab placed on two or more upright unhewn stones. This is the one fixed rule; local circumstances, perhaps even the caprice of the builders, decided the position and the mode of erection. Often, as I have already remarked, dolmens are buried beneath tumuli, but exceptions to this are numerous. General Faidherbe, after having examined more than six thousand dolmens in Algeria, affirms that the greater number have never been covered with earth.[5] In the Orkney Islands there are more than one hundred dolmens without tumuli, and Martinet failed to find any trace of mounds in Berry. In Scotland and Brittany we find dolmens buried, not beneath mounds of earth, but under accumulations of pebbles, called cairns in Scotland and galgals in Brittany. However minor details may vary, and they do vary infinitely, one main idea everywhere dominated the builders, and that was the desire to protect from all profanation the resting-place of what had once been a human being.
Cromlechs are circles of upright stones often surrounding dolmens or tumuli. Sometimes they form single circles, and at others two, three, or even seven separate enclosures. They are common in Algeria, Sweden, and Denmark, and in the last-named country two kinds are distinguished: the langdyssers, which form an ellipse, and the rundyssers which form a perfect circle. In other countries cromlechs are slot so numerous; there are but few in France, of which we may name those of Kergoman (Morbihan), Lestridion in Plomeur, and Landaondec in Crozon (Finistère). The last-named, known its le temple des faux dieux, is closed by a double row of small menhirs. In Italy, the only cromlechs known are those of Sesto-Calende and those of the plateau of Mallevalle near Ticino. One of the latter still retains in their original position fifty-nine huge granite blocks, forming a circular enceinte, a semicircle, and an entrance avenue. A few leagues from the ancient Tyre can still be seen a circle of upright stones. Ouseley describes another at Darab, in Persia; a missionary speaks of three large circles at Khabb, in Arabia, which circles he compares with those at Stonehenge; and Dr. Barth tells us of a cromlech between Mourzouk and Ghât.
A kurgan, or tumulus, leaving been opened in the Kherson district, three or four concentric circles were discovered beneath it, surrounding a structure of considerable size.[6] The cromlech of Anajapoura in Ceylon, probably, however, erected comparatively recently, consists of fifty-two granite pillars, about thirteen feet high, encircling a Buddhist temple. At Peshawur is another circle, fourteen of the stones of which are still upright, whilst traces can be made out of an outer enceinte of smaller stones; in Peru there are several cromlechs, whilst others have been found at the foot of Elephant Mount, in the desert plains of Australia. The last-named vary from ten to one thousand feet in diameter, but excavations beneath them have brought to light only a few human bones.
At Mzora, in Morocco, the traveller will notice a mound of elliptical shape, some 21 or 22½ feet high, flanked on the west by a group of menhirs, and surrounded by an enceinte of upright stones which now number about forty. In 1831, there were still ninety, and on the south side were noticed two round pillars parallel with each other, which probably formed an entrance.[7] This group evidently originally formed the centre of a series of megalithic monuments, for on the north and southwest some fifty monoliths can still be made out, some still erect, others fallen.[8]
It was in Great Britain, however, that cromlechs appear to have reached their highest development. That of Salkeld in Cumberland includes sixty-seven menhirs; that near Loch Stemster in Caithness, thirty-three, whilst in Westmoreland, Long Meg and her daughters are still the objects of superstitious reverence. The remains at Avebury are among the most remarkable prehistoric monuments still extant, and evidently originally formed part of a most important group. This group had an outer rampart of earth, with a ditch on the inner side, within which was a circle of upright stones, probably numbering as many as one hundred. Within this circle were two others of smaller size, each in its turn enclosing yet another circle of upright stones. In the middle of one of these inner circles, that on the north, was a dolmen, whilst that on the south enclosed in the centre but a single upright menhir. The stones used in constructing these various groups were all such as are still to be found on the Wiltshire downs. From the southeastern portion of the extensive earthen rampart, a stone avenue extended for a considerable distance in a perfectly straight line, and is still known as Kennet’s Avenue, on account of its leading to the village of Kennet. The remains on Hakpen Hill and on Silbury Hill are all supposed to have been originally connected with those at Avebury. The remains at Hakpen consist of relics of two circles, one about 140 feet in diameter, the other not more than forty. About eighty yards from the inner circle was found a double row of skeletons, all with the feet pointing towards the centre. Silbury Hill is itself an artificial conical mound, the largest in England, 170 feet high, on which were originally no less than 650 upright stones, of which only twenty are still standing, surrounded by a trench. In the centre of the circle of stones a single menhir of great height still remains with three others sloped so as to form a kind of crypt.