| Fig. 12.
Plan and section of La Grotte des Fées, Arles, France (Matériaux pour l'histoire de l'homme, 1873). |
On the plateau of Ger near the town of Dax are large numbers of mounds, some of which contain cremated bodies in urns and others megalithic tombs. Bertrand saw in this a cemetery 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 graves. In these last the skeletons were found seated around the walls of the chamber accompanied by objects of flint and other stone, beads of callaïs, and small gold ornaments.
| Fig. 13. The so-called dolmen-deity, from the tombs of the Petit Morin. (After de Baye.) |
France has also its rock-hewn tombs, for in the valley of the Petit-Morin is a series of such graves. A trench leads down to the entrance, which is closed by a slab. The chamber itself is completely underground. 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 extended or contracted position, with tools and weapons of flint, pots, and beads of amber and of callaïs. On the walls were rough sculptures of human figures (Fig. 13), to which we shall have to return later.
The Channel Islands possess megalithic monuments not unlike those of Brittany. They are corridor-tombs covered with a mound and often surrounded by a circle of stones. Within the chamber, which is usually round, lies, under a layer of shells, a mass of mingled human and animal bones. The bodies had been buried in the sitting position, and with them lay objects of stone and bone, but none of metal.
The Spanish Peninsula abounds in megalithic monuments. With the exception of a few menhirs, whose purpose is uncertain, all are sepulchral. Dolmens and corridor-tombs are numerous in many parts, especially in the north-east provinces, in Galicia, in Andalusia, and, above all, in Portugal. There is a fine dolmen in the Vall Gorguina in North-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 Andalusia. Portugal abounds in fine dolmens both of the round and rectangular types. At Fonte Coberta on the Douro stands a magnificent dolmen known locally as the Moors' House. In the name of the field, Fonte Coberta, there is doubtless an allusion to the belief that the dolmens conceal springs of water, a belief also held in parts of Ireland.
At Eguilaz in the Basque provinces is a fine corridor-tomb, in which a passage 20 feet long, roofed with flat slabs, leads to a rectangular chamber 13 feet by 15 with an immense cover-slab nearly 20 feet in length: the whole was covered with a mound of earth. 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 perhaps three rectangular compartments. A couple of orthostatic slabs form a sort of neck joining the circle to the passage, which narrows as it leads away from the circle, and was probably divided into two sections by a doorway whose side-posts still remain.