STATEMENTS IN STONE
Monuments and Society in
Neolithic Brittany
Mark Patton
London and New York
First published 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1993 Mark Patton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Patton, Mark
Statements in Stone: Monuments and
Society in Neolithic Brittany
I. Title
936.4
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Patton, Mark.
Statements in stone: monuments and society in Neolithic Brittany
/Mark Patton.
p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Neolithic period—France—Brittany. 2. Megalithic monuments—
France—Brittany. 3. Brittany (France)—Antiquities. I. Title.
GN776.22.F7P37 1993
936.4–dc20 92–30505
ISBN 0-203-51399-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-54479-X (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-06729-4 (Print Edition)
To the memory of Zacharie Le Rouzic
CONTENTS
List of plates
List of figures
List of tables
Note on the use of radiocarbon dates
Acknowledgements
vii
viii
xii
xiii
xiv
1 MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY: AN INTRODUCTION
1
2 CENTRES OF PRODUCTION AND SPHERES
OF INTERACTION
Stone axe exchange in the Armorican Neolithic
18
3 LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
Ritual landscapes of the first farmers
33
4 MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Passage graves of the Armorican Littoral
69
5 STATEMENTS OF POWER AND SYMBOLS
OF WEALTH
The great mounds and alignments of the Carnac region
104
6 LAND FOR THE LIVING, TOMBS FOR THE DEAD
Burial monuments of the Late Neolithic
128
7 SEALING THE TOMBS
The abandonment of megaliths
161
8 CONCLUSION: RITUAL LANDSCAPES AND SOCIAL
STRUCTURE IN THE ARMORICAN NEOLITHIC
179
Bibliography
Index
197
206
v
PLATES
2.1 The Early Neolithic axe factory site of Le Pinacle, Jersey
2.2 Ritual deposition of an axe, polished stone ring and variscite
pendants from Mané-er-Hroëk
3.1 Le Grand Menhir Brisé at Locmariaquer (Morbihan)
4.1 The passage grave of Crucuno at Carnac (Morbihan)
4.2 Corbelled passage graves at Barnenez (Plouézoc’h, Finistère)
4.3 The passage grave of La Hougue des Géonnais (Jersey) under
excavation in 1989. The passage is in the foreground, and the
drystone wall in the background represents the end of the
second-phase chamber. The socket holes for the stones of the
first-phase chamber can be seen in the centre of the
photograph.
4.4 The passage grave of Gavrinis at Larmor-Baden (Morbihan)
5.1 Le Tumulus-St-Michel at Carnac (Morbihan)
5.2 The alignments of Kermario at Carnac (Morbihan)
6.1 The gallery grave of Ville-ès-Nouaux (Jersey), under excavation in 1884 (photo: Société Jersiaise)
6.2 The Chalcolithic site of La Tête des Quennevais (Jersey) under
excavation in 1988
vii
26
31
57
77
78
81
85
107
118
136
148
FIGURES
1.1 (a) Physical map of the Armorican Massif; (b) Simplified
geological map of the Armorican Massif.
1.2 The distribution of European megaliths at c. 3500 cal. BC.
1.3 Distribution of megaliths on Rousay (Orkney) with suggested
tribal territories (after Renfrew 1979).
1.4 Minimum numbers of people required to move a stone of a
given weight (based on Mohen’s 1980 experiment).
1.5 Labour estimates for the construction of rubble cairns (based
on Renfrew’s 1979 estimate that a man takes 11.25 hours to
excavate a cubic yard of hard rock, and on Mohen’s 1980
estimate that a man can transport 100 kg of rubble per day: a
weight of 2 tonnes per cubic metre and an 8-hour working
day are assumed).
2.1 Stone axe production centres in Armorica (after Patton 1991b).
2.2 ‘Button axe’ from the Plussulien factory, found in Jersey
(drawing by Gillian Kay).
2.3 Estimates for team size and annual working times for the
Plussulien axe factory (based on Le Roux 1979a).
2.4 The site of Er Lannic (Morbihan).
2.5 Stone axe exchange networks in the Channel Islands (after
Patton 1991b).
2.6 ‘Hafted axe’ carving at Gavrinis (after Le Roux 1982).
3.1 Early Neolithic traditions in Europe: 1 Balkan Neolithic
(painted pottery); 2 Linear pottery; 3 Impressed wares.
3.2 The ‘Impact Zone’ and tomb origins (after Kinnes 1982).
3.3 Epi-Bandkeramik pottery traditions in the Paris Basin (after
Constantin 1985).
3.4 The Epi-Bandkeramik expansion in Northern France: 1 Late
Bandkeramik; 2 Villeneuve-St-Germain; 3 Cerny (based on
Constantin 1985).
3.5 Radiocarbon dates from Epi-Bandkeramik contexts in
Northern France: 1 Late Bandkeramik; 2 Villeneuve-Stviii
3
6
8
10
11
20
23
24
25
30
31
35
36
38
39
40
FIGURES
Germain; 3 Cerny.
3.6 Pottery from Ile Carn (after Giot 1987).
3.7 Pottery from Le Pinacle, Jersey (drawings by Gillian Kay).
3.8 (a) Typological elements of Pinacle/Fouaillages assemblages
(Patton in press); F1–3 Forms, D1–9 Decoration, A1–6
Handles and Lugs, (b) Occurrence of these motifs in Cerny,
Pinacle/Fouaillages and Castellic assemblages; A: Elements
shared by Cerny and Pinacle/Fouaillages, B: Elements shared
by all three groups, C: Elements shared by Pinacle/
Fouaillages and Castellic
3.9 Castellic pottery from Le Lizo (a) and Er Lannic (b-g)
3.10 Distribution of Early Neolithic long mounds (a) and decorated menhirs (b)
3.11 (a) Le Manio 1; (b) Le Manio 3; (c) Mané-Ty-Ec
3.12 (a) Mané-Pochat; (b) Kerlescan; (c) Castellic
3.13 (a) La Croix-St-Pierre (after Milon and Giot 1954); (b) Le
Jardin-aux-Moines (after Briard 1989); (c) La Croix-Madame
3.14 (a) Les Fouaillages (after Kinnes 1982); (b) Notre Dame de
Lorette (after Giot 1956)
3.15 Menhirs re-used as capstones on the passage grave of ManéRutual (after L’Helgouach 1983)
3.16 Decorated menhir reconstructed from fragments at La Table
des Marchand, Er-Vinglé and Gavrinis (after Le Roux 1984)
3.17 Motifs from decorated menhirs (after Patton 1991d)
3.18 Radiocarbon dates from Les Fouaillages (1), Petit Mont (2)
and Locmariaquer (3)
3.19 Le Golfe du Morbihan in Neolithic times: stippled area represents dry land, shaded area represents open water, unshaded
area represents marshland
4.1 Distribution of Armorican passage graves
4.2 Radiocarbon dates from Armorican passage graves
4.3 Middle Neolithic pottery from Armorican passage graves
(after L’Helgouach 1965)
4.4 Middle Neolithic pottery from Armorican passage graves
(after L’Helgouach 1965)
4.5 The passage grave of Kercado (Carnac, Morbihan)
4.6 (a) Faldouet (Jersey); (b) Mont de la Ville (Jersey).
4.7 Morphology of Armorican passage graves
4.8 (a) Loqueltas; (b) Kermarquer; (c) Le Déhus; (d) Grantez.
4.9 (a) Mané-Groh; (b) Kerleven; (c) Barnenez H; (d) Mont Ubé
4.10 Dissignac (after L’Helgouach 1990)
4.11 Le Notério
4.12 Barnenez (after Giot 1987)
ix
41
42
43
44
47
49
50
51
52
58
59
60
61
67
70
72
73
74
76
79
80
82
83
84
86
86
FIGURES
4.13
4.14
4.15
4.16
4.17
4.18
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
5.9
5.10
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8
6.9
6.10
Carved anthropomorph at Le Déhus (after Kinnes 1980)
Principal motifs in Armorican passage grave art
Decorated stones at Mané-Lud (after Shee-Twohig 1981)
Decorated stones at Gavrinis (after Shee-Twohig 1981)
Depositions in the chamber of La Hougue Bie
Distribution of passage graves in Jersey, showing sources of
stone (after Patton 1991b). 1 La Hougue Bie; 2 Faldouet; 3 Le
Mont Ubé; 4 Le Mont de la Ville; 5 Les Cinq Pierres; 6 La
Sergenté; 7 Grantez; 8 Géonnais
Distribution of Grand Tumulus monuments
(a) Le Moustoir: a: central hearth; b-c: cists; d: primary chamber,
(b) Mané-Lud
Polished axes from Grand Tumulus monuments
Deposition of axes, pendants and stone ring from Mané-erHroëk (after Galles 1863)
Distribution of megalithic alignments
The alignments of Lagatjar
The ritual landscape of St-Just: 1 Le Four-Sarrazin; 2 La CroixSt-Pierre long mound; 3 La Croix-St-Pierre passage graves; 4 Les
Demoiselles de Coujoux; 5 Chateau-Bu passage grave; 6
Menhirs; 7 Les Alignements du Moulin
The alignments of Le Menec (after Thom and Thom 1978)
The western circle of Le Menec (after Thom and Thom 1978)
The ritual landscape of Carnac: 1 Rondossec; 2 Kergavet; 3 Le
Menec; 4 Kermario/Le Manio; 5 Kerlescan alignments; 6
Kerlescan long mound; 7 Kerlescan lateral entrance grave; 8 Le
Petit Menec; 9 Kermario passage grave; 10 Le Tumulus-StMichel; 11 Kercado; 12 Mané-Bras; 13 Kermarquer; 14 ManéKerioned; 15 Klud-er-Yer; 16 Mané-Keriavel; 17 Er Mané; 18 Le
Moustoir
Mogau-Bihan (after L’Helgouach 1965)
Crec’h-Quillé (after L’Helgouach 1967)
Armorican Late Neolithic pottery styles (after L’Helgouach
1965): (a)-(b) Seine-Oise-Marne; (c) Bouteille à collarette; (d)
Quessoy; (e) Kerugou; (f) Conguel
Beg-an-Dorchenn (after L’Helgouach 1965)
Kernic (after L’Helgouach 1965)
Liscuis III (after Le Roux 1977)
Lesconil (after L’Helgouach 1965)
Distribution of Armorican gallery graves
Radiocarbon dates from gallery graves in Armorica (1) and the
Paris Basin (2)
Pottery from the gallery grave of Kerbannalec (after
L’Helgouach 1965)
x
88
89
90
91
97
102
105
108
111
112
115
116
117
119
121
122
129
130
131
133
135
137
138
139
140
141
FIGURES
6.11 Motifs in Armorican gallery grave art
6.12 Statue-menhirs from (a) Le Trévoux, (b) Kermené, (c) Le
Catel, (d) St-Martin ((a)-(b) after Shee-Twohig 1981; (c)-(d)
after Kinnes 1980)
6.13 Positions of carved motifs in the gallery graves of (a) PrajouMenhir, (b) Mogau-Bihan, (c) Tressé. The letters refer to the
classification of motifs on figure 6.11
6.14 Distribution of Armorican lateral entrance graves
6.15 (a) Les Pierres Plates; (after L’Helgouach 1965) (b) Goërem
(after L’Helgouach 1970)
6.16 Distribution of Armorican angled graves
6.17 Carved motifs from Armorican angled graves ((a) Luffang;
(b)-(e) Les Pierres Plates)
6.18 Keriven (after L’Helgouach 1965)
7.1 Armorican Bell Beakers from the Channel Islands
7.2 Distribution of Armorican Bell Beakers
7.3 The cairn of Ile Carn, showing the extension to the mound
blocking access to the passage graves (after Giot 1987)
7.4 The central passage grave of Ile Carn, showing two blockage
walls in the passage (after Giot 1987)
7.5 Terminal deposition in the passage grave of Le Déhus
(Guernsey): A: concentration of pottery (Bell Beaker sherds);
B: concentration of human bone; C: copper dagger
7.6 Terminal deposition in the gallery grave of Ville-ès-Nouaux
(Jersey): nineteenth-century plan by Lieut. S.P.Oliver
7.7 Megalithic cist known as The Ossuary’ (Jersey)
7.8 Chalcolithic ritual landscape of Les Blanches Banques (Jersey): 1 Broken Menhir; 2 ‘The Ossuary’; 3 Little Menhir; 4
Great Menhir; 5 La Tête des Quennevais. Stippling shows
area of settlement
8.1 Model of Early Neolithic landscape and social structure: D:
domestic site; R: ritual site; broken lines show territorial
boundaries
8.2 Model of Middle Neolithic landscape and social structure. D:
domestic site; R: ritual site
8.3 Model of Late Neolithic landscape and social structure. D:
domestic site; R: ritual site; broken lines show territorial
boundaries
8.4 Model of Chalcolithic landscape and social structure. D: domestic site; R: ritual site; broken lines show territorial boundaries
8.5 Distribution of Armorican tumuli: Series A (a) and B (b)
8.6 An evolutionary model of social change
8.7 A dialectical model of social change: 1 expansion phase; 2
crisis phase; 3 collapse
xi
143
144
145
146
149
150
152
154
164
165
169
170
171
172
176
177
181
183
185
186
188
193
194
TABLES
3.1 Structural features in Early Neolithic long mounds
54
3.2 Carved motifs on Early Neolithic decorated menhirs
61
3.3 Heights and estimated weights of Early Neolithic decorated 62
menhirs
4.1 Presence of carved motifs in Armorican passage graves (a–o 92
refer to the classification of motifs on figure 4.14)
4.2 Position of carved motifs in Armorican passage graves
93
4.3 Dimensions of passage graves in three core areas
101
5.1 Grand Tumulus monuments: dimensions of mound (metres)
107
5.2 Grand Tumulus monuments: grave-goods
112
xii
NOTE ON THE USE
OF RADIOCARBON DATES
All radiocarbon dates in this book are quoted in uncalibrated
radiocarbon years before present (BP). Where calibrated dates are given,
these are quoted as cal. BC. All calibrations have been based on the
curves published by G.Pearson, J.R.Pilcher, M.G.L.Baillie, D.M.Corbett
and F.Qua (1986), ‘High precision measurement of Irish oaks to show the
natural C14 variation from AD 1840 to 5210 BC’, Radiocarbon 28 (2B), pp.
911–34, and by B.Kromer, H.Schock-Fisher and K.O.Munnich (1986),
‘Radiocarbon calibration for the 6th to 8th Millennia BC’, Radiocarbon 28
(2B), pp. 954–60.
xiii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research on which this book is based was carried out over several
years, starting when I was a research student in the Department of
Anthropology at University College London. I am particularly grateful to
Professor Pierre-Roland Giot, Professor Jean L’Helgouach, Professor
Jacques Briard, Charles-Tanguy Le Roux, Joël Lecornec, Jean-Yves
Tinevez, Serge Cassen and Ian Kinnes for their assistance with my work in
France and the Channel Islands, and for sharing the results of their own
research with me. I am also grateful to Anne-Elisabeth Riskine, Catherine
Louboutin, Bob Burns and Hervé Joubeaux for making museum
collections available to me, and to Professor Barry Cunliffe, Barbara
Bender, Mike Rowlands and Mike Ilett for comments and discussion. Most
of the research for this book was completed during the tenure of a research
grant from the Leverhulme Trust.
I would like particularly to thank Lilian Umar for her care in handling
my text, and the following for permission to reproduce the figures
indicated: figure 13 Dr Ian Kinnes, figure 17 Professor Pierre-Roland Giot,
figure 43 Dr Ian Kinnes, figures 33–4 Professor Jean L’Helgouach, figures
45–6 Dr Elizabeth Shee-Twohig and the Clarendon Press, figure 61
Professor Jean L’Helgouach, figure 70 Dr Elizabeth Shee-Twohig and the
Clarendon Press, figures 79–80 Professor Pierre-Roland Giot.
xiv
1
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY:
AN INTRODUCTION
The great stone monuments or ‘megaliths’ of Western Europe have for
centuries excited the popular imagination, and, not surprisingly, they
attracted the interest of the earliest antiquarians and archaeologists. Each
subsequent generation of archaeologists has made its own discoveries and
comments, and offered interpretations of these impressive but enigmatic
monuments. Recent years have seen a renewed interest in megalithic
studies, involving a shift away from traditional concerns with typology,
chronology and megalithic ‘origins’, towards attempts to understand the
social significance of the monuments. Recent contributions to megalithic
studies have drawn on a wide variety of theoretical approaches, ranging
from Processual (cf. Renfrew 1973, 1976) to Post-structuralist (cf. Shanks
and Tilley 1982, Tilley 1984) and Neo-Marxist (cf. Bender 1985), all
focusing on the social dimensions of monument construction and
megalithic ritual.
In any consideration of European megaliths, Brittany must be seen as a
core area, standing out from most other regions by virtue of the density of
monuments and the diversity of monument types. The megaliths of
Brittany cover a period of almost 3,000 years, from the earliest Neolithic (c.
4800 cal. BC) to the beginning of the Bronze Age (c. 2250 cal. BC) and the
chronology of these monuments is relatively well understood, thanks to
the work of French archaeologists (cf. L’Helgouach 1965, Giot et al. 1979).
Despite the great wealth of material, however, megalithic studies in
Brittany have been relatively isolated from recent theoretical
developments, and the prevailing emphasis continues to be on chronology
and typology. The aim of this book is to set the various megalithic
traditions of the Armorican region in social context. It is not intended as a
comprehensive account of the Armorican Neolithic (for which the reader
will be referred to the relevant French publications), but rather as a series
of essays, focusing on particular aspects of the data and developing
interpretations on the basis of these. The final chapter will present a
diachronic overview of the period covered by the book, and will attempt
1
STATEMENTS IN STONE
torelate changing monumental traditions to changing structures of social
organisation.
The modern province of Brittany (the Départements of Ille-et-Vilaine,
Côtes d’Armor, Finistère, Morbihan, and Loire-Atlantique) is an artificial
construction, defined on the basis of recent historical and cultural
considerations. For the purposes of this book, it seems more useful to
consider the geologically defined area of the Armorican Massif (figure
1.1) which includes the Norman département of Manche and the Channel
Islands as well as the five départements of modern Brittany. The
Armorican Massif is an area of predominantly hard igneous and
metamorphic rocks forming the north-west corner of France, sandwiched
between the limestone basins of Aquitaine and the Parisian region.
Armorica consists largely of ancient rocks, which have been subjected to
continual erosion for over 600 million years, so that the land today does
not rise to a great altitude (384 metres at its highest point—Tuchenn
Godor in the Arrée Mountains). The interior of the massif consists of a
series of undulating plateaux which slope away towards the sea. There
are two dominant ridges, the Montagnes d’Arrée and the Montagnes
Noires, which run from east to west down the centre of Brittany. The
coastal landscapes of Armorica have been extensively shaped by rises in
sea level over the last 10,000 years, which have drowned low-lying basins
and river valleys, forming the Golfe du Morbihan and the rias (‘Abers’ in
Breton) which give the Breton coastline its characteristic jagged or
indented character. The off-shore islands of Armorica (the Channel
Islands, the Ouessant Islands, the Glenan Islands, Groix and Belle Ile) are
all products of these recent sea level rises. The effect of changing sea
levels must always be borne in mind in considering the environmental
context of Neolithic settlement in the Armorican region. The tides are
exceptional, especially in the North-east of Brittany: in the Bay of SaintMalo the tide sweeps in to a height of 13.5 metres and in the Bay of MontSt-Michel it reaches a height of 15 metres. The estuaries of some of the
major rivers are tidal up to 30 km inland. Armorica is one of France’s
primary agricultural areas: most arable farming takes place in the socalled ‘golden belt’, the alluvial soils of the coastal plain which extends
from St-Malo around to the mouth of the Loire. This zone seems to have
been a particularly important area for prehistoric settlement: the
combination of rich marine resources and fertile soils would have made
this area especially attractive, and the presence of extensive coastal salt
and freshwater marshes would have given an added element of
ecological diversity. The soils of the interior are poorer in quality, and
often relatively thin, and are in many cases better suited to grazing than
cultivation: these areas, not surprisingly, seem to have been less attractive
to Neolithic settlers.
Before looking in detail at the megalithic monuments of the Armorican
2
Figure 1.1 (a) Physical map of the Armorican Massif; (b) Simplified geological map
of the Armorican Massif.
STATEMENTS IN STONE
region, it is necessary to look briefly at the historical and theoretical
background to megalithic studies in more general terms.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The appearance of megalithic monuments along the Atlantic façade of
Europe has provoked more debate than almost any other question in
European prehistory. To different people at different times, these great
stone monuments have been seen variously as Druid altars for human
sacrifice, as devolved copies of Egyptian tombs, as evidence for the spread
of a Mediterranean religion, as territorial markers and as elements in a
complex ideological system. With each generation of archaeologists the
picture changes, both because of new discoveries and because theoretical
developments within the discipline lead us to ask new and different
questions.
For the prehistoric past to be made comprehensible, it is necessary to
have some fixed chronological reference point to which discoveries can be
related. For eighteenth-century antiquarians such as William Stukely, the
only available reference point was provided by Classical literature.
Megalithic monuments were clearly not Roman or Medieval, and
therefore must be pre-Roman: Roman writers such as Caesar and Tacitus
had given accounts of the ‘Barbarian’ peoples of North-western Europe at
the time of the conquest, and the megalithic monuments were related to
these accounts. Megaliths thus became the temples and altars of the
bloodthirsty Druids. Phillip Falle, writing in 1734, describes one
monument (in Jersey) as follows:
Now this also I take for a temple, one I mean of those barbarous
altars which have so often been besmeared and seen smoking with
human blood, and should remind us and others of God’s infinite
grace and mercy in extinguishing so hellish a superstition by the
gospel of his son…. It stands…on a cliff or hill called Le Couperon,
and into the side of the same hill are caverns wrought …for what use
intended I am not able to say, unless that the miserable victims were
there shut up and secured till they were brought to the altar on the
solemn days appointed for sacrifice.
(Falle 1734, cited in Patton 1987a)
With the development of the three-age system in the mid-nineteenth
century (Daniel 1975), it became clear that the megaliths were built many
centuries before the Druids. The first half of the nineteenth century had
also been marked by important discoveries in Egypt and the Near East
(including Champollion’s decypherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs in
1822) which permitted the development of a fairly detailed chronology
4
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY
for the Eastern Mediterranean. This Egyptian/Near Eastern
chronologyprovided a new reference point for European prehistorians: if
links could be shown between the prehistoric societies of Western Europe
and the civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean, then this could be
used to develop a chronology for prehistoric cultures in Europe. This
chronology, however, required an assumption that cultures in the two
areas were linked: if this assumption was questioned, the whole of
European prehistory would stop making sense. This assumption went
hand in hand with a second, the idea that similarities between cultures in
different areas are a direct index of contact between those cultures: these
two assumptions together form the basis of culture-historical and
diffusionist approaches in archaeology. Cultural developments in Northwestern Europe were considered as the results of influences from the
Mediterranean world.
Childe (1958) summed up this view when he stated that The sole
unifying theme of European prehistory is the irradiation of European
Barbarism by Oriental Civilisation.’ In its most extreme form, this
approach gave rise to the Egyptocentric fallacies of Elliot-Smith (1929),
who believed that the megaliths of Western Europe were devolved copies
of Egyptian mastaba tombs, built by the ‘Children of the Sun’ when they
left Egypt to travel the world in search of the ‘Elixir of Life’. In its more
reasonable forms, the diffusionist approach gave rise to the suggestion
(cf. Daniel 1960) that the earliest European megaliths were built by
Iberian colonists who travelled by sea, settling on the coasts of Western
France, Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. The Iberian monuments, in
turn, were loosely related to supposed prototypes in the Aegean.
The distribution of early megaliths in Western Europe (figure 1.2) is
essentially coastal, and lent some support to this suggestion. There was
some debate concerning whether the megaliths reflected the movement of
settlers from south to north, or simply the spread of religious ideas: Childe
(1940) postulated ‘Megalithic missionaries’, and compared the spread of
megalithic religion to the spread of Islam. There was general agreement,
however, that the megaliths did represent the spread either of a people or
of a religion, originating in the Mediterranean.
The development of radiocarbon dating and, most importantly, of treering calibration, forced the collapse of this entire framework (Renfrew
1973). It became apparent that megaliths in Ireland were built at around
the same time as the Iberian monuments from which they were
supposedly derived, and that megaliths in Brittany were significantly
earlier than any in the Mediterranean. Radiocarbon dating itself provided
a new chronological framework, but a new explanatory framework was
also needed. For archaeologists working within the framework of the
culture-historical approach, cultural changes (including the appearance of
megaliths) were to be explained by reference to historical events, such as
5
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 1.2 The distribution of European megaliths at c. 3500 cal. BC.
migrations or invasions: similar developments in different areas were
taken as evidence that the two areas were affected by a single event. With
the development of the calibrated radiocarbon chronology, it became
necessary to explain the independent appearance of similar monuments
in different areas.
The development of radiocarbon dating and tree-ring calibration
coincided chronologically with a series of important developments in
theoretical archaeology. American archaeologists in particular (cf. Binford
1962) were questioning the validity of the culture-historical approach on
fundamental philosophical grounds. For Binford, and other advocates of
the ‘New Archaeology’, the culture-historical approach had no
explanatory value: it was not sufficient, they argued, todescribe the past in
6
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY
terms of historical events, rather it was necessary to explain the cultural
processes behind these events. Similar developments in different areas,
therefore, need not indicate a connection between the two areas: it might
simply be that similar cultural processes gave rise to parallel
developments.
A Processual’ approach was employed by Renfrew (1976) in attempting
to explain the appearance of megaliths along the Atlantic façade of
Europe. Renfrew argues that the Atlantic coastline was already an area of
relatively high population density before the introduction of agriculture,
the resources of the land and sea combining to provide a rich resource base
for Mesolithic communities. With the spread of farming, the ocean
constituted a barrier to the expansion of Neolithic communities, leading to
a further build-up of population in coastal areas. This in turn resulted in
pressure on land and, in Renfrew’s model, the megaliths were built in
response to this. Megaliths were territorial markers, built by Neolithic
communities to stake a claim to a particular piece of land, and to legitimise
this claim by reference to the ancestors. Similar monuments appeared in
Iberia, Armorica, Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia, not because of the
diffusion of people or ideas, but because similar social processes were
operating in these areas, and because the monuments served a similar
social function.
RECENT APPROACHES TO MEGALITHIC STUDIES
Early processual models relied heavily on functionalist interpretations:
monuments were interpreted in terms of their social ‘function’ (e.g. as
territorial markers) in relation to factors such as demography, land use,
human ecology and social structure. The shift away from concerns with
chronology and culture history towards concerns with social function and
culture process required a new package of analytical methods. If
monuments were to be seen as territorial markers, it was necessary to
develop some means of establishing the size and boundaries of prehistoric
territories. Techniques of spatial analysis, including the use of Thiessen
polygons, were borrowed from Social Geography. In its simplest form this
involves the construction of a hypothetical polygonal territory around a
monument by drawing lines at the midway points between the site in
question and other contemporary monuments. In more sophisticated
models, the polygons are ‘weighted’ to take account of factors such as
access to the coast and the distribution of resources and natural features.
Renfrew’s (1973) reconstruction of territories around megalithic tombs on
the island of Rousay (Orkney) is an example of the application of Thiessen
polygons (figure 1.3). This approach depends upon certain important
assumptions: firstly it is necessary to assume that the monuments in
question are indeedcontemporary with one another and, secondly, we
7
STATEMENTS IN STONE
must assume that we have a relatively complete distribution pattern with
no significant number of destroyed or undiscovered monuments. The use
of Thiessen polygons also assumes that all monuments on a distribution
map have similar importance: thus if we were attempting to plot
‘territories’ around Christian places of worship, for example, no
distinction would be made between a cathedral and a chapel. Renfrew
and Level (1979) have attempted to address this problem by developing a
mathematical model (the XTENT model) to plot territories, taking account
of possible hierarchies between sites by considering the relative sizes of
monuments as well as the distances between them.
Figure 1.3 Distribution of megaliths on Rousay (Orkney) with suggested tribal
territories (after Renfrew 1979).
8
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY
Many processual models have attempted to relate the appearance of
megalithic monuments to demographic factors, and this requires some
means of estimating population size ranges for prehistoric societies. This
is notoriously difficult, but it is possible on the basis of experimental
research to estimate the minimum number of people that would be
required to build a particular monument, and this can give some clues as
to the minimum size of the community concerned. The maximum size of a
population can be estimated in relation to the carrying capacity of the land
itself. Both estimates presuppose an understanding of the level of
technology available to prehistoric communities. Calculating the
minimum number of individuals and the total number of man-hours
required to build a monument can also give an indication of the relative
importance of particular monuments in a given landscape. Experimental
research has been used to estimate the minimum number of people (figure
1.4) required to move stones of a given size over a given distance
(Atkinson 1961, Erasmus 1965) and to calculate the number of man-hours
(figure 1.5) required to build rubble mounds (Renfrew 1979). Where large
stones are involved, it is relatively easy to calculate the minimum size of
the working team required to move and erect them. With rubble
structures, such as Cairns, it is much more difficult: we may calculate that
the construction of a particular mound required 1000 man-days of work,
but we have no means of knowing whether it was built by 100 people in 10
days or by 500 people in 2 days.
Having estimated the size of a working team, we may want to go on to
estimate the total size of the community: this will always be larger than the
team size, since certain groups of people (infants, pregnant women, the
elderly and infirm) are unlikely to have contributed much physical work
in the construction of stone monuments. If a large monument was built
over an extended time period, the majority of the population would need
to be engaged in food production to support themselves and the working
team. It is difficult to establish, however, whether the working team
corresponds to 5 per cent, 20 per cent or 50 per cent of the population. It is
often assumed (though perhaps not always on good grounds) that most of
the work was done by adult men, and that most adult men contributed:
skeletal studies (cf. Hedges 1983) suggest that adult men constituted 20–25
per cent of a Neolithic population, and this figure fits well with
ethnographic evidence.
The attempt to identify cultural process necessarily involves a
consideration of change through time, and a diachronic approach is
central to many Processual models. In looking at megalithic monuments
in Orkney, for example, Renfrew (1979) identifies two main phases: the
first phase is characterised by the construction of relatively small
monuments, each representing an individual community of early farmers,
whilst the second phase is marked by the appearance of much larger
9
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 1.4 Minimum numbers of people required to move a stone of a given
weight (based on Mohen’s 1980 experiment).
monuments, serving wider territories. This is interpreted by Renfrew as
evidence for increasing centralisation of power.
During the early 1980s, many of the tenets of Processual Archaeology
came under attack. Members of the Cambridge Poststructuralist group
(cf. Hodder ed. 1982, Miller and Tilley eds 1984) in particular criticised
the ‘New Archaeology’ for what they saw as its functionalism and
materialist reductionism. Processual approaches, it was argued, had
stressed the ‘function’ of monuments, rituals and social institutions, and
ignored their meaning. For archaeologists working within the Poststructuralist tradition, structural analysis is seen as the key to
understanding cultural meaning in the archaeological record. Culture, it
is argued, is essentially communicative, and is constructed in a
10
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY
Figure 1.5 Labour estimates for the construction of rubble cairns (based on
Renfrew’s 1979 estimate that a man takes 11.25 hours to excavate a cubic yard of
hard rock, and on Mohen’s 1980 estimate that a man can transport 100 kg of rubble
per day: a weight of 2 tonnes per cubic metre and an 8-hour working day are
assumed).
meaningful way: material culture could thus be compared to a text, with
symbols and a coherent structure.
The inspiration for this approach comes from the Structuraliste
anthropology of Lévi-Strauss (cf. 1955). In Lévi-Strauss’ work, culture is
considered to be organised in terms of binary oppositions, such as male/
female, life/death and culture/nature. These oppositions may have a
conceptual equivalence (e.g. female is to male as culture is to nature)
which is expressed in the juxtaposition of symbols in material culture.
These rules constitute the ‘grammar’ in relation to which symbols are
structured and organised. The symbols themselves are culture-specific,
but for Lévi-Strauss the ‘grammar’ is universal and derives from the
structure of the human brain. The Structuraliste paradigm is essentially
11
STATEMENTS IN STONE
ahistorical: the ‘grammar’ is considered to be fixed and unchanging, and
Lévi-Strauss offers no framework for the explanation of historical change
(indeed he argues that many societies are static and have no history). The
long-term perspective of the archaeologist almost invariably places
emphasis on change through time, and for this reason Structuralisme per se
has had a limited influence. More influential have been Poststructuralist
approaches, often based on Giddens’ (1979) theory of ‘Structuration’.
Unlike Lévi-Strauss, Giddens is concerned with change through time, and
his approach places greater emphasis on praxis (the conscious actions of
individuals in a society). According to Giddens, communication implies a
deliberate act, and symbols are intentionally structured to communicate
something. Communicative acts are not only culturally specific but are
also situated in a given social and historical context: they are not passive
reflections of a universal structure but active interventions which can
contribute to socio-historical change.
The methodological basis of Poststructuralist approaches in
archaeology is structural analysis. All aspects of human culture, from
religion and burial practices to material culture, settlement structure and
rubbish disposal, are considered to have a symbolic, communicative
dimension. The principle of structural analysis is to look for patterning
in the way in which symbols are structured and combined with one
another, in an attempt to ‘decode’ the meaning of the communicative
act. Some Poststructuralist work on megaliths focuses on the
morphology and setting of monuments (Fleming 1973, Hodder 1984,
Thomas and Whittle 1986), whilst other works emphasise depositional
practice and the organisation of human remains (Shanks and Tilley 1982,
Tilley 1984). Hodder (1984), for example, identifies eight structural
similarities between the design of European Early Neolithic long
mounds and that of contemporary houses, and argues from this that the
tombs represent symbolic transformations of houses. Both houses and
long mounds are trapezoidal in shape, and Hodder notes that artefacts
associated with domestic life and with women are concentrated at the
narrow end, arguing that the structure of both tombs and houses relates
to a sexual division of space, labour and status. Shanks and Tilley (1982)
focus on the structured deposition of human remains within the
chambers of Scandinavian megaliths, noting that the remains are
disarticulated, and that bones from the right and left sides and from the
upper and lower parts of the body are stacked separately from one
another. This is seen by Shanks and Tilley as a deliberate deconstruction
of the individual in burial and the symbolic construction of an artificial
social whole.
Although all aspects of human behaviour can be considered to have a
symbolic dimension, some categories of evidence are particularly well
suited to structural analysis. This is certainly the case with prehistoric art,
12
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY
as Leroi-Gourhan (1968) demonstrated in his classic study of Upper
Palaeolithic cave art in Western Europe. Leroi-Gourhan noted regular
patterns of association between depictions of particular animal species
(for example, ibex, horse and deer are often depicted together, as are bison
and oxen). Certain animals are most frequently depicted near the cave
entrance (notably horse, ibex and deer), whilst others (bison and oxen) are
absent from these areas. In the large, central galleries of the caves, animals
of both groups are found, often opposing one another (particularly horse
and bison), and Leroi-Gourhan argues that one group of animals (ibex,
horse and deer) represent a ‘male’ principle whilst the other group is
‘female’. This approach of analysing the juxtaposition and spatial
organisation of symbols may have a role to play in the study of megalithic
art.
Recent work on symbolism (Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988) has led
to the identification of ‘entoptic’ motifs: these are argued to be universal
abstract patterns, produced by the human brain in states of altered
consciousness such as trances and narcosis. Bradley (1989) has identified
such patterns in Breton and Irish megalithic art, and this may provide
important clues to the contexts in which this art was conceived and
produced.
A third approach, which combines elements of both Processual and
Poststructuralist interpretations, draws its inspiration from French NeoMarxist anthropology (cf. Meillassoux 1964, Godelier 1973). Neo-Marxist
approaches are ‘Processual’ in that they are concerned with processes of
cultural change, but they differ from the approach of orthodox ‘Processual
Archaeology’ in their conceptualisation of these processes. The ‘New
Archaeology’ was concerned (particularly in its early stages) with the
processes by which human communities adapted themselves to their
environment, whereas Neo-Marxist approaches are more concerned with
the internal dynamics of human societies. Whilst ‘Processual’
archaeologists are often concerned with the social function of monuments
(e.g. as territorial markers) in relation to the community as a whole, NeoMarxist approaches emphasise the possible significance of the
monuments in relation to sectional interests within a community.
Symbolism and meaning (often ignored in more conventional Processual
approaches) are central to many Neo-Marxist interpretations, and
structural analysis is often employed. In Neo-Marxist approaches,
however, it is not symbolism itself that is emphasised, but its social and
ideological significance: symbolism is an active force which may be used
to legitimise the authority of a ruling elite or, conversely, to undermine
that authority. Shanks and Tilley (1982), for example, note that in
Scandinavian megaliths, individual skeletons are deliberately
deconstructed in favour of an arrangement whereby bones from the right
and left sides and from the upper and lower parts of the body are stacked
13
STATEMENTS IN STONE
in separate parts of the chamber: this is interpreted as an ideological
strategy to mask and disguise social inequality by de-emphasising the
privileged status of some individuals and creating an illusion of equality.
In all Neo-Marxist approaches, the emphasis is on social relations, and on
the processes by which unequal relations are established, maintained and
transformed. Religion is considered to play a key role in these processes,
so that megalithic monuments may be of particular interest. Bender (1985)
compares prehistoric developments in Brittany and the American MidContinent, focusing in particular on the evidence for monumental ritual,
and in both areas she identifies a sequence of changes which are
interpreted in terms of changing social relations and ideology. Bender
argues that the passage graves of Brittany (see chapter 4) are structured in
such a way as to restrict access, and this she interprets as evidence for the
control of ritual practice by an elite group (perhaps elders, or a dominant
lineage). The Grand Tumulus monuments of Southern Brittany (see chapter
5), which overlap in date with the passage graves, are characterised by
lavish depositions of rare items, suggesting a marked degree of social
differentiation. In the second half of the fourth millennium BC, the
construction of passage graves and Grand Tumulus monuments ceased,
and new types of monument appeared in Brittany. Foremost amongst
these new monuments are the gallery graves (see chapter 7): these have a
more open structure than the earlier tombs, and the depositions found
within them show little evidence for social differentiation. Bender argues,
therefore, that the changes in monumental ritual in Brittany during the
fourth millennium BC relate to more fundamental social transformations:
specifically the collapse of a pre-existing power structure based on control
of ritual practice.
The above discussion offers only the most cursory introduction to the
theoretical approaches that have influenced recent work on megalithic
monuments. In theoretical terms Processual, Poststructuralist and NeoMarxist approaches are relatively easy to define, but in practice there is
considerable overlap between them.
These theoretical developments have been most influential among
archaeologists working in the United States, the British Isles and
Scandinavia and, until recently, ‘social archaeology’ has had little impact
on archaeologists working in France, Germany or Southern Europe. The
difference between these two traditions is largely an epistemological one,
and central to this discussion is the question of the empirical basis of
archaeological interpretations. Archaeologists are not in the business of
writing historical novels, and some empirical basis is necessary if
archaeological interpretations are to be distinguished from fantasy or pure
speculation. The prevailing trend among archaeologists in France,
Germany and Southern Europe has been to adopt a fairly strict empirical
view which discourages any theoretical extensions beyond observed data.
14
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY
Christopher Hawkes (1954) argued for a ‘Ladder of Inference’: at the
bottom of the ‘ladder ’ are questions of typology, chronology and
technology, which are relatively easy to infer from the observed data, and
at the top of the ladder are questions relating to the beliefs and thought
systems of ancient peoples, whilst questions of economy and social
structure lay between the two. As with any ladder, the lower rungs are the
safest, and the inference is that we can say a great deal about chronology
and typology, rather less about economy and social structure and very
little about the religious beliefs of past societies. We can characterise this as
a pessimistic view of archaeological knowledge. The recent theoretical
developments briefly outlined above have been characterised by
increasingly optimistic perceptions of the boundaries of archaeological
knowledge: archaeologists working within the Processual,
Poststructuralist and Neo-Marxist traditions have focused on precisely
those aspects of prehistoric societies which cannot be directly ‘observed’
(e.g. demography, social structure, religious beliefs and ideology). This
optimism has required the adoption of a new epistemology (a general
theory of knowledge) which has been characterised as ‘Realist’ (cf. Wylie
1982). The basis of a Realist approach is the assertion that all scientific
knowledge involves theoretical extensions beyond the observed data: the
data can only be explained in the context of theoretical models, which give
order to the data by accounting for factors assumed to have been
instrumental in generating them. The procedure to be followed, then, is
one of:
Trying out different explanatory ways of conceptualising the data
…to see if, when the data are conceived as the outcome of one type of
mechanism rather than another, they are better integrated or take on
more intelligible form.
(Wylie 1982, p. 42)
A strict empirical approach would deny the value of such models, on the
grounds that the material evidence is insufficient to justify this level of
speculation. Wylie insists, however, that a rigid empirical approach such
as this would, if consistently held, rule out physics as a scientific
enterprise, and call most established scientific theory into question.
Realism does not give a licence for unlimited speculation, since models are
developed to explain real patterns identified in the observed data. The
general scientific principle of Occam’s Razor, ‘entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitatem’ (neither more, nor more complex, causes are to be
assumed than are necessary to account for the phenomena), also applies,
so that the preferred model will always be the simplest model which
explains all the relevant facts in a coherent way. This Realist epistemology
is, explicitly or implicitly, the theoretical starting point for most
15
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Processual, Poststructuralist and Neo-Marxist interpretations of
megalithic monuments, and it is the starting point for the discussion in
this book.
Although the theoretical approaches outlined in this chapter have
emerged primarily from literature published in English, it would be
entirely misleading to present a picture of a ‘forward looking’ sociallyorientated archaeology in Britain and the United States, and a backward
looking archaeology in France, Germany and elsewhere, focusing
exclusively on questions of typology and chronology. The reality is that
only a minority of archaeologists in Britain, America, France, Germany or
elsewhere have been concerned with such theoretical questions. There is
a significant body of theoretical literature published in French (cf. Gallay
1989) and the approaches represented in the literature are distinctly
different from those published in English, tending to focus less on social
questions and more on the structure of archaeological explanations.
There is often little communication between the theoreticians and the
practitioners of archaeology, so that published accounts of sites and
material are often not informed by current theoretical approaches, and
this gulf is particularly marked in Francophone archaeology (Gallay op.
cit.). The most noticeable exception to this is in the work of André LeroiGourhan (1968) and his associates (cf. Leroi-Gourhan and Brezillon 1972),
which has focused on the Upper Palaeolithic. It remains true, therefore,
that the French literature on the Armorican Neolithic has not addressed
the theoretical questions outlined above, and it is in an attempt to address
these questions that this book has been written.
MONUMENTS AND SOCIETY IN NEOLITHIC BRITTANY
In most general discussion of European megaliths (cf. Daniel 1958),
Brittany has been seen as one of the core areas: the number of individual
monuments and the diversity of monument types set Brittany apart from
most other regions, and radiocarbon dates suggest that Brittany has some
of the earliest stone monuments in Europe (Giot et al. 1979). The
megaliths of Brittany also cover a considerable period of time: the earliest
monuments date to the first quarter of the fifth millennium cal. BC,
whilst the most recent date to the second half of the third millennium cal.
BC. It is possible to trace a continuous development of megalithic
traditions in the Armorican region over a period of almost 3000 years,
something which is possible in very few regions. Because of this, the
megaliths of Armorica are particularly well suited to the theoretical
approaches discussed above.
The aim of this book is to place the various megalithic traditions of the
Armorican region in social context, and to develop a diachronic overview
of changing monumental traditions during the Neolithic period. It is not
16
MEGALITHS AND SOCIETY
written from the exclusive perspective of any one ‘school’ (e.g. Processual,
Poststructuralist or Neo-Marxist): these approaches focus on different
aspects of past societies (e.g. demography, cultural meaning and social
relations) which are closely related to one another and which cannot
therefore be considered in isolation.
Chapter 2 deals with stone axe exchange which, as we will see, is so
closely linked to megalithic ritual that it must be considered as part of the
background to this book. Chapters 3–7 deal in turn with particular groups
of monuments in broadly chronological order, whilst chapter 8 presents a
diachronic overview, relating the changing megalithic traditions of the
Armorican region to the social dynamics of the communities which built
the monuments.
17
2
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION AND
SPHERES OF INTERACTION
Stone axe exchange in the
Armorican Neolithic
It may seem strange to begin a book on megalithic monuments with a
chapter on stone axe exchange, but the archaeological evidence suggests a
close link between axe exchange and megalithic ritual throughout the
Armorican Neolithic. Stone axes are frequently found in the chambers of
megalithic monuments and carved representations of axes are among the
most common motifs in Armorican megalithic art. The megalithic stone
circle of Er Lannic is an important ceremonial site, which seems also to
have served as a production and distribution centre for fibrolite axes. In
attempting to understand the social significance of Armorican megaliths,
this link between ritual practice and exchange may prove particularly
important. In order to understand this link, however, it is necessary first to
consider the social organisation of axe production and exchange, and the
relationship between the axe as tool and the axe as symbol in Armorican
Neolithic society.
Since the development of petrological characterisation techniques,
stone axe exchange has been recognised as an important feature of the
European Neolithic. Production centres or ‘axe factories’ have been
identified in Northern France (Le Roux 1970, 1979a), Britain (Clough and
Cummins eds 1979, 1988), Ireland (Jope 1952, Sheridan 1986) and the
Channel Islands (Patton 1991a and in press), and axes produced at these
centres have been found many miles away from the factories themselves,
showing that the axes circulated within extensive networks of interaction
and exchange. In some cases this exchange can be understood in relatively
simple economic terms: axes were produced in areas with high quality
stone, and ‘exported’ to areas lacking in such resources. In other cases,
however, there is no obvious economic reason for exchange: virtually all
Neolithic communities in the Armorican region would have had easy
access to rock suitable for axe production, and in the Channel Islands, for
example (Patton 1991a), where around 32 per cent of stone axes are of rock
18
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION, SPHERES OF INTERACTION
types foreign to the islands themselves, the imported axes are in no way
functionally superior to those produced locally. In such cases, it is
tempting to suggest a more complex social reason for stone axe exchange.
In the New Guinea highlands, where stone axe exchange is recorded in an
ethnographic context (Chappell 1966, Strathern 1969), axes from
particular sources played an important role in socially significant
transactions such as bridewealth payments and gifts associated with
initiation ceremonies. The objects exchanged in transactions such as this
may be working tools, and may in fact be used, but functional criteria may
nonetheless be of secondary importance in defining their value and
‘appropriateness’ for a given transaction. Aesthetic criteria, the origin and
individual history of an object may all be significant, often in the context of
mythico-religious associations.
AXE PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE IN THE
ARMORICAN NEOLITHIC
The evidence for axe production and exchange in North-western France
has been extensively discussed by Cogné and Giot (1952) and Le Roux
(1979a), and only a brief summary will be given here. Throughout the
Neolithic period, Armorican communities made and used axes of locally
available rock. In addition to this local procurement, axes from certain
sources circulated within a wider regional exchange network (figure 2.1).
These sources seem not to be equal in their importance: axes from some
sources are found in considerable numbers over a very wide area, whilst
axes from other sources have more restricted distributions. Other sources
produced axes which are found over a wide area, but never in large
quantities.
In numerical terms, axes of Type A dolerite from the factory of
Plussulien (Côtes d’Armor) are by far the most important (Le Roux 1970,
1979a), accounting for over 40 per cent of axes found in Brittany and 30–40
per cent of axes from the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy. Axes of Type A
dolerite have been found as far away as the Pyrenees, the Rhône valley
and Alsace, and four examples are known from England.
The precise source of fibrolite axes is unknown, but fibrolite occurs
around the entrance to the Golfe du Morbihan in Southern Brittany, and at
the north-western tip of the Armorican peninsula (Cogné and Giot, op.
cit.). Particularly high concentrations of fibrolite axes have been recorded
in these areas (25–30 per cent of the total assemblage): elsewhere in
Brittany the numbers are smaller, but still significant (10–20 per cent).
Around 5 per cent of the axes recorded in the Armorican region are of
pyroxeneite rocks: these are difficult to distinguish from one another
without petrological analysis, but axes of both jadeite and eclogite have
been identified (Cogné and Giot, op. cit.). Eclogite axes almost certainly
19
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 2.1 Stone axe production centres in Armorica (after Patton 1991b).
come from a source in the département of Loire-Atlantique, possibly from
an outcrop which lies to the North of Nantes (Le Roux 1979a). The source
of jadeite is unknown, but an Alpine origin seems likely on geological
grounds (Bishop et al. 1978). Jadeite axes have a pan-European distribution
pattern (Campbell-Smith 1965) but unlike, for example, axes of Type A
dolerite, they do not occur in very large numbers in any area. This suggests
that jadeite axes were relatively valuable items, which were exchanged
over long distances, but which were used and deposited only in special
contexts.
Cogné and Giot (1952) estimate that flint axes account for around 3 per
cent of the total axe assemblage in Brittany, and although precise figures
are not available for the Cotentin peninsula (the Norman département of
Manche), it is clear that flint axes account for a much higher proportion of
the Cotentin assemblage. In the Channel Islands, flint axes make up
around 10 per cent of the total assemblage (Patton 1991a). The majority of
flint axes found in the Armorican area were undoubtedly made at
20
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION, SPHERES OF INTERACTION
production centres around the Plain of Caen (Edeine 1961, Desloges 1986)
and in the Paris Basin (Bailloud 1964, Bulard et al. 1986, Watte 1986). In the
Paris Basin, flint axes are by far the most common, and the Armorican
region lies on the periphery of this distribution pattern.
Axes of Type B epidiorite, from the southern edge of the Montagnes
Noires (Cogné and Giot 1952), have a much more restricted distribution,
and probably had a purely local significance. These axes are concentrated
in Southern Brittany, where they form 5–12 per cent of the total axe
assemblage: in the North of Brittany they account for less than 3 per cent of
the sample.
Recent research has demonstrated the existence of an axe production
centre at Le Pinacle, Jersey (Renouf and Urry 1986, Patton 1987a and in
press), and ‘Type P’ dolerite axes produced at Le Pinacle have been
identified in assemblages from Guernsey, Sark and Alderney as well as
Jersey. Axes of Type P dolerite, however, seem not to be found on the
Armorican mainland.
The chronology of axe production poses its own problems: some
sources seem to have produced axes throughout the Neolithic whilst
others may have functioned for a much shorter period of time. The
production of fibrolite and pyroxeneite axes seems to cover the entire
Neolithic period, from the mid-fifth millennium down to the late third
millennium cal. BC (Le Roux 1979a): these axes are found in the earliest
dated megaliths, but also in monuments of Final Neolithic date. Flint,
likewise, was probably used throughout the Neolithic period: an early
origin is suggested by the radiocarbon date (5660 ± 190 BP=4770–4340
cal. BC: Ly-3680) from the flint mine of Bretteville-le-Rabet, Calvados
(Desloges 1986), but flint axes are also found in the Late Neolithic (c.
3250–2850 cal. BC) gallery graves of the Paris Basin (Bailloud 1964). Axes
of Type A dolerite are not found in the earliest passage graves (Le Roux
1979a) and the radiocarbon dates from the ‘factory’ of Plussulien itself
suggests that axe production did not begin there until the end of the fifth
millennium cal. BC. There is evidence for increasingly specialised and
intensive exploitation of this site through time: the earliest extraction
seems to have involved digging pits to recover blocks of stone already
detached and embedded in clay, whereas subsequent exploitation
involved quarrying of massive outcrops and ultimately the use of fire to
detach blocks (Le Roux 1970). The production centre of Le Pinacle, Jersey
(Patton 1987a and in press) seems to have functioned for a relatively
short period of time during the Early Neolithic (c. 4800–4250 cal. BC),
though it is possible that the production centre moved and that axes of
‘Type P’ dolerite continued to be made at a nearby (and as yet unknown)
location.
21
STATEMENTS IN STONE
THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF AXE PRODUCTION
We can distinguish between two basic categories of stone axe in the
Armorican Neolithic: axes produced locally by communities for their own
use, and axes produced at particular centres for wider distribution. Since
axes in the latter category were produced only at a small number of
centres, this must correspond to a distinction between Neolithic
communities: communities which produced axes only for their own use,
and those which also produced axes for exchange. In some areas,
particularly those lacking in suitable raw materials, there may be a third
category of communities which did not produce axes at all.
The evidence for axe production is more limited than the evidence for
exchange. Most of the rock types mentioned above can be traced to source
areas or even outcrops, but only three of these rock types (Type A and Type
P dolerite and fibrolite) can be traced to actual production sites (several
production sites for flint axes have been identified, but all of these lie
outside the Armorican region). Of the known production centres in Northwestern France, that at Plussulien (the source of Type A dolerite) is by far
the most important: this was undoubtedly the largest production centre in
the region, and detailed excavation by Le Roux (1970) provided much
important information. The sites of Er Lannic and Le Pinacle (production
centres for fibrolite and Type P dolerite respectively) have both suffered at
the hands of early excavators (Le Rouzic 1930a, Godfray and Burdo 1949).
The excavators of Le Pinacle (Godfray and Burdo op. cit.) did not recognise
the site as an axe production centre, and discarded dolerite waste without
recording it in any detail.
Le Roux (1979a) has made a series of calculations based on the
evidence from Plussulien. He estimates the total volume of dolerite
waste on the site to be around 60,000 m3. Assuming (on the basis of
experimental research) that axe production corresponds to around 1 per
cent of the rock quarried, and assuming an average axe size of 100 cm3,
this corresponds to the manufacture of around six million axes during
the lifetime of the ‘factory’. The radiocarbon dates from Plussulien (Le
Roux 1970) suggest a period of full activity of around 1200 years, and
this allows us to calculate an average annual output of 5000 axes.
Production on this scale is likely to have been undertaken by people
who were at least part-time specialists, and this is to some extent
reflected in the quality of the finished products, particularly the fine
‘button axes’ (figure 2.2) which were produced at Plussulien during the
second half of the fourth millennium cal. BC. Experimental research
suggests that axes could be made at an approximate rate of one per
person per day, thus an annual output of 5000 axes would require 5000
person-days of work. Le Roux (1979a) suggests that this could
correspond to a team of twenty people working 250 days per year,
22
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION, SPHERES OF INTERACTION
Figure 2.2 ‘Button axe’ from the Plussulien factory, found in Jersey (drawing by
Gillian Kay).
though it may of course represent a larger team working for a more
restricted period. Figure 2.3 shows possible team sizes and working
periods. The size of the working community would, of course, be larger
than the actual team size, since there would be dependent relatives: Le
Roux (1979a) suggests a coefficient of 3–4 (based on demographic data
cited by Young 1971), which would give a community of 60–80 people.
This community of specialists would obviously need to be fed. Le Roux
(1979a) estimates that the proportion of such specialised work possible
in a Neolithic community would be around 5 per cent, roughly the
equivalent of one day’s work per month or two weeks per year.
Assuming that annual production at Plussulien required 5000 persondays of work and that this corresponds to 5 per cent of the total working
time in the supporting population, we arrive at a figure of 100,000
person-days as the total annual working time of this population.
Assuming a working year of 250 days, and based on the coefficient of 3–
4, this gives us a minimum size for the supporting population of 1200–
1600 people.
The site of Er Lannic is particularly important because the evidence
suggests that axes were made (or at least finished) on a major ceremonial
23
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 2.3 Estimates for team size and annual working times for the Plussulien axe
factory (based on Le Roux 1979a).
site. The site itself is a double stone circle (figure 2.4). Le Rouzic’s (1930a)
excavations revealed a series of hearths, which were interpreted as ritual
features, associated with large quantities of pottery (including fragments
of at least 162 vase-supports). The assemblage from the site also includes 27
fibrolite axes and 47 fragments, as well as 11 other polished axes and 152
fragments. This is by any standards an exceptionally large assemblage of
axes and axe fragments. Unfinished axes of both fibrolite and Type A
dolerite are present, along with polishing tools, suggesting that the site
was involved in the production of stone axes.
Fibrolite does not occur naturally on Er Lannic itself, but it does occur in
the area of Port-Navalo, only 2 km away. It seems likely that fibrolite
rough-outs were brought to Er Lannic from Port-Navalo, and that the site
served as a production and distribution centre for fibrolite axes. This
suggests an important link between axe production and megalithic ritual,
which is reinforced by the presence of carved representations of axes on
two of the stones which make up the Er Lannic monument (Shee-Twohig
1981, figure 181).
The site of Le Pinacle is situated at the foot of a massive natural outcrop
24
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION, SPHERES OF INTERACTION
Figure 2.4 The site of Er Lannic (Morbihan).
of granite (pl. 2.1). Dolerite was apparently quarried from one or more of
the sills which outcrop in the immediate vicinity of the site, and axes were
produced on the narrow strip of land which connects the granite outcrop
to the headland forming the north-western corner of Jersey (Godfray and
Burdo 1949, Patton 1987a and in press). The granite outcrop which gives
the site its name is one of the most prominent landmarks on the north
coast of Jersey, and the location of the ‘factory’ site in relation to this
feature may be significant. Bradley and Ford (1986), in discussing the axe
production centre of Langdale, Cumbria, have stressed that the outcrops
chosen as the sources of raw material are generally in spectacular and
often inaccessible locations, and we can perhaps see Le Pinacle as a
comparable example: given the evidence for later (Chalcolithic, Bronze
Age, Iron Age and Gallo-Roman) ritual activity on the site (Patton 1987a) it
seems likely that the massive granite outcrop was a significant feature of
the sacred geography of the Channel Islands.
25
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Plate 2.1 The Early Neolithic axe factory site of Le Pinacle, Jersey
The evidence from Er Lannic and Le Pinacle suggests that religious
factors may have influenced the location of axe production centres. A
further factor was undoubtedly the physical properties of the available
stone: axes of Type A dolerite, Type B epidiorite, jadeite, fibrolite, eclogite
and flint may not be functionally superior to locally made diorite and
dolerite axes, but they are visually distinctive and can be recognised quite
easily. In looking at the production and exchange of stone axes in the New
Guinea highlands, Chappell (1966) and Strathern (1969) have both drawn
attention to informants’ abilities to distinguish by eye between axes from
different sources, stating that the exchange value of an axe depends in
many cases upon its origin: in experiments, Chappell (1966) found that
informants’ classification of stone axes corresponded to petrological
identifications in 65–70 per cent of cases.
To summarise the above discussion, it seems reasonable to distinguish
between axes made locally by individual communities, and axes which
circulated in extensive regional exchange systems. These two categories of
axes must in some way have had different values. The production of axes
in the latter category took place only at a few centres and was presumably
26
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION, SPHERES OF INTERACTION
controlled by the social groups which occupied that land. The axes
produced at these centres are easily recognisable. The location of axe
production centres was partly determined by the nature of the available
stone, but religious considerations seem also to be significant, and there
appears to be an important link between axe production and megalithic
ritual. The production of axes at these centres was probably in the hands of
full- or part-time specialists.
THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF AXE EXCHANGE
In looking at the evidence for Neolithic Europe as a whole, it is clear that
some areas have abundant resources of rock suitable for the manufacture
of stone axes, whilst other areas are entirely lacking in such resources:
under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that axes were
exchanged. The evidence for the Armorican area, however, is more
problematic: the Armorican massif consists largely of hard igneous and
metamorphic rocks, and almost every community would have had access
to rock suitable for the manufacture of stone axes. The axes that were
exchanged are not superior in any functional sense to those produced
locally by individual communities, yet even in the Channel Islands,
where there is certainly no shortage of suitable stone, and where the
acquisition of mainland axes involved a potentially hazardous sea
journey, Neolithic communities obtained a significant proportion of their
axes by exchange. We have also seen that there is some evidence for a link
between axe production and exchange and megalithic ritual: at Er
Lannic, fibrolite axes were apparently made or finished at an important
megalithic site, and religious factors may also have influenced the
location of the Pinacle ‘factory’ in Jersey. More generally, stone axes are
frequently found in the chambers of megalithic monuments, and
carvings of axes are found on the walls of passage graves and gallery
graves (chapters 4–6).
We may get some clues to the significance of stone axe exchange in the
Armorican Neolithic by looking at ethnographic evidence. Phillips (1979)
discusses stone axe exchange in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands,
and lists bridewealth presentations, funeral payments and ceremonial
exchange as important contexts in which axes are exchanged. Chappell
(1966) states that only axes from certain sources were considered
appropriate for transactions of this nature, where the origin, individual
‘history’ and mythico-religious associations of an object are often more
important than functional criteria.
Transactions of this nature may have considerable importance in the
mediation of social relations within and between communities.
Meillassoux (1967) has argued that time delays between labour
investment and return are intrinsic to agricultural production, and that the
27
STATEMENTS IN STONE
labour involved in clearance and cultivation creates inter-generational
bonds of dependence, favouring the development of a hierarchy between
‘those who come before’ (the ancestors and elders) and ‘those who come
after ’ (cf. Kahn 1981). These inter-generational bonds involve
asymmetrical relations, which may be mediated and institutionalised
through the control of ritual practice and of access to socially valued
material items. According to Meillassoux the power of elders within a
community is often based on their ability to control the access of younger
men to potential wives (‘control of the means of reproduction’). Through
this control, elders are able to make demands on the labour and allegiance
of younger men. In many societies, men are only allowed to marry after
they have undergone some form of initiation ceremony, marking their
transition from boyhood to manhood. This initiation typically involves the
passing on of sacred knowledge, controlled by the elders, and may also
involve payment by the initiate to ritual specialists or particular relatives:
the form of such payments is in most cases strictly determined by
convention, and access to the appropriate valuables is controlled by the
elders. Marriage itself may involve further payments, notably
‘bridewealth’ (payment by the groom to the bride’s relatives): valuables
involved in a bridewealth system are acquired by elders (on the marriage
of their daughters, or the girls of their lineage), who are then able to
control the access of young men to potential brides through their
possession of these objects, thus reinforcing the asymmetrical nature of
inter-generational bonds. The objects which circulate in exchange systems
such as this often have symbolic or mythico-religious significance, though
they may also be functional tools.
Exchange systems of this nature may have considerable significance in
terms of social dynamics. Under certain circumstances, a successful or
dominant lineage may demand higher bride-prices than other groups: this
may enable such a group to accumulate bridewealth valuables, and thus to
acquire more women in the context of polygynous marriages. This
increases the labour-pool in the dominant lineage, allowing it to produce a
greater surplus, thus accelerating the development of social differentiation
(cf. Friedman and Rowlands 1977). We can perhaps see evidence for this
process in the Grand Tumulus monuments of Southern Brittany (chapter 5).
This small group of particularly large and impressive mounds, occurring
only in a limited area around the Golfe du Morbihan, is characterised by
lavish depositions of stone axes and variscite necklaces. The axes are
predominantly of rare materials, such as jadeite, chloromelanite and
fibrolite, and they include types of ceremonial axe not found in other
monuments. It seems clear that these monuments relate to a high-status
social group, and that the particular forms of axe and necklace associated
with these monuments were significant as symbols of this group’s status
and power. The monuments appear to represent a localised development
28
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION, SPHERES OF INTERACTION
of marked social differentiation, which can perhaps be understood in
relation to the model outlined above.
In some special circumstances, certain communities may have been
able to control the access of other groups to the regional interaction
network, leading to the development of inter-communal and interregional asymmetry. This seems to have been the case in the Channel
Islands (Patton 1991b). There is a marked fall-off between Jersey and
Guernsey in terms of the proportion of imported axes, and a further falloff between Guernsey and Sark (axes of mainland origin make up 44 per
cent of the stone axe assemblage from Jersey, 27 per cent of the
assemblage from Guernsey and 13 per cent of the assemblage from Sark).
This fall-off can probably be understood in relation to the geography of
the islands (figure 2.5). Jersey is much closer to the mainland than
Guernsey (24 km compared with 48 km), while the distance between the
two islands is relatively small (28 km). The main tidal flow in the area
runs alternately from north to south and from south to north, depending
on the state of the tide, and this tidal stream is particularly fast (up to 7
knots). Sailing between the Channel Islands and the Cotentin can pose
particular problems, since it involves crossing the tidal stream, and
accurate navigation would probably only be possible if a journey could
be completed within a single tide. For this reason, it is likely that
communities in Guernsey acquired mainland axes via Jersey rather than
directly from Cotentin communities, and this could explain the observed
fall-off pattern. If communities in Guernsey were dependent on Jersey
communities for access to socially valued objects, then Jersey
communities may have conducted transactions on terms beneficial to
themselves, and we might expect to see some evidence for inter-island
asymmetry associated with this. We can in fact identify such evidence in
the archaeological record, both in terms of the size and location of
megalithic monuments and in the distribution of particular artefact types
(chapter 4).
AXE SYMBOLISM AND MEGALITHIC RITUAL
As we have already seen, the stone axe seems to have had a symbolic
significance as well as a practical importance for Armorican Neolithic
communities. Stone axes are frequently found in the chambers of
megalithic monuments, and carved representations of axes are among
the most common motifs in Armorican megalithic art, being found on
menhirs (chapter 3) and on the walls of passage graves (chapter 4) and
gallery graves (chapter 6). The evidence from Er Lannic suggests that
religious factors may have been significant in the production of stone
axes.
The fact that stone axes and carved representations of axes are
29
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 2.5 Stone axe exchange networks in the Channel Islands (after Patton
1991b).
frequently found in funerary contexts suggests that axe symbolism had
meaning in relation to the ancestors, death and the past. Following
Meillassoux’s (1967) argument, it is not difficult to see how the stone axe,
the main instrument of clearance and cultivation in Neolithic society,
could become a key symbol in an ideology concerned to stress intergenerational bonds and obligations in relation to ritual practice and the
ancestors.
Contextual analysis may provide further clues to the significance of axe
symbolism in the Neolithic of North-western France. Kinnes (1980) has
drawn attention to the spatial separation of carved representations of axes
and female figures in the rock-cut tombs of the Late Neolithic period in the
Paris Basin, and he tentatively suggests that axes are in some sense a ‘male’
attribute. This same separation can be noted in Armorican gallery graves
such as Mogau-Bihan (see chapter 6) where female figures are found in the
antechamber and an axe motif in the main chamber.
A deposition found in the chamber of the Grand Tumulus monument of
30
CENTRES OF PRODUCTION, SPHERES OF INTERACTION
Plate 2.2 Ritual deposition of an axe, polished stone ring and variscite pendants
from Mané-er-Hroëk
Figure 2.6 ‘Hafted axe’ carving at Gavrinis (after Le Roux 1982).
Mané-er-Hroëk (see chapter 5) suggests a more explicit axe/phallus
association: a large chloromelanite axe was placed on the floor of the
chamber, with its pointed butt-end resting on a polished stone ring and
two spherical pendants placed at the blade end, one on either side of the
axe (pl. 2.2). An essentially similar symbolism is suggested by the recently
discovered carving of a ‘hafted axe’ (Le Roux 1982) in the passage grave of
Gavrinis (figure 2.6). In a general sense, this symbolism can be considered
to express an ideological link between production and reproduction: the
31
STATEMENTS IN STONE
axe as the means of agricultural production is linked to the phallus, the
means of biological reproduction, and the fertility of the land (harnessed
to human use through clearance with stone axes) is linked to human
virility (Patton 1991b). Meillassoux (1967) argues that the power of tribal
elders is often based upon control of ritual practice and control over the
circulation of socially valued material items. In the case of the Armorican
Neolithic, we could suggest that the axe functioned as a symbol linking
these two aspects of power. The axe seems to have been both a religious
symbol and an item of exchange as well as a functional tool. Axe
symbolism in Armorican megaliths seems to have a sexual dimension,
perhaps linked to the role of exchange in the control of reproduction, and
to an ideological emphasis on inter-generational bonds and obligations.
The social formation was thus constituted and rationalised in symbolic
terms.
DISCUSSION
The aim of this chapter has been to develop an outline for a model of stone
axe exchange in the Armorican Neolithic, relating the evidence for axe
production and exchange to the evidence for axe symbolism in megalithic
ritual. As we have seen ritual and exchange in the Armorican Neolithic are
closely linked, and can only be understood in relation to one another. It
makes sense to consider the evidence for stone axe exchange first, because
this evidence relates to the entire Neolithic period: megalithic architecture
and ritual practice changed considerably during the period covered by
this book, but stone axe exchange remained important throughout. The
evidence for stone axe exchange in the Armorican Neolithic complements
the evidence for megalithic ritual: the model outlined in this chapter has
much broader social implications, and will serve as the basis for much of
the discussion in subsequent chapters.
32
3
LONG MOUNDS AND
GIANT MENHIRS
Ritual landscapes of the first farmers
Recent excavations in Brittany have radically altered our vision of the
earliest Neolithic in the Armorican area, and have shed important new
light on the origins of the megalithic traditions of North-western France.
Until recently, it had been thought (cf. Giot et al. 1979) that the earliest
megaliths in the region were simple passage graves, such as those found at
Barnenez and Ile Guennoc (Finistère) and at Kercado (Morbihan). Then, in
an important paper, L’Helgouach (1983) presented evidence to suggest
that some of these simple passage graves (notably Mané-Rutual and La
Table des Marchand at Locmariaquer, Morbihan) incorporated broken
fragments of earlier decorated menhirs. Positive proof for this suggestion
was provided only a year later, when Le Roux (1984) discovered carvings
on the upper face of one of the capstones of the passage grave of Gavrinis
(Larmor-Baden, Morbihan). The carvings on the Gavrinis capstone fit
with those on the Table des Marchand capstone, previously discussed by
L’Helgouach: these two capstones are fragments of a single carved
menhir.
Most recently, excavations at La Table des Marchand (L’Helgouach and
Cassen in press) have revealed evidence for activity on the site prior to the
construction of the passage grave itself. Excavation of the precairn horizon
revealed postholes and hearths and, most importantly, construction pits
for menhirs, apparently removed before the construction of the passage
grave. One menhir alone seems to have remained in position, and this was
incorporated as the end-stone of the passage grave. The pottery found in
this pre-cairn horizon is quite different to that found in the passage graves
themselves, and the decoration includes motifs (notably the ‘crook’ motif)
which are also found as carvings on the re-used menhir fragments in the
passage graves of La Table des Marchand and Gavrinis.
These discoveries have prompted a more general reconsideration of
Armorican megalithic chronology. One problem in Breton prehistory has
always been the dating of the tertres tumulaires, long mounds such as Le
33
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Manio and Kerlescan (Carnac, Morbihan). These long mounds are poorly
understood, both because of the inadequacy of early excavations and
because they have produced very little archaeological material. The small
amount of material that has been found, however, suggests that these
monuments, like the decorated menhirs of Locmariaquer, may belong to a
very early phase (Boujot and Cassen in press). Some confirmation of this
comes from the recently excavated passage grave complex at Le Petit
Mont (Arzon, Morbihan), where the primary cairn was apparently built
over an earlier long mound (Lecornec in press).
In the light of these recent developments, it seems necessary to revise
our whole conception of megalithic origins in the Armorican region. This
question of megalithic origins, however, is so closely linked to more
general considerations of ‘Neolithisation’ that it is necessary first to
consider the processes by which the Neolithic way of life became
established in the Armorican region.
THE ORIGINS OF THE NEOLITHIC IN ATLANTIC EUROPE
Following Thomsen’s introduction of the three-age system (Stone, Bronze
and Iron Ages) in the mid-nineteenth century (Daniel 1975), the ‘Stone
Age’ was subdivided into an ‘Age of Chipped Stone’ and an ‘Age of
Polished Stone’. The distinction between Palaeolithic and Neolithic,
therefore, was initially conceived as a technological one. Childe (1925), in
discussing the ‘Neolithic Revolution’, shifted the focus from technology to
economy, emphasising the importance of food production (agriculture
and animal husbandry) to human social and cultural evolution. The
current definition of the ‘Neolithic’ incorporates both dimensions: the
beginning of the Neolithic (at least in North-western Europe) is marked
both by economic changes (the adoption of cereal cultivation and stockraising) and by technological ones (the appearance of pottery and
polished stone tools). In Atlantic Europe (though not in the Western
Mediterranean) these developments seem to form part of a distinct
‘package’, which is also marked by the appearance of megalithic
monuments.
According to Childe (1925), the economic and technological
developments which make up the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ first occurred in
the Near East. From the ‘fertile crescent’, it was argued, the Neolithic way
of life spread through Anatolia to the Balkans and on into Europe. In
explaining the spread of the Neolithic from the Balkans into Europe, two
separate routes were identified (figure 3.1): a land route up the valleys of
the Danube and Rhine (giving rise to the ‘Linear Pottery Cultures’) and a
sea route to the Mediterranean coasts of Italy, France and Spain (giving
rise to the Impressed Pottery Cultures’). The earliest Neolithic of the
Atlantic zone was considered to represent a later expansion of the Linear
34
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
Figure 3.1 Early Neolithic traditions in Europe:
1 Balkan Neolithic (painted pottery); 2 Linear pottery; 3 Impressed wares.
Pottery and Impressed Pottery traditions, with some degree of fusion
between them (Piggott 1965).
Despite the ‘processual’ reaction against diffusionist approaches in
general (cf. Renfrew 1973), this model is, in many respects, still applicable.
Radiocarbon dates show that cereal cultivation, stock raising and ceramic
technology appeared earlier in the Near East than in Europe and, since the
wild progenitors of domesticated cereals did not exist naturally in Europe,
an entirely local development of the ‘Neolithic package’ can be ruled out.
Whilst there is a broad consensus that the Neolithic package was in some
sense ‘diffused’ from the Near East into Europe via Anatolia and the
Balkans, the processes by which this diffusion happened remain the
subject of debate: some argue for a movement of people, others for a
transmission of ideas with exchange of animals and seeds between
groups. Closely linked to this debate is the question of the role played by
indigenous Mesolithic communities in the spread of the Neolithic way of
life. The most coherent argument in favour of population movement has
been made by Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza (1971), who plotted the
35
STATEMENTS IN STONE
radiocarbon dates for the earliest Neolithic on a map of Europe, and
identified a ‘wave of advance’ from the Near East through Anatolia into
Europe. Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza then produced a mathematical
model to show that the observed pattern and rate of spread could be
understood as the cumulative effect of relatively small population
movements with each generation. Assuming that the spread of the
Neolithic package into Europe did involve a movement of people, these
settlers would obviously have come into contact with indigenous
Mesolithic communities, and the relationship between settlers and natives
would have been an important factor in determining the cultural
trajectory of a given area.
Recent work on economy and social structure (cf. Bender 1985) has
stressed that food production is not a prerequisite for the development of
social complexity and that, under certain circumstances, hunter-gatherers
may develop large settled communities and complex social institutions.
Renfrew (1976) argues for the emergence of such groups along the Atlantic
façade of Europe at the end of the Mesolithic period, based on the
exploitation of abundant (and seasonally stable) marine resources. In
Renfrew’s model, the Atlantic constituted a barrier to the geographical
expansion of Neolithic communities, and the merging of groups of
Neolithic settlers with the already large Mesolithic populations resulted in
demographic pressure, in response to which the megaliths were built as
‘territorial markers’. Kinnes (1982) develops an essentially similar model,
placing the megalithic traditions of the Atlantic façade in an ‘impact zone’
between intrusive Neolithic groups and coastal Mesolithic communities
(figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2 The ‘Impact Zone’ and tomb origins (after Kinnes 1982).
36
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
Renfrew’s model is essentially a functionalist one: megaliths are to be
understood in terms of their social ‘function’ as regulators of demographic
stress. Population pressure, caused by geographical factors, is elevated to
the status of ‘prime mover’.
A functionalist model such as this can neither explain the genesis of a
phenomenon (it seems difficult to imagine a group of Neolithic people
sitting round and deciding ‘we have a population problem, and if we
build a stone monument that will solve it’), nor the specific form it takes
(why megaliths and why a particular type of megalith?). This does not
mean that the model itself is invalid, but it does mean that it can only
provide a partial explanation of the phenomenon in question.
Megaliths may well have functioned in some sense as ‘territorial
markers’, but they cannot be reduced to that function. They are, first and
foremost, a product of relations between people, built and used in the
context of particular social institutions. In attempting to understand the
appearance of megaliths along the Atlantic façade of Europe, it will
certainly be necessary to consider relations between intrusive and
indigenous groups, but demography will only be one factor in this
consideration. Inter-group relations will depend, to a very large extent, on
the internal social structure of the groups concerned.
THE EARLIEST NEOLITHIC IN NORTH-WESTERN FRANCE
As far as the Early Neolithic sequence is concerned, North-western France
can in most respects be seen as a microcosm of the Atlantic façade more
generally. In terms of Kinnes’ (1982) model, the area lies directly on the
‘impact zone’.
The ‘intrusive’ Neolithic element is provided by the Epi-Bandkeramik
sequence of the Paris Basin (Constantin 1985). Constantin identifies a
series of ceramic groups (figure 3.3) within this sequence, and the
distribution maps (figure 3.4) combine with the radiocarbon dates (figure
3.5) to present a picture of a westward moving ‘wave of advance’.
According to Constantin (op. cit.) and Kinnes (1986), the Channel Islands
mark the westernmost extension of this tradition.
The ‘indigenous’ element is provided by the coastal Mesolithic
communities of Brittany (Kayser 1984). In Southern Brittany, where the
evidence for the Final Mesolithic is best preserved and best understood, it
is clear that large, settled coastal communities were in existence by the
second half of the sixth millennium cal. BC. Coastal settlements have been
excavated at Téviec (Péquart et al. 1937) and Hoëdic (Péquart and Péquart
1954), Morbihan, and at La Torche (Kayser 1984), Finistère. At Téviec and
Hoëdic, the settlements were associated with cemeteries, which provide
evidence for complex mortuary practices involving a degree of social
differentiation. At Téviec, ten graves were found, containing the remains
37
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 3.3 Epi-Bandkeramik pottery traditions in the Paris Basin
(after Constantin 1985).
of twenty-three skeletons: the bodies themselves had been placed in pits
(one to six individuals per pit), which are in some cases lined and covered
with stone slabs. Fires were apparently lit on the capstones, which were
later covered by small cairns. The cemetery at Hoëdic is essentially similar,
with nine graves containing the remains of fourteen individuals. Grave
goods at Téviec and Hoëdic include fine flint blades, bone pins, shell
beads, ochre and antler. At Téviec, two burials were distinguished by the
presence of a ‘beehive’ of antlers placed over the body, whilst at Hoëdic,
38
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
one grave was singled out by a deposition of worked antler pieces around
the head of the individual. The radiocarbon dates from Hoëdic (6575 ± 350
BP=5500–5110 cal. BC: GSY-227) and La Torche (5970±80BP=5060–4770
cal. BC: Grn-2001) place these sites at the very end of the Mesolithic
period.
In most of the published literature (cf. Giot et al. 1979), the Carn group
of Brittany is cited as the earliest Neolithic of the Armorican region. This
group is characterised by simple passage graves, and the associated
ceramic assemblages (figure 3.6) are dominated by globular and
hemispherical vessels, mostly undecorated but occasionally with applied
‘moustaches’. The radiocarbon dates from chamber G at Barnenez (5750
±150 BP=4790–4460 cal. BC: Gif-310) and chamber IIIc at Ile Guennoc
(5800±300 BP=5010–4360 cal. BC: Gif-165) suggest a date for this group in
the mid-fifth millennium cal. BC. Since neither the monument forms nor
the ceramic assemblages can be paralleled in the ‘intrusive’ Neolithic of
the Paris Basin (i.e. the Epi-Bandkeramik sequence, cf. figures 3.3, 3.4), the
Carn group has been seen as an essentially local development, an
adaptation of the Neolithic package by indigenous populations which
remained culturally distinct.
The most recent archaeological discoveries have changed this picture
somewhat. In both the Channel Islands and Southern Brittany, recent
excavations have provided evidence for a Neolithic horizon which predates the passage graves of those areas. In both cases, the pottery
Figure 3.4 The Epi-Bandkeramik expansion in Northern France:
1 Late Bandkeramik; 2 Villeneuve-St-Germain; 3 Cerny
(based on Constantin 1985).
39
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 3.5 Radiocarbon dates from Epi-Bandkeramik contexts in Northern France:
1 Late Bandkeramik; 2 Villeneuve-St-Germain; 3 Cerny.
associated with these early horizons is quite different to that found in the
passage graves. At Les Fouaillages, Guernsey (Kinnes 1982), a megalithic
long barrow was found to be associated with pottery of what has come to
be known as the Pinacle/Fouaillages group (Patton 1987a and in press):
this pottery (figure 3.7) has clear affinities in the Epi-Bandkeramik
sequence of the Paris Basin, specifically in the Cerny group. The
radiocarbon dates from Les Fouaillages (5850±100 BP= 4880–4600 cal. BC;
BM-1892R/5900±110 BP=4930–4700 cal. BC; BM-1893/5670±170
BP=4760–3930 cal. BC; BM-1894R) place the site at the very beginning of
the Neolithic sequence. The pre-cairn horizon at La Table des Marchand,
Locmariaquer (L’Helgouach and Cassen in press) produced pottery of the
Castellic group (cf. Bailloud 1975). The dating of this group (which is
specific to Southern Brittany) has always been problematic, but the
stratigraphic evidence from La Table des Marchand permits us to assign it
40
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
to a relatively early stage. The pre-cairn horizon at La Table des Marchand
has produced two radiocarbon dates (5040 ± 70 BP=3960–3730 cal. BC; Gif7555/5170±70 BP=4020–3820 cal. BC; Gif-7554).
There are certain points of similarity between the ceramic assemblage
from the pre-cairn horizon at La Table des Marchand and the Channel
Island assemblages of the Pinacle/Fouaillages group, notably the
presence of grooved decoration in the form of garlands (figure 3.7 a-b),
and the presence of carinated vessels with simple impressed decoration
around the shoulder (figure 3.7 c-d). The importance of the ceramic
assemblage from La Table des Marchand is that it is the first assemblage of
the Castellic group to be recovered from a sealed, stratified context, and
this discovery has prompted a more general reconsideration of the
relationships between the Castellic group of Southern Brittany, the
Pinacle/Fouaillages group of the Channel Islands and the EpiBandkeramik traditions of the Paris Basin (Patton in press). The
relationships between these three ceramic traditions are summarised by
figure 3.8. The number of typological elements shared by all three groups
(cf. figures 3.3, 3.7, 3.9) suggests that the Pinacle/Fouaillages and Castellic
groups should both be seen as belonging to the Epi-Bandkeramik
complex. There is a chronological problem here, since the only dated
Figure 3.6 Pottery from Ile Carn (after Giot 1987).
41
Figure 3.7 Pottery from Le Pinacle, Jersey (drawings by Gillian Kay).
Figure 3.8 (a) Typological elements of Pinacle/Fouaillages assemblages (Patton in
press); F1–3 Forms, D1–9 Decoration, A1–6 Handles and Lugs, (b) Occurrence of
these motifs in Cerny, Pinacle/Fouaillages and Castellic assemblages; A Elements
shared by Cerny and Pinacle/Fouaillages, B Elements shared by all three groups,
C Elements shared by Pinacle/Fouaillages and Castellic
Figure 3.9 Castellic pottery from Le Lizo (a) and Er Lannic (b-g)
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
assemblage of the Castellic group seems, on the evidence of the
radiocarbon dates, to be somewhat later in date than assemblages of the
Pinacle/Fouaillages and Cerny groups. The Table des Marchand
assemblage, however, is not altogether typical of the Castellic group (it
lacks, for example, the incised rims, the repoussé buttons and the grooved
handles which link other Castellic assemblages to the Epi-Bandkeramik
complex), and it is possible that it belongs to a relatively late stage in the
Castellic sequence.
This digression into the field of ceramic typology suggests that the
influence of the Epi-Bandkeramik tradition in the Armorican region may
have been greater than has previously been thought, and this must be
borne in mind in considering the processes by which the Neolithic way of
life (and with it, megalithic ritual) became established in this region. There
does appear to be a degree of regional differentiation: the Castellic group is
almost exclusively confined to the département of Morbihan in Southern
Brittany, and there is very little evidence for Epi-Bandkeramik influence
elsewhere in Brittany. In Western Brittany in particular, the picture has
changed little, and the Carn group still seems to represent the earliest
Neolithic. Recent discoveries (e.g. at Plouer-sur-Rance in the Côtes
d’Armor and at St-Just in Ille-et-Vilaine) show a sparse scatter of material
of possible Epi-Bandkeramik affinities (Tinevez in press, Briard in press) in
North-eastern and East-Central Brittany. In discussing the Neolithisation
of Armorica, therefore, it may be possible to adapt Kinnes’ (1982) model
(figure 3.2) to distinguish between a ‘core’ zone, extending from the
Channel Islands southwards to the Morbihan, marked by a significant
‘intrusive’ element, and a peripheral zone, extending around the western
coast of Brittany from Southern Finistère to the Côtes d’Armor. The social
and cultural significance of this regional distinction is a more complex
question, to which we will return. It may reflect an intrusive population in
the ‘core’ area, but equally it could relate to differential acculturation in
two indigenous populations.
The most recent research suggests that this regional distinction is
reflected in the distribution of particular monument forms. Recent
excavations in Southern Brittany and the Channel Islands suggest the
existence of a pre-passage grave ritual landscape, dominated by long
mounds and (at least in Southern Brittany) by massive decorated
menhirs.
RITUAL LANDSCAPES OF THE FIRST FARMERS
The evidence for a pre-passage grave ritual landscape in some areas of the
Armorican massif relates essentially to two classes of monument, the long
mounds (tertres tumulaires allongées) and decorated menhirs.
The existence of the long mounds was recognised in the nineteenth
45
STATEMENTS IN STONE
century (cf. Luco 1883), and many of the monuments in this group were
excavated in the early twentieth century (cf. Le Rouzic et al. 1923). These
monuments, however, are poorly understood, partly because of the
inadequacies of early excavation techniques, but also because most of the
excavated sites have produced only a very small quantity of material.
Their chronology has always been problematic, and they have generally
been assigned to the fourth millennium cal. BC (Giot et al. 1979), though
on very limited evidence. Recent excavations at Les Fouaillages,
Guernsey (Kinnes 1982) revealed a megalithic long mound, the first such
monument to be excavated in the Armorican region in recent years. The
ceramic assemblage from this site clearly belongs to the Epi-Bandkeramik
complex, and the radiocarbon dates place the site in the early to mid-fifth
millennium cal. BC. Reconsideration of the ceramic sequences from
Southern Brittany (Patton in press) permits us to revise the dating of the
long mounds in this area also: the ceramic assemblages from the long
mounds of Mané-Pochat, Mané-Ty-Ec, Le Manio, Kerlescan and Le
Castellic all belong to the Castellic group, and include typological
elements which link them to the Epi-Bandkeramik complex. Finally, at Le
Petit Mont (Arzon, Morbihan), a long mound was found sealed beneath
the primary cairn of a passage grave complex (Lecornec in press),
confirming the early date of these monuments.
The decorated menhirs are known principally as fragments re-used in
the construction of passage graves, and this re-use demonstrates that the
menhirs themselves must have been standing before the passage graves
were built. These fragments are decorated in a characteristic style, which
can be distinguished from later traditions of megalithic art. There are a
number of decorated menhirs still standing in the Armorican region, and
these are extremely difficult to date: some are decorated in the style of the
early menhirs, whilst others carry motifs which are probably later. At
Locmariaquer (L’Helgouach and Cassen in press), the evidence suggests a
complex of decorated menhirs, most of which appear to have been
deliberately destroyed during the Neolithic, and the fragments re-used in
the construction of later monuments. One of the Locmariaquer menhirs,
however, is still standing and has been re-used in place as the end-stone of
the Table des Marchand passage grave. The largest of the Locmariaquer
menhirs, the Grand Menhir Brisé, though no longer standing, is still visible
on the site, and was probably too large to re-use in the construction of a
later monument.
The long mounds and decorated menhirs exist only in a restricted area
(figure 3.10) and are most densely concentrated in Southern Brittany, at
the western end of the Golfe du Morbihan.
46
Figure 3.10 Distribution of Early Neolithic long mounds (a)
and decorated menhirs (b)
STATEMENTS IN STONE
THE LONG MOUNDS
The long mounds of the Armorican area fall into several distinct regional
groups (Briard in press). The best-known group is concentrated around
Carnac in Southern Brittany, and includes the monuments of ManéPochat, Mané-Ty-Ec, Le Manio, Kerlescan and Le Castellic (Piggott 1937).
These monuments all suffered at the hands of early excavators (Luco 1883,
Le Rouzic et al. 1923). Two monuments are known from the commune of
Arzon, a few kilometres to the south-west of Carnac on the other side of
the Golfe du Morbihan: the long mound of Le Petit Mont (Lecornec in
press) and the monument of Bilgroix (Le Roux 1979b). A third group is
concentrated in the interior of Eastern Brittany, and includes the
monuments of La Croix St-Pierre (Milon and Giot 1954) and La CroixMadame (Briard in press) at St-Just, Ille-et-Vilaine, and Le Jardin-auxMoines at Néant-sur-Yvel, Morbihan (Briard 1989). A number of
monuments have been identified in the area of Coëby, on the Landes de
Lanvaux (Gouezin in press), but none of these has been excavated. There is
a single monument in Northern Brittany, Notre Dame de Lorette at
Quillio, Côtes d’Armor (Giot 1956), and another in Guernsey, the site of
Les Fouaillages (Kinnes 1982).
These monuments must be distinguished from long mounds of
the Grand Tumulus series (see chapter 5), such as Le Tumulus-StMichel and Mané-Lud, which are very much larger, and which are
distinguished by lavish depositions of variscite beads and jadeite and
fibrolite axes.
The tertres tumulaires are typically rectangular or trapezoidal (Les
Fouaillages is axe-shaped), defined by a setting of relatively small stone
slabs. The mounds themselves are low (1–3 metres in height), and where
internal structures are found, these generally take the form of small cairns
and cists. Most of these features would not have been accessible after the
construction of the mounds themselves, so in their initial phase the
monuments must have been open ceremonial enclosures, though whether
this phase lasted for a few days, a few years or several centuries is difficult
to establish on the present evidence. Whilst the long mounds certainly
appear to have been ceremonial structures, there is no clear evidence for a
specifically funerary function, and none of the sites has produced human
remains.
There is a significant degree of regional variation in the morphology of
these monuments. The Carnac monuments form the most coherent group
(figures 3.11–3.12), consisting of trapezoidal settings of small slabs or
drystone walling, in most cases enclosing multiple features such as cists,
cairns and hearths. The monument of Les Fouaillages, Guernsey (figure
3.14a) is in some respects similar, though it is axe-shaped rather than
trapezoidal, and is small in comparison with the Carnac monuments. In
48
Figure 3.11 (a) Le Manio 1; (b) Le Manio 3; (c) Mané-Ty-Ec
Figure 3.12 (a) Mané-Pochat; (b) Kerlescan; (c) Castellic
Figure 3.13 (a) La Croix-St-Pierre (after Milon and Giot 1954); (b) Le Jardin-auxMoines (after Briard 1989); (c) La Croix-Madame
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 3.14 (a) Les Fouaillages (after Kinnes 1982); (b) Notre Dame de Lorette (after
Giot 1956)
the Arzon group, the Petit Mont long mound appears to be a simple earth
mound with neither a stone setting nor internal structures, whilst the
Bilgroix monument seems to have enclosed at least three irregular cairns
and two small rectangular cists (Le Roux 1979b). The monuments of the
Breton interior (figure 3.13) seem to have few internal structures: a single
quartz block at La Croix-St-Pierre and, at Le Jardin-aux-Moines, two
dividing walls, a hearth and a small stone setting. The monument of La
Croix-St-Pierre has a recumbent slab at the foot of each upright of the
peristalith (figure 3.13a). The long mound of Le Quillio was found to be
extensively damaged, but the stones of the peristalith are much larger than
those of the other monuments (figure 3.14b).
Despite these regional variations, there are important similarities. Most
52
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
of the monuments have a broadly east-west orientation, and the
trapezoidal monuments are generally wider at their Eastern end (figures
3.11–3.14). In terms of chronology, where positive dating evidence has
been found, this almost invariably points to a date within the fifth
millennium cal. BC: the ceramic assemblages from Le Manio 1, Mané-TyEc, Mané-Pochat, Kerlescan, Le Castellic, La Croix-St-Pierre and Les
Fouaillages include typological elements which link them to the EpiBandkeramik tradition, and this link is reinforced by the radiocarbon
dates (figure 3.18) from Les Fouaillages (see above) and Le Petit Mont
(5650±70 BP=4685–4405 cal. BC; Gy-6844).
The internal structures found within the Breton long mounds can be
categorised as follows:
A Small cairns (up to 2 metres in diameter), usually covering a simple cist.
These often contain flints and small pottery fragments (as at Le Manio
1), but rarely anything more. Charcoal is frequently a component of the
fill of these structures (this is recorded at Le Manio 1, Mané-Ty-Ec and
Le Castellic) and in some cases the cists themselves appear to have been
damaged by fire, suggesting that material was burnt in these structures.
B Drystone or megalithic chambers, generally small (3–6 m2) and in some
cases covered by a capstone. One of the (unroofed) megalithic
chambers at Les Fouaillages contained pottery, whilst the chamber at Le
Manio 1 (covered by a slab decorated with a carving of a hafted axe)
contained charcoal and small quantities of pottery and flint.
C Simple rectangular cists, sometimes containing charcoal, pottery and
flints.
D Pits: at Le Manio 1, a pit was found to be filled with stones and black
earth, mixed with charcoal.
E Recumbent stones, as at La Croix-St-Pierre. At Le Manio 1, a low wall
formed a semi-circular setting around a centrally placed recumbent
slab.
F Menhirs, as at Le Manio 1, where a deposition of five polished axes and
a quartz pendant was found at the foot of a menhir decorated with
carved serpentine motifs. At Les Fouaillages, two menhirs were
incorporated in the construction of one of the megalithic chambers.
G Circular platforms of flat stones.
H Hearths.
I Internal divisions, in the form of low walls (figures 3.11b and 3.13b).
Table 3.1 shows the occurrence of these features in the long mounds of the
Armorican region.
In comparison with other categories of monument, the long mounds
are relatively modest monumental constructions. With the exceptions of
Le Quillio and the single Menhir at Le Manio 1, these mounds do not
53
STATEMENTS IN STONE
incorporate massive stones, and the stones that were used for the
construction of the peristalith and internal features could in most cases
have been moved and erected by a team of twenty people or less. In
their initial phase (i.e. prior to the construction of the mounds
themselves), these monuments must have been open arenas, enclosing
multiple and diverse foci of ritual activity. It would have been possible
for relatively large numbers of people to stand around the enclosure
witnessing, if not participating in, whatever ceremonies were
conducted within.
In terms of the organisation of space within the enclosures, there seems
in many cases to be a distinction between the western end and the
(normally wider) eastern end. At Le Manio 1 (figure 3.11a) and Les
Fouaillages (figure 3.14a), the largest and most complex features are
concentrated at the eastern end. At La Croix-St-Pierre (figure 3.13a), the
recumbent quartz block, which seems to have been the main ritual focus,
is situated at the eastern end, as is the hearth at Le Jardin-aux-Moines
(figure 3.13b). At Le Castellic (figure 3.12c), there is a marked distinction
between the two ends, with a series of large hearths at the eastern end and
a series of small cairns to the west.
One of the problems with identifying evidence for ‘ritual’ or
‘ceremonial’ activities in the archaeological record is the fact that many
such activities, well attested in ethnographic contexts (e.g. dances, chants,
‘prayer’, processions, etc.), have no depositional component and thus
would leave little archaeological trace. For this reason, funerary ritual
(which necessarily involves the disposal of a corpse) is often
overemphasised. The absence of human remains in the Armorican long
mounds may simply reflect the predominance of acidic soils in this area,
Table 3.1 Structural features in Early Neolithic long mounds
54
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
but there is no clear evidence for any funerary function. Whatever rituals
were enacted in these monuments seem to have been largely nondepositional in character, since the quantity of artefacts found is in most
cases very small. At Le Castellic and Le Manio 1, most of the small cists
and cairns contained only charcoal, with small quantities of pottery and
flint (though it is recorded that nineteenth-century quarrymen recovered
large quantities of pottery from the site of Le Castellic). One of the cists at
Le Manio 1 (no. 52) contained two complete pots, and at Les Fouaillages,
pottery vessels were found on the stone platform and in one of the
megalithic chambers. Stone axes are rarely found in the long mounds:
apart from the deposition of fibrolite axes at the foot of the menhir at Le
Manio 1, a fibrolite axe was found in one of the cists at Kerlescan, and two
axe fragments were found at Bilgroix, though in an uncertain context. A
single fragment of a stone ring was found at La Croix-St-Pierre, and a
deposition of stone ring fragments was found at the western end of the
mound of Les Fouaillages. It is difficult to identify any consistent pattern
in these depositions.
The Armorican tertres belong to a broader tradition of North European
long mounds, which includes monuments in Northern Germany,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark and Southern England (Hodder 1984).
These monuments share a common trapezoidal or rectangular form and a
predominant east-west orientation, with the widest end (in trapezoidal
monuments) facing east in most cases. Unlike the Armorican long
mounds, most of the British and North European monuments are
explicitly funerary in function, incorporating graves or burial chambers. A
related group of monuments has come to light as a result of recent research
in the Paris Basin, Burgundy and Normandy. These monuments, as at
Passy-sur-Yonne (Thévenot 1985, Duhamel and Presteau 1987) are not
mounds but trapezoidal ditched enclosures, with simple pit graves at the
eastern end: the burials are associated with artefacts typical of the EpiBandkeramik tradition.
Hodder (1984), discussing the North European long mounds in
general terms, has identified a series of eight structural similarities
between these monuments and Early Neolithic long houses. This
suggestion has been reviewed and modified in a more recent work
(Hodder 1990). Several of Hodder’s general points apply to the
Armorican long mounds, notably the trapezoidal form, and the broadly
east-west orientation with the wider end facing east. Hodder also stresses
the linear division of space (which is found in some of the Breton
monuments, as at Le Jardin-aux-Moines and Le Manio 3) and the
position and elaboration of the entrance (most of the Armorican
monuments have no clear entrance). In his 1984 paper, Hodder argues
that the long mounds are symbolic transformations of houses, and that
the structure of both houses and tombs relates to a sexual division of
55
STATEMENTS IN STONE
space, labour and status. In his more recent book, however, he abandons
the hypothesis that the mounds are ‘transformations’ of houses, and
suggests instead a continuity of general cultural principles, in relation to
which both houses and tombs were constructed.
THE DECORATED MENHIRS
The decorated menhirs, which form the second element of this early ritual
landscape, are even more restricted in their distribution than the long
mounds (figure 3.10b), occurring only in the South Breton département of
Morbihan. This class of monuments is known primarily from fragments
re-used in the construction of later monuments, and was first identified in
papers by L’Helgouach (1983) and Le Roux (1984). L’Helgouach’s original
argument was based on the size and shape of the decorated capstones on
the passage graves of Mané-Rutual (figure 3.16) and La Table des
Marchand, and his ‘broken idol’ hypothesis was confirmed by Le Roux’s
(1984) discovery that capstones on the monuments of Gavrinis and La
Table des Marchand were in fact fragments of a single decorated stone.
Since the publication of the initial papers by L’Helgouach and Le Roux,
several more ‘broken idols’ have been recognised, and a total of eight
definite examples can now be identified.
The Grand Menhir Brisé at Locmariaquer (pl. 3.1). At 20.5 metres in
length, this is the largest menhir in Europe. It has fallen and is now in
four pieces.
2–4 Three capstones of the Mané-Rutual passage grave at Locmariaquer
(figure 3.15).
5
The menhir constituted by the two fragments now incorporated as
capstones at La Table des Marchand and Gavrinis. The capstone at Er
Grah is probably a third fragment of the same menhir (figure 3.16).
6
The stone which forms the end of the chamber in the passage grave
of La Table des Marchand (L’Helgouach and Cassen in press).
7
The stone which forms the floor of the chamber in the passage grave
of the phase 2 cairn at Le Petit Mont (Lecornec in press).
8
The broken stele incorporated in the blockage of the chamber in the
Grand Tumulus monument of Mané-er-Hroëk at Locmariaquer
(L’Helgouach 1983).
1
There are, additionally, a number of possible examples, including several
of the uprights at Le Petit Mont (Lecornec pers. comm.) and the floor slab
and capstone of the Mané-Lud passage grave (L’Helgouach pers.
comm.).
Most of these menhirs seem to have been deliberately pulled down in
Neolithic times, and the fact that the fragments have been incorporated in
56
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
Plate 3.1 Le Grand Menhir Brisé at Locmariaquer (Morbihan)
the construction of passage graves (La Table des Marchand, Gavrinis,
Mané-Rutual, Le Petit Mont) and Grand Tumulus monuments (Mané-erHroëk, and probably Er Grah) testifies to the early date of these menhirs.
Of the eight menhirs listed above, only one (no. 6) is still standing: this has
been incorporated in situ as an upright in the Table des Marchand passage
grave. It has been suggested (Hornsey 1987) that the Grand Menhir Brisé
broke under its own weight whilst it was being erected. Assuming that
this was the case, however, the present arrangement of the four fragments
suggests (Hornsey op. cit.) that the lower portion was then re-erected,
falling at a later date and in a different direction (probably at the same time
as the other menhirs were pulled down). This is the only stone which has
not been incorporated in the construction of a later monument.
Most of the monuments listed above are decorated with carvings,
drawn from a restricted range of motifs. This repertoire (figure 3.17)
includes representations of hafted axes (figure 3.17c), as well as motifs of
less certain significance, such as the so-called ‘axe-ploughs’ (figure 3.17b)
and the ‘écusson’ (figure 3.17g), usually interpreted as a stylised
anthropomorph (Shee-Twohig 1981). These motifs make up a definite
‘style’, which can be distinguished from later traditions of megalithic art:
the range of motifs on the decorated menhirs is more restricted, and the
motifs themselves are in many cases more naturalistic than, for example,
the carved motifs found in passage graves (see chapter 4). Many of the
57
STATEMENTS IN STONE
carved motifs on the decorated menhirs are also very large: the ‘bovids’ on
the Gavrinis fragment (figure 3.17d-e) are both around 2 metres in length,
whilst the ‘axe-plough’ on the same fragment is almost 3 metres long.
Bradley (1989) has pointed out that the motifs represented on the menhirs
are ‘peculiarly appropriate to the new [agricultural] mode of production’,
and the representations of cattle and hafted axes in particular certainly
suggest a concern with contemporary subsistence developments. Table 3.2
shows the occurrence of carved motifs on the menhirs already listed. To
this list we must add the standing menhir of Kermarquer at Moustoirac,
Morbihan (L’Helgouach and Lecornec 1969), which is decorated with
‘crook’ motifs similar to those on menhirs 5 and 6 in the above list and the
Figure 3.15 Menhirs re-used as capstones on the passage grave of Mané-Rutual
(after
58
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
Figure 3.16 Decorated menhir reconstructed from fragments at La Table des
Marchand, Er-Vinglé and Gavrinis (after Le Roux 1984)
menhir which stands at the eastern end of the Le Manio 1 long mound,
which is decorated with wavy-line or ‘serpentine’ motifs near its base.
There are many standing menhirs in Brittany, and it is possible that
some of these belong to the same complex, but in the absence of the
characteristic carved motifs or convincing dating evidence, it is impossible
to suggest this with any conviction. Most of the standing menhirs are not
decorated, and the motifs on the menhir of St-Sampson-sur-Rance
(Bender 1986) belong to a later tradition of megalithic art (see chapter 6).
Kinnes and Hibbs (1989) have suggested that one of the capstones of the
Déhus passage grave in Guernsey (decorated with an anthropomorphic
motif) may be a re-used menhir, but this claim is not entirely convincing,
and the anthropomorph certainly has no Breton parallels.
59
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Of the ten menhirs listed above, six are represented by fragments
incorporated in later monuments on the commune of Locmariaquer, the
peninsula which forms the western end of the Golfe du Morbihan. Recent
excavations at Locmariaquer itself suggest that most, if not all, of these
stones may originally have formed part of a single complex of decorated
menhirs (L’Helgouach and Cassen in press). Excavation of the passage
grave of La Table des Marchand revealed a land surface sealed beneath
Figure 3.17 Motifs from decorated menhirs (after Patton 1991d)
60
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
Table 3.2 Carved motifs on Early Neolithic decorated menhirs
Key to artistic motifs: A Hafted axe; B ‘Axe-Plough’; C ‘Ecusson’; D Horned animal; E ‘Crook’;
F Wavy line.
Figure 3.18 Radiocarbon dates from Les Fouaillages (1), Petit Mont (2) and
Locmariaquer (3)
61
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Table 3.3 Heights and estimated weights of Early Neolithic decorated menhirs
the cairn of this monument, and the decorated stone which now forms
the end of the chamber of this passage grave has been identified as a
standing menhir, associated with this pre-cairn horizon: the passage
grave seems, therefore, to have been built around the earlier standing
stone. Finds from the pre-cairn horizon include pottery of the Castellic
group, and one pottery vessel is decorated with ‘crook’ motifs identical to
those carved on the menhir (figure 3.17f). Also associated with this
horizon were hearths, postholes and, most significantly, the construction
pits for a series of menhirs in line with the Grand Menhir Brisé, which lies
only a few metres away from the passage grave of La Table des
Marchand, and from the Grand Tumulus monument of Er Grah, both of
which incorporate re-used menhir fragments. It seems clear, therefore,
that the passage grave of La Table des Marchand was built on the site of
an earlier ritual complex, consisting of several decorated menhirs, and
including the largest menhir in Europe. Charcoal from the hearths
associated with this complex has given two radiocarbon dates
(L’Helgouach and Cassen in press): 5040±70 BP= 3960–3730 cal. BC; Gif7555/5170±70 BP=4020–3820 cal. BC; Gif-7554. These dates place the
complex slightly later than the earliest long mounds (figure 3.18). The
relatively early date of the Locmariaquer complex may lead us to revise
the chronology of megalithic monuments in the Armorican region more
generally, particularly as regards the complexes of standing stones,
alignments and ‘cromlechs’ (stone circles), and this is a question to which
we shall return in chapter 5.
Table 3.3 shows the heights and estimated weights of the menhirs listed
above. Three of these menhirs, the Grand Menhir, the Gavrinis/ Table des
Marchand/Er Grah menhir and the largest of the Mané-Rutual capstones,
are particularly large. The transport and erection of such massive stones
must represent a considerable communal effort. The Grand Menhir weighs
62
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
an estimated 348 tonnes (Hornsey 1987), and on the basis of the
calculations summarised on figure 1.4, it would require a minimum workforce of around 2100 people to move such a stone along level ground,
using rollers and a wooden sledge. The stone itself is of granite which is
not local to the Locmariaquer area, and which possibly comes from the
area of Kerdaniel, 4 km to the north of Locmariaquer. Hornsey (op. cit.)
estimates that a team of 3800 people would have been required, pulling on
ropes, actually to erect the stone.
SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF A RITUAL LANDSCAPE
Although in most of the published literature (cf. Giot et al. 1979), the
passage graves are represented as the earliest megaliths of the Armorican
region, recent research has demonstrated the existence of a pre-passage
grave ritual landscape in Southern and Eastern Brittany, characterised by
long mounds and large decorated menhirs. These two groups of
monuments overlap with one another both geographically and
chronologically, but the menhirs are more restricted in distribution than
the long mounds (figure 3.10) and possibly appeared at a slightly later
date (figure 3.18). These monuments relate to a period of significant
socio-economic change, marked by the development of a new
(agricultural) mode of production, and it is appropriate at this stage to
explore the relationships between the appearance of monumental ritual,
the development of an agricultural economy and changing social
relations.
One factor that will certainly be relevant to this discussion is the nature
of relationships between agricultural and hunter-gatherer groups. If we
accept the empirical evidence (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1971) for a
‘wave of advance’ (whether this is interpreted as evidence for a
population movement or simply as a diffusion of techniques, crops and
livestock through interaction between groups), then we would expect to
see evidence for a ‘moving frontier ’ (cf. Alexander 1980) between
‘Neolithic’ and ‘Mesolithic’ communities. The nature of the interaction
between these communities will depend on the social structure of the
groups concerned.
As we have already seen, the influence of the ‘intrusive’ (EpiBandkeramik) element in the earliest Neolithic of Southern and Eastern
Brittany and the Channel Islands now appears more significant than was
previously thought. This Epi-Bandkeramik influence is reflected both in
the pottery styles of this area and in the structure of the long mounds
discussed in this chapter, and forms the basis of a regional distinction
between this ‘core’ area and a ‘peripheral’ zone (Northern and Western
Brittany), where the earliest Neolithic is quite different in character, with
few recognisably ‘intrusive’ elements. This regional dichotomy could be
63
STATEMENTS IN STONE
interpreted in two ways: it could reflect the presence of an intrusive
population in the ‘core’ zone or, alternatively, a differential process of
acculturation in two indigenous populations.
The evidence from Téviec (Péquart et al. 1937) and Hoëdic (Péquart and
Péquart 1954) suggests that the Mesolithic of Southern Brittany may have
been different in character to that of other regions, with larger, more
permanent settlements and a greater degree of social differentiation.
These communities may have been more ‘receptive’ to acculturation, since
competitive social relations within the indigenous population may have
been articulated through interaction with and emulation of neighbouring
Neolithic groups. Young men from Neolithic groups may have favoured
marriage with indigenous women since, as Dennell (1984) suggests: This
would…have allowed sub-adult and young males of farming
communities a more rapid route to economic autonomy than had they
obtained mates solely through endogamous means.’
Whatever processes were involved in the spread of the ‘Neolithic
package’, the adoption of an agricultural mode of production is likely to
have been associated with profound social change. Meillassoux (1967)
contrasts hunting and gathering societies, in which land is a ‘subject’ of
labour, with agricultural societies in which land is an ‘instrument’ of
labour, implying a time lapse between labour investment and return. The
labour involved in clearance and cultivation creates inter-generational
bonds of dependence, favouring the establishment of a hierarchy
between ‘those who come before’ (the ancestors and elders) and ‘those
who come after’. Social structure, however, is not simply determined by
the mode of subsistence. Bender (1985) argues that hunter-gatherers, like
farmers, may have built-in delays, and goes on to demonstrate the
existence of marked social differentiation in hunter-gatherer
communities of the American Mid-Continent. Changes in the mode of
subsistence may be as much an outcome as a cause of changes in social
structure (cf. Bender 1978). Whilst the precise relationships between
subsistence changes and social transformations at the beginning of the
Armorican Neolithic remain unclear, what is certain is that the fifth
millennium cal. BC was marked by profound changes both in terms of
subsistence and in terms of social organisation, and the development of
monumental ritual must be understood in the context of these
developments.
Meillassoux’s (1964, 1967) conceptualisation of social organisation in
tribal groups may be particularly helpful in understanding the social
structure of Armorican Neolithic communities. According to Meillassoux,
inter-generational asymmetries are often mediated through elders’ control
of ritual practice (often in relation to initiation ceremonies which a boy
must undergo before proceeding to manhood, economic independence
and marriage) and of socially valued material items (often required to pay
64
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
for initiation ceremonies and bridewealth presentations). This enables the
elders to control the access of younger men to potential wives (‘control of
the means of reproduction’), and through this control to make demands
on the labour of younger men. The adoption of an agricultural mode of
production is likely to have been associated with an intensification of
inter-generational asymmetries and, following Meillassoux’s argument,
we might expect this to be reflected in the archaeological record by
evidence for increasingly elaborate ritual practice and for the circulation of
‘socially valued material items’. This is, in fact, precisely the pattern that
we see at the beginning of the Armorican Neolithic, with the development
of monumental ritual and of stone axe exchange networks (see chapter 2)
in the mid-fifth millennium cal. BC.
In Southern and Eastern Brittany, and also in the Channel Islands, long
mounds appear to represent the earliest manifestations of monumental
ritual (figure 3.18). At Le Manio 1, a decorated menhir was placed as an
integral part of a long mound, and the deposition of fibrolite axes at the
foot of this menhir (Le Rouzic et al. 1923) suggests a link between axe
exchange and megalithic ritual (see chapter 2) from the earliest stage. The
long mounds must initially have been open ceremonial arenas, often with
multiple and diverse foci of ritual activity (cf. figure 3.11a). Since the
internal features would, in most cases, have been rendered inaccessible
by the construction of the mound itself (the sole exception being the
covered megalithic chamber at Les Fouaillages, figure 3.14a), this must
relate to the abandonment of the monuments rather than to their primary
use. Given the clustering of monuments, for example at Carnac (Le
Manio 1–3, Le Castellic, Kerlescan, Mané-Ty-Ec, Mané-Pochat), it is
possible that we are looking at successive, relatively short-lived
monuments. In comparison with other classes of monument, the
Armorican long mounds are relatively modest monumental
constructions, which would not have required the co-operation of
particularly large numbers of people.
The decorated menhirs, as we have seen, represent a much larger
monumental effort: the transport and erection of the Grand Menhir would
have required a minimum working team of around 3800 people (Hornsey
1987), which must have involved the co-operation of many communities.
The decorated menhirs also have a more restricted distribution than the
long mounds (figure 3.10), and the radiocarbon dates from Locmariaquer
suggest that they appeared towards the end of the fifth millennium cal.
BC. The carved motifs on the menhirs may give some clues as to the
significance of the monuments themselves: carvings of axes and domestic
animals suggest a concern with the new agricultural mode of production
and, following Meillassoux’s argument, it is not difficult to see how these
could become key symbols in an ideology concerned to stress intergenerational bonds and obligations in relation to clearance, cultivation
65
STATEMENTS IN STONE
and domestication. The axe may have a double significance, linking its
role as a productive tool and as a socially important exchange object (see
chapter 2). The decorated menhirs are truly ‘statements in stone’. They
are pre-eminently visible: massive stones with large, often explicitly
naturalistic carvings, declaring the ideological basis of social relations.
These decorated menhirs, however, must be seen as an extremely
localised and exceptional phenomenon. Most of the known examples
probably relate to a single complex of standing stones at Locmariaquer,
which certainly included the Grand Menhir. The Kermarquer and Le
Manio menhirs are the only examples which clearly do not form part of
this complex, and they are less than 30 km away from Locmariaquer.
The carved menhirs of Locmariaquer must reflect the emergence of a
larger social grouping in Southern Brittany towards the end of the fifth
millennium cal. BC. Such a development could perhaps be understood
in relation to Friedman and Rowlands’ (1977) model of social dynamics.
This model involves competition between communities, mediated
through the sponsoring of feasts, in which an agricultural surplus is
effectively converted into status. Although Friedman and Rowlands,
drawing on ethnographic examples, stress feasting as the medium of
such competition, monument construction may also have played a
significant role. Friedman and Rowlands argue that in kinship-based
societies, the ability to produce a large surplus (and thus to sponsor a
lavish feast, or the construction of a large monument) is often taken as
an indication of supernatural patronage, which in turn is taken to
suggest a close genealogical proximity to a founding ancestor or spirit.
A group which consistently produces a large surplus thus achieves
status as an ‘older’ or ‘more direct’ lineage, which may involve control
of initiation rites and mediation between the community and the
supernatural (‘control of the imaginary conditions of production’). If
marriage arrangements involve bridewealth, such a lineage may
demand higher bride-prices, enabling them to accumulate bridewealth
valuables, and thus to obtain more women in the context of polygynous
marriages. This increases the size of the labour pool within the
dominant lineage, enabling them to produce a larger surplus, and thus
escalating the process of increasing social differentiation between
groups.
This process of escalating competition and social differentiation
between groups could account for the development of a larger social
grouping in Southern Brittany at the end of the fifth millennium cal. BC,
since it would necessarily involve the development of a network of
alliances between groups, linked by reciprocal obligations. The
Locmariaquer complex itself may reflect the emergence of a dominant
group at the western end of the Golfe du Morbihan. Such a group would
have to be able to make demands on the labour of other groups in order
66
LONG MOUNDS AND GIANT MENHIRS
to assemble a work-force large enough to move and erect stones of the
size of the Grand Menhir: in ethnographic situations, such labour may be
demanded by a dominant group, often in return for lavish feasts.
Throughout much of the Neolithic period, the area between
Locmariaquer and Carnac, at the western end of the Golfe du Morbihan,
seems to have had a particular importance, manifested by an unusually
dense concentration of very large monuments (see especially chapters 5
and 6). The evidence of the decorated menhirs may offer some clues as to
the social processes involved in the emergence of this area as an important
ritual centre, but why did this happen in Southern Brittany and not, to the
same extent, anywhere else in the Armorican region? There may be a
number of factors involved. Firstly, the diverse range of natural resources
provided by this area would facilitate the increasing surplus production
required to support this cycle of intensifying social competition. The Golfe
du Morbihan is now an inlet of the sea (figure 1.1) with numerous islands,
but in Neolithic times it was a low-lying basin, dominated by freshwater
marsh. The marshland itself would have provided a wide range of
freshwater fish and wildfowl, whilst the higher land on the edge of the
basin and on what are now the islands could have been used for
Figure 3.19 Le Golfe du Morbihan in Neolithic times: stippled area represents dry
land, shaded area represents open water, unshaded area represents
marshland
67
STATEMENTS IN STONE
agriculture and stock-raising. The sea, of course, would have provided a
wide range of fish, shellfish and crustaceans. The Locmariaquer peninsula
is conveniently located at the junction of these major resource zones
(figure 3.19). Secondly, the evidence from Téviec and Hoëdic suggests that
Southern Brittany supported relatively large, sedentary Mesolithic
populations, which were already involved in competitive social relations
before the introduction of agriculture and stock-raising. The adoption of
the new mode of production is likely to have given rise to an escalation of
these competitive relations, possibly initiating the cycle of intensification
which produced the Locmariaquer menhirs and which continued, as we
shall see, into the fourth millennium cal. BC.
68
4
MONUMENTS IN
A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Passage graves of the Armorican Littoral
Of all the megaliths in the Armorican region, the passage graves are
probably the best known. In local folklore, these dark stone chambers were
seen as passages to another world, the haunt of supernatural beings (known
as Corrigans in Brittany and Faitiaux in the Channel Islands). Essentially, a
passage grave consists of a chamber (which may be circular, oval or
polygonal in shape), approached by a narrow passage and covered by a
cairn. In many cases, however, the cairn has been removed by erosion or
quarrying, leaving only the internal ‘skeleton’ of the site (pl. 4.1). The most
common construction method involves horizontal capstones placed over
a passage and chamber formed of upright stones, and the table-like
appearance of such constructions gave rise to suggestions (cf. Falle 1734)
that the monuments were altars, invariably attributed to the Druids, who
were thought to have used them for human sacrifice (see chapter 1).
Frederick Corbin Lukis, a Guernseyman, was one of the first archaeologists
outside Scandinavia to apply the ‘three-age system’ developed by
C.J.Thomsen: Lukis (1849) recognised that passage graves belonged to the
Stone Age, and therefore had nothing to do with the Iron Age Druids.
Lukis (op. cit.) was also the first to identify the monuments as tombs
rather than altars, but it is now clear that burial was only one of their
functions. It seems most likely that passage graves served as ritual centres
for communities of early farmers, in much the same way as Medieval
communities were served by parish churches. In some areas, it has been
possible (cf. Patton 1991b) to establish a hierarchical ranking of passage
graves, based on comparisons of size: if the smaller monuments can be
compared to parish churches, we can perhaps think of the larger passage
graves as megalithic ‘cathedrals’, serving a larger community at a higher
level of social organisation.
Most of the Armorican passage graves seem to have been built between
4250 and 3250 cal. BC, though some monuments are clearly earlier. The
earliest passage graves in North-western Brittany (Giot 1987) appear to be
69
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 4.1 Distribution of Armorican passage graves
broadly contemporary with the long mounds and decorated menhirs
discussed in the previous chapter (i.e. 4800–4250 cal. BC). In Southern
Brittany, the appearance of passage graves seems to have been a
somewhat later development, though probably before the end of the fifth
millennium cal. BC. Many of the earlier decorated menhirs of this area
were deliberately broken, and the fragments incorporated in the
construction of the passage graves. At La Table des Marchand
(Locmariaquer) and Petit Mont (Arzon), passage graves were built on top
of earlier ritual complexes, and many of the carved motifs found on the
decorated menhirs are also found in the passage graves, suggesting a
degree of continuity in ritual practice. The appearance of passage graves,
however, also represents an important transformation. The symbols
which had previously been carved on large menhirs in open ritual
complexes were now taken into dark chambers, separated from the
outside world by narrow passages and covered by massive cairns. The
motifs themselves also changed, becoming increasingly stylised and less
explicitly representational (Shee-Twohig 1981, Bradley 1989).
70
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
The distribution of passage graves in the Armorican region is
essentially coastal (figure 4.1), and this seems to reflect the pattern of
Neolithic settlement in Brittany prior to c. 3250 cal. BC. The ecological
diversity of coastal areas seems to have encouraged the development of
relatively large, permanent communities from Mesolithic times onward,
and this same diversity is likely to have been a factor in generating the
food surpluses necessary for the construction of large monuments, and for
the elaborate rituals which are likely to have surrounded this.
Finds from Armorican passage graves include human remains (never
representing more than a few individuals), pottery and polished stone
tools. The range of objects shows that some passage graves remained in
use over several centuries. Although the construction of passage graves
seems to have ceased at around 3250 cal. BC, many of the monuments
remained open and continued in use for several centuries after this (see
chapter 6).
THE APPEARANCE OF PASSAGE GRAVES
Figure 4.2 shows the radiocarbon dates from Armorican passage graves
(dates relating to demonstrably intrusive activity have been omitted). These
dates cover a period of-over 2000 years, from 4800 to 2500 cal. BC,
corresponding to the period during which passage graves were in use. The
actual construction of the monuments almost certainly took place within a
more restricted time period: there is no evidence for the construction of
passage graves after 3250 cal. BC, and where later material has been found
in these monuments, the context is in most cases clearly secondary (Giot et
al. 1979). The radiocarbon chronology is corroborated by the archaeological
material found within the monuments. Most excavated passage graves in
the Armorican region have produced Middle Neolithic pottery (figures 4.3–
4.4), dating to the period 4250–3250 cal. BC (L’Helgouach 1965, Giot et al.
1979), and some have also produced Late Neolithic (c. 3250–2850 cal. BC)
and Chalcolithic (c. 2850–2250 cal. BC) material.
The earliest dates from Armorican passage graves overlap with the
dates from the monuments discussed in the previous chapter:
Barnenez F:
Barnenez F:
Ile Guennoc IIIc:
Ile Carn:
Ty-Floch:
Kercado:
5550 ±
5750 ±
5800 ±
5390 ±
5580 ±
5840 ±
140 BP
150 BP
300 BP
150 BP
120 BP
300 BP
=
=
=
=
=
=
4570–4240 cal. BC (Gif-1556)
4790–4460 cal. BC (Gif-1309)
5010–4360 cal. BC (Gif-165)
4440–4010 cal. BC (Gif-1362)
4580–4340 cal. BC (Gif-5234)
5100–4350 cal. BC (Sa-95).
These dates place the monuments concerned at the very beginning of the
Armorican Neolithic sequence. In the previous chapter, a contrast was
71
STATEMENTS IN STONE
noted between the Early Neolithic sequence in Northern and Western
Brittany, and that in Southern and Eastern parts of the Armorican region
(including the Channel Islands), where the influence of the EpiBandkeramik tradition is more marked. In Northern and Western Brittany,
the passage graves appear to be the earliest megaliths, and there is no
evidence for any Neolithic horizon pre-dating the passage graves
themselves. The radiocarbon dates from monuments such as Barnenez, Ile
Guennoc and Ile Carn, in North-western Brittany, suggest that these
monuments are among the earliest megaliths in Europe.
Although passage graves belong to a megalithic tradition which
extends right along the Atlantic façade of Europe from Iberia to the British
Isles and Scandinavia (Daniel 1960), it would be difficult to see these
monuments as anything other than an indigenous development. The
assemblages from the early passage graves in North-western Brittany are
dominated by Carn-style pottery (figure 3.6) which, like the monuments
Figure 4.2 Radiocarbon dates from Armorican passage graves
72
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Figure 4.3 Middle Neolithic pottery from Armorican passage graves (after
L’Helgouach 1965)
themselves, must be seen as an essentially local development (Giot et al.
1979). There is nothing in either the monuments or the material culture of
this group to suggest an intrusive (Epi-Bandkeramik) element, and all the
evidence points rather to the adoption of a Neolithic lifestyle by local
coastal communities.
The densest concentration of passage graves is in the South Breton
département of Morbihan (figure 4.1). It now seems likely, however, that
the earliest passage graves are in the North-west of the region. Of the
sites with early radiocarbon dates listed above, only one (Kercado) is in
Southern Brittany, and the single radiocarbon date from this site is not
entirely reliable (it has a high standard deviation, and derives from
material collected during the early excavations, with uncertain
73
STATEMENTS IN STONE
stratigraphic context). The most recent evidence from excavations in
Southern Brittany (see chapter 3) suggests the existence of a Neolithic
horizon which pre-dates the passage graves. The clearest evidence for
this comes from the excavations at Locmariaquer (L’Helgouach and
Cassen in press), where fragments of earlier decorated menhirs were
found incorporated in the construction of passage graves, and where a
horizon stratified beneath the passage grave of La Table des Marchand
produced Neolithic pottery which can be related to the Epi-Bandkeramik
tradition. The pottery associated with the passage graves themselves (cf.
figures 4.3–4.4) is quite different from the pottery of Epi-Bandkeramik
affinities discussed in chapter 3, and all the evidence suggests that the
passage graves are later in date. Since the Early Neolithic horizon in
Figure 4.4 Middle Neolithic pottery from Armorican passage graves (after
L’Helgouach 1965)
74
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Southern Brittany, with Castellic pottery, long mounds and decorated
menhirs, can be dated to the period 4800–4000 cal. BC (see chapter 3), it
seems likely that the earliest passage graves in this area date to the final
quarter of the fifth millennium or the first quarter of the fourth
millennium cal. BC.
The pattern in the Channel Islands is essentially similar to that in
Southern Brittany. The evidence from sites such as Le Pinacle, Les
Fouaillages and Le Mont Orgueil (see chapter 3) attests to the existence of
an Early Neolithic horizon with pottery of Epi-Bandkeramik affinities.
Whilst there is no stratigraphic evidence relating this horizon to the
passage graves, the assemblages are quite different in character, and there
can be little doubt that the passage graves are later.
Passage graves, therefore, seem to have appeared initially in Northwestern Brittany in the second or third quarter of the fifth millennium cal.
BC, and then elsewhere in the Armorican region at around the beginning
of the fourth millennium cal. BC. The appearance of passage graves
apparently represents an independent development within the Armorican
region, and must relate to a fundamental cultural and religious change: in
North-western Brittany, large passage graves appeared in areas where
monumental ritual was previously unknown, whilst in Southern Brittany
and the Channel Islands, they supplanted an earlier megalithic tradition,
the monuments of which were, in some cases, deliberately destroyed. This
religious transformation may provide important clues to the changing
nature of Neolithic society in Armorica during the fourth and fifth
millennia cal. BC.
THE STRUCTURE OF ARMORICAN PASSAGE GRAVES
The basic structure of a passage grave (figure 4.5) consists of a chamber,
approached by a narrow passage and covered by a cairn. The cairn may be
circular, oval or polygonal in form, and the shape of the chamber is
similarly variable. The chamber may be elaborated by the addition of side
chambers or internal compartments.
The most common form of construction for Armorican passage graves
is fully megalithic (pl. 4.1), with a passage and chamber formed of upright
stones and covered by horizontal slabs. There is a second form of
construction (pl. 4.2), consisting of a dry stone chamber with a corbelled
vault, and there are some monuments, such as Ile Longue (Larmor-Baden,
Morbihan) and chambers A and D at Barnenez, which combine both forms
of construction (L’Helgouach 1965), having a corbelled vault over a partly
megalithic chamber. There does not appear to be any chronological
distinction between these construction methods, as megalithic and
drystone passage graves are found side by side under the cairn of
Barnenez (figure 4.12). To some extent, the method of construction
75
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 4.5 The passage grave of Kercado (Carnac, Morbihan)
employed will depend on the nature of the available stone. The
construction of a corbelled vault, for example, requires a rock such as
schist, which fractures to give long, flat slabs. In Jersey, where the available
stone does not fulfil this requirement, there is a single example of a
corbelled passage grave (La Sergenté), which seems to have collapsed
soon after its construction (Patton 1987a), probably because of the
unsuitable nature of the material used. There are three passage graves in
Jersey (Le Mont de la Ville, Faldouet and La Hougue des Géonnais) which
have large, open chambers (figure 4.6). The chambers of these monuments
cannot have been roofed with capstones (the uprights are too small to
have supported capstones large enough to span the chambers), and
corbelled vaulting would be impractical given the character of the
available stone. It is conceivable that these chambers had wooden roofs,
but recent excavations at La Hougue des Géonnais (Forrest and Rault
forthcoming) provided no evidence for this. Assuming that the chambers
were open, the cairns of these monuments cannot have covered the
chambers whilst they were in use, and must rather have formed a sort of
platform around an open ‘arena’. These ‘arena chambers’ are specific to
76
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Plate 4.1 The passage grave of Crucuno at Carnac (Morbihan)
Jersey (Hibbs 1985), but passage graves with open chambers may exist
elsewhere in the Armorican region. There are, for example, a series of
passage graves in Southern Brittany with apparently open circular and
oval chambers, as at Nelhouët (Martin 1889), La Haye-St-Gravé (Fouquet
1874) and Kermaric (Martin 1911), though it is likely that at least some of
these monuments originally had corbelled vaults. There is also a group of
passage graves in South-western Brittany, characterised by large, square
chambers with internal compartments: these monuments, such as
Kerleven (Le Roux and L’Helgouach 1967) and Quelarn (Giot 1983, Le
Roux 1981, 1983a) are generally assumed to have had complex corbelled
vaults, but in no case has such a vault survived. The largest chamber at
Quelarn has a width of 8 metres, and there is no evidence for the
construction of corbelled vaults on this scale anywhere in the Neolithic of
Western Europe.
The chamber types can be classified according to the scheme shown on
figure 4.7, adapted from L’Helgouach’s (1965) classification of Armorican
passage graves. The following chamber types can be distinguished:
77
STATEMENTS IN STONE
A Circular chamber.
B Square chamber: these can be separated into two distinct groups on the
basis of their size:
B1 Area of chamber less than 13 m2.
B2 Area of chamber greater than 13 m2.
C Rectangular chamber, set at right angles to the axis of the passage.
D D-shaped or pentagonal chamber.
E Polygonal chamber with splayed entrance.
F Elongated assymetrical chamber.
G Transepted passage grave.
H V-shaped chamber, poorly differentiated from passage.
There is a degree of regional variation in the occurrence of these
monument types: Type B1 chambers, for example, are found only in the
South Breton département of Morbihan, whilst Type B2 chambers are
concentrated in South-western Brittany (L’Helgouach 1965). Transepted
passage graves (G) are found only in Southern and Eastern Brittany, in the
départements of Morbihan, Ille-et-Vilaine, and Loire-Atlantique.
There is a single example (La Hougue des Géonnais in Jersey) of a
chamber which seems to have been modified during its period of use
(Forrest and Rault forthcoming): the original monument had a Type
Plate 4.2 Corbelled passage graves at Barnenez (Plouézoc’h, Finistère)
78
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
D chamber, which was later extended and converted into a Type B2 (pl.
4.3).
In some cases, the chambers of Armorican passage graves are
elaborated by the existence of side chambers (figure 4.8) and internal
compartments (figure 4.9). Side chambers are relatively rare features on
passage graves in mainland Brittany: L’Helgouach (1965) lists only six
passage graves with side chambers (Mané-Bras B, Kerroyal, Loqueltas,
Kergavat, Rondossec C and Kermarquer, all in the département of
Morbihan). In the Channel Islands there are five passage graves with side
chambers (La Hougue Bie, Faldouet and Grantez in Jersey, La Varde and
Le Déhus in Guernsey). In mainland Brittany, internal compartments are
particularly associated with chambers of Type B: L’Helgouach (1965)
distinguishes two groups of compartmented passage graves, one group
concentrated in Southern Brittany, with chambers of Type B1 (figure
4.9a), the other in South-western Brittany, with chambers of Type B2
(figure 4.9b). There are two passage graves in Brittany (Mané-Rutual and
Barnenez H) with chambers of Type F subdivided into two
Figure 4.6 (a) Faldouet (Jersey); (b) Mont de la Ville (Jersey)
79
Figure 4.7 Morphology of Armorican passage graves
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Plate 4.3 The passage grave of La Hougue des Géonnais (Jersey) under excavation in 1989. The passage is in the foreground, and the drystone wall in the
background represents the end of the second-phase chamber. The socket holes
for the stones of the first-phase chamber can be seen in the centre of the
photograph.
compartments by internal pillars (figure 4.9c). In the Channel Islands,
internal compartments are recorded in passage graves with chambers of
Types A (Le Mont de la Ville, Jersey; figure 4.6a), B2 (La Hougue des
Géonnais, Jersey) and F (La Hougue Bie and Le Mont Ubé, Jersey; figure
4.9d).
L’Helgouach (1965) classifies the passages of Armorican passage graves
according to their length, distinguishing long passages (greater than 7
metres), medium (2–6 metres) and short (less than 2 metres). Mediumlength passages are by far the most common. Recent excavations,
however, have provided evidence for extension of the passage in several
phases, for example at Dissignac (L’Helgouach 1990 and see figure 4.10)
and Barnenez (Giot 1987), and it is likely that similar evidence has gone
unnoticed on other sites. The majority of Armorican passage graves are
oriented with the entrance between 90° and 180° (i.e. between south and
east), though there are some examples facing south-west or north-east
(L’Helgouach 1965).
81
Figure 4.8 (a) Loqueltas; (b) Kermarquer; (c) Le Déhus; (d) Grantez.
Figure 4.9 (a) Mané-Groh; (b) Kerleven; (c) Barnenez H; (d) Mont Ubé
STATEMENTS IN STONE
The cairns which cover the passage graves vary greatly in their size,
shape and construction. Most cairns are of rubble, usually built up in a
stepped construction (pl. 4.4), but some, such as La Hougue des Géonnais
in Jersey (Forrest and Rault forthcoming) have a much looser rubble and
earth construction. Some monuments in the Channel Islands (Le Déhus,
La Varde and Le Creux-es-Faies in Guernsey) have megalithic peristaliths
around the edge of the cairn (Kendrick 1928, Patton in press), and the cairn
of Kercado (Carnac, Morbihan) is surrounded by a free-standing stone
circle (L’Helgouach 1965). Such elaborations of the cairn structure,
however, are rare. The most common form of cairn in the Armorican
region is circular, covering a single passage grave. In some cases, as at
Notério (Carnac, Morbihan), the cairn covers subsidiary structures in
addition to the passage grave itself (figure 4.11). There are a number of
examples in Southern Brittany of circular cairns, such as Dissignac (figure
Figure 4.10 Dissignac (after L’Helgouach 1990)
84
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
4.10), covering two or more passage graves placed side by side. A second
and much rarer form of cairn is trapezoidal or rectangular (figure 4.12),
always covering multiple passage graves. These cairns have no strong
regional distribution: examples are known from the départements of Côtes
d’Armor (Ville-Pichard), Finistère (Barnenez, Ile Guennoc, Ile Carn,
Kerleven, Quelarn) and Morbihan (Mané-Bras de Kervilor, Kerantrec’h),
though there are no known examples in the Channel Islands.
Whilst some cairns appear to be relatively simple, one-phase structures,
others show evidence for multi-phase construction. At Dissignac (figure
4.10), for example, the original circular cairn was enlarged in three
subsequent phases: with each of these phases, the passages of the two
passage graves were extended (L’Helgouach 1990). At Kerleven (Le Roux
and L’Helgouach 1967) and Barnenez (Giot 1987), the enlargement of
trapezoidal cairns involved the construction of new passage graves. The
cairn at Barnenez (figure 4.12) shows two main phases of construction (the
western part of the cairn, with structures A to F, was added on to the
original cairn, with structures G to J). The occurrence of megalithic and
drystone passage graves beneath a single cairn suggests that these
chamber types are broadly contemporary with one another. At le Petit
Mont (Lecornec in press) a cairn covering a single passage grave was
Plate 4.4 The passage grave of Gavrinis at Larmor-Baden (Morbihan)
85
Figure 4.11 Le Notério
Figure 4.12 Barnenez (after Giot 1987)
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
added to a primary cairn, apparently containing no megalithic structure.
Both of these cairns were later enclosed within a vast tertiary cairn,
associated with two passage graves. The construction of this tertiary cairn
would have completely obscured the entrance to the passage grave
beneath the secondary cairn.
ART IN ARMORICAN PASSAGE GRAVES
Art is a relatively rare phenomenon in Armorican passage graves. Of the
265 Breton passage graves included in L’Helgouach’s (1965) inventory,
Shee-Twohig (1981) lists art from only twenty-four monuments. Recent
research (see chapter 3) has shown that some of the art known from
Armorican passage graves is in fact earlier than the monuments
themselves, reflecting the re-use of decorated stones. The extent of this
phenomenon remains unclear, but it may be more widespread than has
hitherto been realised: in the recently discovered passage grave beneath
the secondary cairn at Le Petit Mont (Arzon, Morbihan), most of the stones
appear to be re-used from an earlier monument (Lecornec, pers. comm.).
This evidence for re-use poses a serious problem for any attempt to
analyse Armorican megalithic art, since it is difficult to establish which
decoration belongs to the passage graves themselves and which relates to
earlier monuments. To complicate matters further, this is not limited to the
re-use of fragments of the great decorated menhirs discussed in the
previous chapter: the majority of the re-used stones at Petit Mont are
apparently not menhir fragments. One of the capstones of the passage
grave of Le Déhus, Guernsey, is decorated with an anthropomorphic motif
(figure 4.13): it has been argued (Kinnes and Hibbs 1989) that this is a reused stone, but it falls well outside the geographical distribution of the
Early Neolithic decorated menhirs, and stylistically has little in common
with them.
The principal motifs known from Armorican passage graves are shown
on figure 4.14. Some of these motifs (a, c, e, f) reflect continuity from an
earlier tradition of megalithic art, associated with the decorated menhirs
of Southern Brittany (cf. figures 3.16–3.17), though the examples from the
passage graves (figure 4.15) are often more stylised than those on the
menhirs. Alongside these familiar motifs are new ones, including the
‘yoke’ (g), ‘boat’ (h), ‘wheel’ (or ‘sun’) (I), ‘bow’ (j) and non-figurative or
abstract motifs (k-o). The existence of these abstract motifs, including grid
patterns, zig-zags, concentric right angles and semi-circles and chevrons,
is one of the main points of contrast between the art of the passage graves
and that of the decorated menhirs. Bradley (1989), has suggested that
some of these abstract motifs may reflect ‘entoptic’ images (images
produced by the human brain in conditions of ‘altered consciousness’,
87
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 4.13 Carved anthropomorph at Le Déhus (after Kinnes 1980)
such as trances and hallucinations induced by drugs or sensory
deprivation).
Motifs i, k, l, m and n on figure 4.14 are very close to patterns recorded
by Lewis-Williams and Dowson (1988) in neurophysiological
experiments, and in ethnographically documented rock art in Africa and
North America, which is known to have been associated with states of
‘altered consciousness’. In the neurophysiological studies cited by LewisWilliams and Dowson (op. cit.) culturally specific motifs are often
perceived by subjects to be superimposed on, or surrounded by, entoptic
images, and this is also seen in megalithic art, for example in the
combination of axes and ‘entoptic’ motifs on some of the decorated stones
at Gavrinis (figure 4.16).
Table 4.1 shows the occurrence of the various motifs shown on figure
4.14. The most common motifs are ‘crooks’, zig-zags and wavy lines,
‘yokes’, hafted axes and ‘écussons’, but the size of the sample is too small
to permit any statistical inferences. Although it would not be useful (both
88
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
because of the small size of the sample and because of the problem of reused stones) to attempt a detailed analysis of the positioning of particular
motifs, it is possible to look in more general terms at the positions in which
decorated stones occur. In broad terms, art in passage graves may be
found in the following positions:
A
B
C
D
The entrance to the passage (i.e. the first stone on either side).
In the passage.
At the junction between passage and chamber.
On the walls of the chamber.
Figure 4.14 Principal motifs in Armorican passage grave art
89
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 4.15 Decorated stones at Mané-Lud (after Shee-Twohig 1981)
E On internal pillars.
F On capstones.
Table 4.2 shows the occurrence of decorated stones in these positions in
Armorican passage graves. Decoration occurs most frequently in the
chamber, and there is only one example (Ile Longue) of decoration at the
entrance. Unlike, for example, the passage graves of Ireland, Armorican
passage graves never have decorated stones placed around the outside of
the cairn. It is true to say, therefore, that art is placed predominantly in
positions that did not receive direct sunlight (Bradley 1989) and which
would not be visible from outside the monument. Most of the monuments
have a relatively small number of decorated stones, the major exception
being Gavrinis, which has twenty-five. Gavrinis also stands out in terms
of the nature of the art itself: in most of the passage graves listed on table
4.2, each decorated stone has only a few scattered motifs (cf. figure 4.15),
whereas at Gavrinis most of the stones are completely covered with
carvings (figure 4.16). There is also a difference in execution: in most
passage graves the art has simply been pecked out, whereas the motifs at
Gavrinis are in low relief, a much more laborious technique. The site of
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MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Gavrinis, which also has by far the greatest concentration of ‘entoptic’
motifs of any Armorican passage grave, must have some special
significance, and this is a question to which we will return in the following
chapter.
BURIAL AND DEPOSITIONAL PRACTICE IN THE
ARMORICAN PASSAGE GRAVES
The igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Armorican massif
decompose to produce acidic soils, which cover most of the region.
These soils do not favour the preservation of bone, and it is
consequently rare to find preserved human or animal remains in
Armorican megaliths. Where special conditions exist, however, human
remains have been preserved, showing that burial was at least one
element of the rituals conducted in these monuments. At Conguel
(L’Helgouach 1962) and Port-Blanc (Gaillard 1883), on the Quiberon
Peninsula (Morbihan), bones were preserved by alkaline dune deposits
which covered the passage graves, and in the Channel Islands
Figure 4.16 Decorated stones at Gavrinis (after Shee-Twohig 1981)
91
Table 4.1 Presence of carved motifs in Armorican passage graves (a-o refer to the classification of motifs on figure 4.14)
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Table 4.2 Position of carved motifs in Armorican passage graves
(Kendrick 1928, Hawkes 1937), the practice of burying large quantities
of limpet shells with interred bodies has preserved skeletal remains
from several monuments. Whilst the evidence from these few sites
demonstrates that the Armorican passage graves did have a funerary
role, the sample is too small to provide any reliable statistical
information regarding funerary practice, demography or
palaeopathology. There are further problems arising from the way in
which many of the sites were excavated: in some cases, human remains
were re-interred without detailed study (Hawkes 1937), and many of
the early excavation reports do not provide sufficient information to
enable us to distinguish between depositions belonging to different
phases.
One fact that is clear from the limited evidence available is that the
number of individuals buried in the passage graves seems always to have
been relatively small, particularly given the long time period over which
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
these monuments were used. At Conguel, for example, the remains of
seven individuals were found (L’Helgouach 1962) on two levels (five
skeletons on the lower floor, associated with Middle Neolithic pottery,
and two on the upper floor with Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic
material). At Port-Blanc (Dolmen A), the remains of nineteen individuals
were found (Gaillard 1883): again, there were two distinct levels, the
lower floor (of Middle Neolithic date) having the remains of eleven
individuals, and the upper floor (dating to the Late Neolithic or
Chalcolithic) having the remains of eight. The evidence from the Channel
Island passage graves (Patton in press) is broadly comparable: the
remains of between two and eight people were found at La Hougue Bie,
and the remains of a minimum of eight people at Grantez, two at
Faldouet, eight at Déhus (excluding material from a Chalcolithic
deposition which will be discussed in chapter 7) and one at Herm 13 (the
Robert’s Cross passage grave).
There is a considerable degree of variation in terms of funerary
practice and the treatment of the corpse. In the passage grave of Grantez,
Jersey (Nicolle et al. 1913), seven articulated skeletons were found (six
were in flexed positions in the chamber, the seventh was apparently
placed in a seated position in the chamber). Disarticulated remains,
however, are more usual, suggesting prior exposure or burial of the
corpse. On some sites, the two practices seem to have coexisted: at Le
Déhus, for example (Kendrick 1928), side chamber B contained two
articulated skeletons (apparently interred in a kneeling position), whilst
side chamber C contained disarticulated remains. Three successive floors
were found in side chamber D, the lower floor having two flexed
inhumations, the two upper floors having only disarticulated remains. At
Vierville (Manche), a pit placed in front of the façade of the cairn
contained two burials, separated by a layer of flat stones (Verron 1977):
the upper burial consisted of a flexed inhumation, whilst the lower one
consisted of the disarticulated remains of a single individual. It is
possible that these two ‘practices’ simply represent successive phases in a
complex mortuary ritual carried out within and around the passage
graves themselves. The chamber of the Vierville passage grave contained
only disarticulated remains. Where disarticulated remains are found, the
bones are often scattered in the passage and chamber with no apparent
organisation, as at La Hougue Bie, Jersey (Baal et al. 1925). At Barnenez
(Giot 1987), chambers B, F and G contained small fragments of human
bone mixed with other material. In other cases, however, the
disarticulated remains were deposited in a more structured way. At PortBlanc (Gaillard 1883), the skulls in the lower level were stacked against
the wall of the chamber, and at Ty-Floch (St-Thois, Finistère), a distinct
‘ossuary’ was noted, occupying three internal compartments (Le Roux
and Lecerf 1980). One of these compartments contained a bundle of long
94
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
bones (‘un veritable fagot’), associated with cranial fragments and
representing the remains of two or three people. The lower deposition in
the pit in front of the façade at Vierville (Verron 1977) is broadly
comparable, in that the long bones were deliberately placed in a bundle,
and associated with cranial fragments: in this case the limb bones were
found in articulation, suggesting that they were deposited with ligaments
still attached. At Le Déhus (Kendrick 1928) the disarticulated remains in
side chambers C and D were arranged in discrete piles (in side chamber
C, each pile was associated with a pottery vessel). Human remains are
recorded from both the passages (as at Barnenez B and G, and at
Conguel) and chambers (as at Grantez, La Hougue Bie, Port-Blanc,
Vierville) of Armorican passage graves. Where side chambers and
internal compartments exist (as at Ty-Floch, Faldouet, Déhus), human
remains tend to be concentrated in these. In some monuments, there is
evidence for several phases of burial, with pavements placed over earlier
burial floors: this was the case at Conguel (L’Helgouach 1962) and PortBlanc (Gaillard 1883), where successive burial horizons were separated
by layers of flat stones, and in side chamber D at Déhus, where three
successive burial horizons were separated by layers of limpet shells with
paving on top. Since we are dealing here with monuments which were in
use over several centuries, it is also possible that the chambers were
periodically cleared out to make room for new depositions, but this
would be difficult to recognise archaeologically, unless the remains were
dumped or buried in the immediate vicinity of the site. Although the
sample is too small to provide demographic information, it is clear that
men, women and children are represented in the assemblages from
passage graves.
Material items (pottery vessels, stone tools, jewellery) are frequently
found in the chambers of Armorican passage graves, and in a few cases
there is a direct association between these objects and human remains,
suggesting that the objects can be seen as ‘grave goods’. In side chamber
C at Le Déhus (Kendrick 1928), pottery vessels were associated with
discrete heaps of disarticulated bone, whilst at Grantez (Nicolle et al.
1913), the flexed inhumations were accompanied by piles of brightly
coloured pebbles, and by depositions of animal bone, perhaps
representing food offerings. In most cases, however, the material items
found within the passage graves have no direct association with human
remains. In many cases, the objects are simply scattered in the passage
and chamber with no apparent organisation, as at Barnenez (Giot 1987),
but at Mané-Ven-Guen (Carnac, Morbihan), Le Rouzic (1902) records the
existence of discrete concentrations of pottery and flint, associated with
areas of charcoal, and it is likely that similar evidence from other sites has
gone unrecorded. At Min-Goh-Ru (Colpo, Morbihan), a hemispherical
bowl was found at the entrance to the passage (L’Helgouach and
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Lecornec 1976), whilst at Ty-Floch (Le Roux and Lecerf 1980), a similar
bowl was found among stones fallen from a corbelled vault, leading to
suggestions that the vessel was either suspended from the roof or
contained within the stones of the vault itself. The arrangement of
material in the passage grave of La Hougue Bie is particularly interesting
(figure 4.17). According to the excavation report (Baal et al. 1925), the
disarticulated human remains were scattered on the floor of the chamber.
Near the centre of the chamber was a concentration of pottery fragments,
representing around fifteen vase-supports: no complete vessels were
found in this deposition, and it seems most likely that the vessels were
deliberately broken. The chamber at La Hougue Bie is divided into four
zones by means of internal pillars (figure 4.17), and the westernmost
zone was occupied by a platform of rubble, covered by a bed of pebbles.
Two intact vase-supports were placed at the edge of this platform. The
platform itself seems to have been the main focus of ritual activity, since it
incorporated the following features: a small rectangular cist, covered by
three stones, containing fragments of two vase-supports and a quantity of
pebbles, a pit lined with stone slabs, and three small standing stones or
‘bétyles’, averaging 30 cm in height.
Recent excavations have provided evidence for ritual activity outside
the passage graves, particularly in the forecourt area and in front of the
façade of the cairn. The double burial in front of the façade at Vierville has
already been mentioned (p. 94). Depositions of pottery vessels have been
noted in front of the façade of cairns at Kerleven (Le Roux and
L’Helgouach 1967), Min-Goh-Ru (L’Helgouach and Lecornec 1976),
Barnenez (Giot 1987) and Ty-Floch (Le Roux and Lecerf 1980). At Gavrinis,
a hoard of three polished axes was found in the façade area, as well as
fragments of pottery (Le Roux 1983b). At Kerleven, Min-Goh-Ru, Ty-Floch
and Gavrinis, the sherds from the façade area were plotted and the sherds
of individual vessels were found to be distributed in continuous lines,
radiating from the entrance: the pattern of distribution of these sherds
suggests that the vessels may have fallen from the façade of the cairn
(L’Helgouach and Lecornec 1976).
L’Helgouach (1965) lists the material recorded from Armorican
passage graves. Pottery is the most common category of object, and
ceramic assemblages are dominated by Middle Neolithic ‘Chasséen’ forms
(cf. figures 4.3–4.4). Undecorated globular and hemispherical bowls predominate, and vase-supports are relatively rare (L’Helgouach lists vasesupports from only six passage graves in mainland Brittany). It is
interesting to note that vase-supports are recorded from five passage
graves on the island of Jersey (Hawkes 1937) and that one of these
monuments (La Hougue Bie) has produced an exceptionally large
number of these vessels (a minimum of twenty-one): surprisingly, vasesupports are completely absent from passage grave assemblages on the
96
MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Figure 4.17 Depositions in the chamber of La Hougue Bie
neighbouring island of Guernsey (Kendrick 1928). Stone tools are also
known from Armorican passage graves, particularly polished axes: the
axes found in passage graves are in most cases identical to those known
from other contexts, and they are never found in large numbers. Beads of
variscite are occasionally found in passage graves but, again, these do not
occur in large numbers. Faunal remains are obviously affected by the
same preservation factors which have affected human remains from
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Armorican passage graves. Minot (1958) records faunal remains from
nine passage graves in mainland Brittany, but this list is based principally
on early excavation reports which do not describe the material (much of
which is now lost) in any detail. In most cases, the quantity of animal
bone appears to have been small. Kendrick (1928) and Hawkes (1937)
record animal bone from several passage graves in the Channel Islands:
again, the quantities are small and the material is not described in detail.
The flexed skeletons at Grantez, Jersey, were accompanied by animal
bones (identified as being of cattle, pig, goat, horse and deer), interpreted
by the excavators (Nicolle et al. 1913) as food offerings, and the presence
of animal bone on a layer of paving overlying a burial floor in side
chamber C at Le Déhus, Guernsey (Kendrick 1928) is similarly
suggestive. The practice of depositing large quantities of limpet shells
with human remains in Channel Island passage graves has already been
mentioned (p. 92): this appears to have been a specifically Channel Island
phenomenon and is not recorded in passage graves in mainland Brittany.
At Le Déhus, Guernsey, the burial deposits in side chambers B-D were
covered by layers of limpet shells. The significance of this practice is
unclear, but it certainly contributed to the preservation of skeletal
remains, and it is conceivable that this was intended.
Most of the known passage graves in the Armorican region were
excavated in the nineteenth century or in the early twentieth century, and
it is often difficult to reconstruct evidence for funerary and depositional
practice on the basis of the early reports. In many cases we have only the
monument itself and a collection of objects, with little or no information
on the contexts in which the objects were found. Early excavators tended
to focus on the passage and chamber, ignoring the cairn and the
surrounding area: it is now becoming clear that ritual activity was not
confined to the interior of the monuments and recent excavations have
added much to our knowledge of European graves.
PASSAGE GRAVES AND NEOLITHIC SOCIETY
The archaeological evidence suggests that passage graves first appeared in
North-western Brittany during the first half of the fifth millennium cal.
BC, appearing elsewhere on the Armorican littoral towards the end of the
fifth millennium, and replacing the earlier monumental traditions
outlined in chapter 3. In some respects the passage graves could be
considered to reflect a continuation of these earlier traditions: at La Table
des Marchand and Petit Mont, for example, passage graves were built on
top of the earlier ritual complexes, and there are several examples (see
chapter 3) of fragments of earlier carved menhirs incorporated in the
construction of passage graves (L’Helgouach 1983, Le Roux 1984).
Continuity is also evident in the artistic motifs found in the passage
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MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
graves: the ‘écusson’, ‘crook’, ‘axe-plough’ and hafted axe motifs, which
feature prominently in passage grave art (figures 4.14–4.15) are also
known from the decorated menhirs of Southern Brittany (figures 3.17–
3.18). This continuity, however, conceals an important transformation: the
passage graves are fundamentally different from the earlier monuments in
terms of their structure and conception, and in the art itself we can see as
much evidence for change as for continuity. In the previous chapter, the
appearance of megalithic monuments in Southern Brittany was linked to
the emergence of a tribal social formation as outlined by Meillassoux
(1964, 1967), in which elders’ power is based on control of ritual practice,
and on control over the circulation of socially valued material items. The
transformations associated with the appearance of passage graves can
perhaps be seen as evidence for the consolidation and expansion of this
social formation.
The decorated menhirs of Southern Brittany, discussed in the previous
chapter, were conspicuous monuments decorated with large, often
explicitly representational, symbols. These monuments stood in open
ritual complexes and the stones, the symbols carved on them and the
ceremonies conducted around them, would have been clearly visible. At
the end of the fifth millennium cal. BC most of these menhirs were
deliberately pulled down, and the fragments incorporated in the
construction of the passage graves. The basic structure of a passage grave
(figure 4.5) implies a restriction of access: the chambers are relatively small
and could accommodate only a limited number of people, whilst the
existence of a massive cairn and long narrow passage would effectively
prevent people from seeing into the monument. Some ceremonies were
apparently conducted outside the passage, and any number of people
may have participated in these, but only a few people could have taken
part in the ceremonies conducted within the monuments themselves. On
entering the monument, the organisation of space is essentially linear: this
is particularly clear in the case of La Hougue Bie (figure 4.17), where the
main focus of ritual activity appears to have been a rubble and earth
platform at the end of the chamber. Access to this platform may have been
more restricted than access to the chamber itself, and behind the platform
is a terminal cell, partly sealed by a transverse slab. The appearance of
monuments such as this, replacing open ritual complexes, suggests that
Neolithic religion, and access to the Sacred, was increasingly controlled by
a small elite, probably the tribal elders, whose role has already been
discussed. This restriction of access is also apparent in looking at the art
found within the monuments. Although some motifs represent a
continuation of the artistic traditions associated with the decorated
menhirs, these motifs are often more stylised in the art of the passage
graves (figure 4.15): the symbols whose meaning had been self-evident,
now became meaningful only to the initiated. These motifs are also placed
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
in areas of the monument which are hidden from direct light, and which
would not be visible from outside the passage. Alongside motifs such as
the axe, the ‘écusson’ and the ‘crook’ appeared a new range of abstract
motifs (figure 4.14). Bradley’s (1989) identification of these as ‘entoptic’
motifs implies that states of ‘altered consciousness’ (trances and
hallucinatory states) were significant in Neolithic religion, and this may
have important social implications. The attainment of such states
normally requires special conditions (e.g. sensory deprivation), training or
access to drugs, introducing a further possibility for the control of ritual
practice. It seems likely that the power of Neolithic elders depended on
control over the circulation of stone axes (see chapter 2), as well as on
control of ritual practice, and the importance of the axe as a motif in
passage grave art represents a continuing ideological link between these
two elements of the Neolithic social formation. The funerary role of the
passage graves, and the elaborate treatment of the corpse suggested by the
evidence from sites such as Vierville, Ty-Floch and Le Déhus, points to an
increasing emphasis on the ancestors in Neolithic religion, and it seems
likely that elders’ control of ritual practice was mediated through a
claimed special relationship with the ancestors.
In chapter 3 it was suggested that competitive relations between local
groups may have resulted in the emergence of dominant clans or lineages,
reflected in the archaeological record by the existence of larger scale
monuments in some areas. The size of the decorated menhirs of the
Locmariaquer complex suggests that this process became significant in
Southern Brittany in the late fifth millennium cal. BC. We might expect the
passage graves to provide evidence for a continuation and intensification
of this process in the fourth millennium cal. BC, and it may be possible to
identify a hierarchy of monuments on the basis of their size. The best
indices of size in this case are probably the surface area of the cairn and the
length of the internal structure, since the height of the cairn has in most
cases been reduced by erosion. Table 4.3 shows the dimensions of
monuments in three areas: the Channel Islands, Carnac and the Golfe du
Morbihan, and the North Finistère coast. The list of monuments shown on
table 4.3 is incomplete, because the original dimensions of many
monuments cannot be ascertained. The results, however, are striking.
There is a considerable variation between the monuments in terms of the
surface area covered by the cairn but, most importantly, the figures do not
suggest a continuous range of variation from the smallest to the largest
monuments: cairns such as la Hougue Bie, Petit Mont and Barnenez are
between three and four times larger than the other monuments in the
same areas. In many cases, the largest cairns also cover the largest passage
graves, though the variations in cairn size is more marked. In the three
areas considered we can identify two classes of monuments: those with
cairns covering a surface area of between 100 and 1000 m2 and those
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MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
Table 4.3 Dimensions of passage graves in three core areas
covering a surface area of 1500–3000 m2. Because the list of monuments
shown on table 4.3 is incomplete, it is not possible to establish the ratio of
large sites to smaller ones, but it is clear that the large sites are very much
rarer.
It seems reasonable to identify monuments such as La Hougue Bie,
Petit Mont and Barnenez as higher order ritual centres, serving a wider
community than the other passage graves, and at a higher level of social
organisation, rather like a modern cathedral. The evidence for this is
particularly striking on the island of Jersey (Patton 1991b). The
monument of La Hougue Bie is much larger than the other passage
graves on the island (table 4.3), and is also more centrally placed (figure
4.18). Because of the unusually varied geology of Jersey, it has been
possible to identify the sources of most of the stones used in the
construction of the island’s megaliths (Mourant 1933, 1937, 1963, 1977). It
is surely significant that, whereas most of the island’s passage graves are
built with stones taken from the immediate vicinity of the sites
themselves, La Hougue Bie includes stones taken from a much wider area
101
STATEMENTS IN STONE
(figure 4.18) including sources also used by the builders of the smaller
passage graves of Le Mont Ubé and Le Mont de la Ville. The largest
capstone at La Hougue Bie weighs around 20 tonnes, and it is estimated
(Kinnes and Hibbs 1988) that a minimum of 200 people would have been
required to transport this stone to the site and move it into position. If we
assume that most of the work was done by adult men, and that adult men
constituted around 20 per cent of the population (see chapter 1), a
working team of 200 would have to correspond to a community of at
least 1000. The smaller passage graves of Jersey could all have been built
by communities of 300–600 people: the largest stone of the Grantez
passage grave weighs approximately 13 tonnes and could be moved by a
team of 80–85 people, whilst the largest capstone of the Faldouet
monument would have required a team of around 120 people (Patton in
press).
The evidence of sites such as La Hougue Bie suggests the development
of a segmentary society (cf. Evans-Pritchard 1940) in which the largest
social units are represented by monuments such as La Hougue Bie,
Barnenez and Petit Mont. These units (which for the sake of convenience
we can think of as ‘tribes’) consisted of 1000 or more people, and each
Figure 4.18 Distribution of passage graves in Jersey, showing sources of stone
(after Patton 1991b). 1 La Hougue Bie; 2 Faldouet; 3 Le Mont Ubé; 4 Le Mont de la
Ville; 5 Les Cinq Pierres; 6 La Sergenté; 7 Grantez; 8 Géonnais
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MONUMENTS IN A COASTAL LANDSCAPE
‘tribe’ must have comprised several ‘clans’ represented by the smaller
passage graves. Each ‘clan’ in turn probably comprised several ‘lineages’,
corresponding to individual domestic groups. Segmentary societies
probably emerged at the beginning of the Armorican Neolithic, if not
before: domestic groups are unlikely to have been endogamous, and
marriage bonds between groups would almost inevitably lead to the
development of larger ‘clan’ and ‘tribal’ groupings. With time, however,
these larger groupings seem to have acquired a more important
ceremonial and religious role, leading to the appearance of an increasing
number of larger monuments. This development seems to have involved
the centralisation of some aspects of ritual practice which could, perhaps,
be understood in relation to Friedman and Rowlands’ (1977) model,
outlined in the previous chapter. According to this model competitive
relations between social groups may lead to the emergence of dominant
lineages or clans, which may then acquire a special role in controlling
ceremonial and ritual activities.
The overall picture for the Armorican Middle Neolithic (c. 4250–3250
cal. BC) suggests a consolidation and expansion of the tribal social system
outlined in chapter 3, with power relations based on elders’ control of
ritual practice and stone axe exchange. The evidence of the passage graves
suggests that tribal elders may have increased their control over ritual
practice, whilst other evidence (see chapter 2) suggests an expansion of
stone axe exchange networks at approximately the same time. The
continued significance of the axe as a motif in megalithic art suggests an
ideological link between axe exchange and megalithic ritual, and it is
likely that both were significant in terms of elders’ control of initiation
rites and the ‘means of reproduction’. The evidence of the passage graves
also suggests a degree of centralisation in ritual practice, leading to the
emergence of higher order ritual centres: this could be understood as the
result of competition between social groups, leading to the emergence of
dominant clans or lineages, with special status in relation to ritual, as
suggested by Friedman and Rowlands (1977). These processes seem to
have been important right around the Armorican littoral, but in some
areas they gave rise to special developments, as we shall see in the
following chapter.
103
5
STATEMENTS OF POWER
AND SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
The great mounds and alignments
of the Carnac region
In the previous chapter, we have seen how the development of
competitive relations between social groups resulted in the emergence of
higher order ritual centres in some areas of the Armorican region. These
monuments are passage graves, similar in form and function to the other
monuments of the region, but distinguished from these other monuments
by virtue of their much greater size. In some areas, however, the
archaeological evidence suggests that these same processes of
centralisation and competitive emulation gave rise to entirely new forms
of ritual expression, characterised by a much greater degree of overt social
differentiation, and by an even greater investment of labour in
monumental ritual.
These developments are seen most spectacularly in the area between
Carnac and Locmariaquer, at the western end of the Golfe du Morbihan
(figure 5.1). This area has one of the densest concentrations of megalithic
monuments in Europe, and this concentration includes a small series of
massive cairns, covering closed megalithic chambers. The assemblages
from the chambers of these monuments include large numbers of variscite
beads and elaborate ceremonial axes of jadeite and fibrolite. The jadeite
axes are of a type never found in passage graves or other monuments, and
rare items such as these must have circulated within a closed social
network. The size of these Grand Tumulus monuments, and the lavish and
exclusive nature of the depositions found within them, suggest that these
monuments relate to high status social groups. The chronology of these
monuments is unclear, but the most recent evidence suggests that they
were built during the fourth millennium cal. BC, overlapping, at least to
some extent, with the passage graves.
In the same area is a vast complex of standing stones, which has justly
been described as one of the wonders of the prehistoric world. The
Carnac alignments, which extend over 3 kilometres, must originally have
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STATEMENTS OF POWER, SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
Figure 5.1 Distribution of Grand Tumulus monuments
included over 3000 individual standing stones, arranged in three main
groups of alignments (Menec, Kermario and Kerlescan), associated with
large stone circles or ‘cromlechs’. Like the cursus of Neolithic Dorset, the
Carnac alignments lie at the centre of a complex ritual landscape,
incorporating earlier monuments and providing a focus for later ones.
Unfortunately the Carnac alignments are, as yet, poorly understood. The
limited excavations carried out by Zacharie Le Rouzic in the early years
of this century provided very little archaeological material, and only a
large-scale area excavation could be expected to yield significant results.
The alignments are conventionally dated to the Late Neolithic period (cf.
Giot et al. 1979), but the most recent evidence suggests that they, like the
Grand Tumulus monuments, were built during the fourth millennium
cal. BC.
Although the monuments of the Carnac area represent the most
spectacular manifestations of megalithic ritual, similar developments can
be identified elsewhere, albeit on a smaller scale. At Saint-Just (Illeet105
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Vilaine), for example, a series of alignments form the centre of a ritual
landscape which also includes a stone circle, long mounds, passage graves
and lateral entrance graves (Le Roux 1979b, 1981, 1983a). The St-Just
alignments are on a much smaller scale than those of Carnac, and they are
not associated with any monuments comparable to the Grand Tumulus
series, but they may nonetheless reflect a similar process of social and
religious development.
Ritual complexes such as Carnac and St-Just are by no means typical of
Armorican megaliths: on the contrary, they are exceptional monuments
which seem to have developed in a few areas under quite special
circumstances. Such developments, however, may be particularly
important in terms of understanding the social and cultural processes
which affected the Armorican region as a whole.
THE GRAND TUMULUS MONUMENTS OF CARNAC
AND LOCMARIAQUER
The group of monuments known as the Grand Tumulus series (Giot et al.
1979) comprises only seven known monuments, all of which lie within a
20 km radius of the town of Carnac (figure 5.1). These sites are Le
Tumulus-St-Michel (Le Rouzic 1932) and Le Moustoir (Galles 1865) at
Carnac, Mané-Lud (Le Rouzic 1911), Mané-er-Hroëk (Galles 1863), Er
Grah (Le Rouzic 1933) and Kerlud (Burl 1985) at Locmariaquer, and
Tumiac (Le Rouzic 1935) at Arzon. The site of Crucuny, Carnac (Le Rouzic
et al. 1923) is in some respects comparable, but the finds from this site
include metal objects, suggesting a later date. The site of Les Biards, at
Issigny (Manche) is similar in some respects (Pigeon 1885, Coutil 1907), as
is La Hougue Boëte, Jersey (Patton 1987a, 1991b), but in neither case can a
definite link be made to the South Breton Grand Tumulus series.
Monuments of the Grand Tumulus series consist typically of a closed
megalithic chamber, sometimes with subsidiary structures, covered by a
massive elongated or circular mound (pl. 5.1). Table 5.1 shows the
dimensions of the cairns (the site of Kerlud is excluded since the mound is
destroyed and its dimensions unknown). If these figures are compared
with those shown on table 4.3, it will be seen that the Grand Tumulus
monuments are significantly larger than even the largest passage graves:
the largest passage grave cairn is Petit Mont, covering 3000 m2, whilst the
smallest Grand Tumulus (Tumiac) covers 3025 m 2, and the largest
(Tumulus-St-Michel) covers 7500 m2 (pl. 5.1).
All of the monuments have a main rectangular chamber (Tumulus-StMichel has two, side by side), 2–4 metres in length and 1–3 metres in
width, which may be at the centre of the tumulus (as at Tumiac, TumulusSt-Michel, Mané-er-Hroëk, Mané-Lud) or at one end (as at Le Moustoir
106
STATEMENTS OF POWER, SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
Plate 5.1 Le Tumulus-St-Michel at Carnac (Morbihan)
and Er Grah). Some of the monuments also have subsidiary structures in
the form of small cists and cairns. In some cases there is evidence for ritual
activity prior to the construction of the mound. At Le Moustoir, for
example, a large hearth was found at the centre of the mound (figure 5.2a),
surrounded by small menhirs and associated with pottery and animal
bone (Galles 1865). At Mané-Lud (figure 5.2a), a deposit of charcoal and
animal bone found beneath the mound attests to similar activity (Le
Rouzic 1911). Two parallel alignments of small menhirs were found near
the eastern end of the mound at Mané-Lud (figure 5.2b), and skulls of
horse were found in association with the five menhirs at the northern end
of the easternmost alignment.
Table 5.1 Grand Tumulus monuments: dimensions of mound (metres)
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 5.2 (a) Le Moustoir: a: central hearth; b-c: cists; d: primary chamber, (b)
Mané-Lud
Although most of the monuments were excavated either in the
nineteenth century or in the early part of the twentieth century, the
excavation reports do permit the identification of construction phases in
several of the monuments. At Le Moustoir (Galles 1865) the evidence
suggests at least three construction phases (figure 5.2a): the main chamber
is covered by a circular cairn, 10 metres in diameter, which was later
incorporated in an elongated cairn, 65×8 metres. This elongated cairn
seems, in its turn, to have been covered by a massive earth mound, 89×40
metres. The large hearth and one of the subsidiary cists were associated
with the second construction phase, whilst another subsidiary cist was
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STATEMENTS OF POWER, SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
associated with the final phase. An essentially similar pattern can be noted
at Mané-Lud (Le Rouzic 1911), where the main chamber is covered by a
circular cairn, 22 metres in diameter, which seems to have been extended
at a later stage, covering an area of charcoal and animal bone (figure 5.2b).
The whole construction was later enclosed, as at Le Moustoir, by a massive
earth mound, and the two alignments of menhirs at the eastern end are
associated with this phase. There is a passage grave at the western end of
the mound at Mané-Lud (figure 5.2b), but the relationship between this
monument and the Grand Tumulus remains unclear, and could only be
resolved by extensive excavation. A similar series of construction phases
was noted at Le Tumulus-St-Michel (Le Rouzic 1932), but the method of
excavation (a series of tunnels) makes it difficult to establish the precise
stratigraphy of the site: once again, the main chambers seem to be covered
by an initial circular cairn, later enclosed in an elongated mound,
constructed in at least two phases. Subsidiary cists seem to have been
associated with all three phases, and there is a small passage grave at the
eastern end of the mound, clearly associated with the final phase. The
most recent excavations at Er Grah have shown that the main chamber is
covered by a rectangular cairn, which was later incorporated in a large
earth mound: postholes found beneath the earth mound suggest the
existence of wooden partitions, similar to those noted in long mounds in
Southern England and elsewhere (e.g. at Beckhampton; Smith and Evans
1968).
The evidence from sites such as Mané-Lud, Le Moustoir, Tumulus-StMichel and Er Grah suggests a fairly complex series of rituals, perhaps
conducted over several years. In each case, the first phase seems to have
been the construction of the main chamber, sealed within a circular cairn.
The evidence from Le Moustoir and Mané-Lud suggests that feasts may
have been held in the immediate vicinity of the cairn prior to its
incorporation in a much larger mound. On several of the sites, the
extension of the mound seems to have been associated with a series of
rituals involving the construction of small cists and, at Mané-Lud, the
erection of two files of menhirs and the deposition of horse skulls. Horse
remains are present in quantity both at Mané-Lud and Le Moustoir, and
it is possible that this animal had some special significance.
Unlike the passage graves, the megalithic chambers of the Grand
Tumulus monuments have no access to the outside, and would thus have
been sealed up after the construction of the first phase cairn. These
chambers are relatively simple rectangular structures, in some cases of
mixed megalithic and drystone construction. Human bone was found in
the chambers of Mané-Lud and Tumiac, but this material has not been
preserved, and the precise nature of these depositions cannot be
established from the excavation reports. Grave goods are recorded almost
exclusively from the main chambers: the subsidiary cists generally
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
contain only charcoal and small fragments of animal bone, though
fragments of a decorated vase-support were found in a subsidiary cist at
Le Moustoir (L’Helgouach 1965). Pottery is never found in the main
chambers of the Grand Tumulus monuments, and the most common
elements of these assemblages are stone axes and necklaces of variscite
beads. The stone axes are quite different from those found in passage
graves and gallery graves. Briard and L’Helgouach (1957) state that 76
per cent of the axes found in these monuments are of fibrolite and 23 per
cent are of pyroxenite rocks: this provides clear evidence for selection,
since axes of fibrolite and pyroxenite account respectively for only 22 per
cent and 5 per cent of the total stone axe assemblage from the Armorican
region (Cogné and Giot 1952). In terms of typology, Briard and
L’Helgouach (op. cit.) distinguish three classes of stone axe from Grand
Tumulus assemblages:
(i)
Large axes of pyroxenite rocks, up to 465 mm in length, triangular in
shape, with oval, fusiforme or sub-rectangular cross-section.
(ii) Smaller axes of pyroxenite rock, of similar form but with perforated
butt.
(iii) Small axes of fibrolite with rectangular cross-section.
Axes of classes (i) and (ii) (figure 5.3) occur almost exclusively in Grand
Tumulus monuments, though they have also been identified in hoards
from Arzon, Guidel and Quiberon (Le Rouzic 1927, Marsille 1927). These
hoards have a broadly similar distribution to the Grand Tumulus
monuments, and seem to be related to them.
Variscite necklaces, consisting of beads interspersed with oval
pendants, are known from several monuments, and three distinct
necklaces were identified in the Tumiac chamber (Le Rouzic 1935). These
necklaces are relatively rare in other monuments: L’Helgouach (1965) lists
variscite beads from ten Armorican passage graves (including 154 from
Kercado and 80 from Kerlagad). Variscite (the ‘callais’ of earlier writers)
occurs naturally in the area of Pannecé, Loire-Atlantique (Forestier et al.
1973), and this is almost certainly the source of the raw material for beads
in Armorican monuments.
The assemblages from Grand Tumulus monuments include particularly
large numbers of axes and beads (table 5.2), and depositions of this
nature have no clear parallels in other classes of monument in the
Armorican Neolithic. At Le Tumulus-St-Michel (Le Rouzic 1932), the
stone axes in the chamber were found to have been placed vertically, in a
deposit of ‘ashes and burnt bone’. This vertical placement of the axes
finds parallels in the two axe hoards from Arzon, Morbihan (Le Rouzic
1933), where pyroxenite axes are recorded as being arranged in a circle
and placed vertically. At Mané-er-Hroëk, most of the axes were found
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STATEMENTS OF POWER, SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
beneath the pavement of the chamber (Galles 1863), but four axes were
found lying on the pavement itself, in a deposition that is of particular
interest (pl. 2.2, figure 5.4). The largest of these axes was placed with its
butt resting on a polished stone ring, and with two spherical pendants
placed at the blade end, in an arrangement that must surely reflect an
element of sexual symbolism (see chapter 2). The association of
pyroxenite axes and polished stone rings finds parallels in hoards from
Guidel and Quiberon (Marsille 1927).
The chronology of the Grand Tumulus monuments has always been
problematic. Briard and L’Helgouach (1957) assigned them to the
Figure 5.3 Polished axes from Grand Tumulus monuments
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Table 5.2 Grand Tumulus monuments: grave-goods
Chalcolithic, largely on the grounds that the expanded blades on stone
axes of classes (i) and (ii) (figure 5.3) were thought to reflect imitation of
copper axes. More recently it has been argued (Kinnes and Hibbs 1989,
Boujot and Cassen in press) that the monuments are of Early Neolithic
date, belonging (like the tertres tumulaires and decorated menhirs) to a
‘pre-passage grave ritual landscape’. There are, however, several lines of
evidence which combine to suggest a Middle Neolithic date, overlapping
with the passage graves themselves. Firstly, it may be significant that both
passage graves and Grand Tumulus monuments incorporate re-used
fragments of decorated menhirs. The capstone of the megalithic chamber
Figure 5.4 Deposition of axes, pendants and stone ring from Mané-er-Hroëk (after
Galles 1863)
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STATEMENTS OF POWER, SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
at Er Grah is one such fragment, and is probably a part of the great menhir
represented by fragments from the passage graves of Gavrinis and La
Table des Marchand (Le Roux 1984). A fragment of another decorated
menhir was found in the blockage of the chamber at Mané-er-Hroëk
(figure 5.4). The evidence from recent excavations at Locmariaquer
suggests that these menhirs were pulled down at around the beginning of
the fourth millennium cal. BC (see chapter 3), and this provides an
approximate terminus post quem for the construction of the Grand Tumulus
monuments.
Secondly, the cist associated with the final phase mound extension at Le
Moustoir produced a decorated vase-support. Such vessels are
characteristic of the Middle Neolithic period (c. 4250–3250 cal. BC), giving
an approximate terminus ante quem. Thirdly, although pyroxenite axes of
classes (i) and (ii) (figure 5.3) are not found in passage graves, carved
representations of such axes are found in the passage grave of Gavrinis
(figure 4.16), suggesting a chronological overlap between the passage
graves and the Grand Tumulus monuments. This suggestion is in no way
contradicted by the evidence from Le Tumulus-St-Michel, where a small
passage grave is apparently associated with the final phase extension of
the Grand Tumulus monument. The relationship between the passage
grave and the Grand Tumulus monument at Mané-Lud (figure 5.2b)
remains unclear, but a large-scale excavation of this site could provide
important information on the relative chronology of these two monument
types. All of the evidence suggests that the Grand Tumulus monuments
represent a relatively short-lived phenomenon, probably lasting a few
centuries at most. Whilst it is not yet possible to fix the chronology of these
monuments with any accuracy, a date in the first half of the fourth
millennium cal. BC seems most likely.
The passage grave of Gavrinis is one of the ‘higher order’ monuments
identified in the previous chapter: it is one of the largest passage graves in
Southern Brittany, and is also distinguished by the quality and extent of
the carvings which decorate the walls of the passage and chamber,
including an unusually high concentration of ‘entoptic’ motifs (see
chapter 4). The monument of Gavrinis clearly has some special
importance in relation to the other passage graves of Southern Brittany,
and it appears to have had some specific association with the social group
represented by the Grand Tumulus monuments. Although carvings of axes
are a recurrent motif in Armorican megalithic art, it is only at Gavrinis that
we find representations of the elaborate ceremonial axes characteristic of
the Grand Tumulus series. This link between the Grand Tumulus
monuments and the Gavrinis passage grave may be particularly
important in understanding the social processes associated with the
emergence of the largest Armorican megaliths, and this is a question to
which we will return at the end of this chapter.
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
AVENUES OF STONE: THE MEGALITHIC ALIGNMENTS OF
CARNAC AND ST-JUST
Unlike the Grand Tumulus monuments, megalithic alignments are not
unique to the Carnac region: on the contrary, alignments are recorded
from all the départements of Brittany (Bender 1986, Burl 1985, Decombe
1879, Lecerf 1983, Le Pontois 1929), though they are apparently absent in
the Channel Islands and Western Normandy (figure 5.5). These
alignments vary greatly both in terms of the number and size of the
stones. The majority of them have suffered at the hands of quarrymen, so
that the original extent of many alignments cannot now be ascertained.
Most of the alignments consist of small menhirs, around 1 metre in
height, arranged in between two and six parallel lines, extending up to 50
metres. Three of the alignments in Western Brittany (Lagatjar, Leuré and
Raguénés) are distinguished by having stone rows set perpendicular,
rather than parallel, to one another (Burl 1985, Le Pontois 1929 and see
figure 5.6). Where excavations have been carried out, alignments have
generally revealed very little. At Kersolan (Morbihan), for example,
excavations revealed no artefacts associated with the menhirs of the
alignment, and the only feature identified was a single hearth (Lecerf
1983), the charcoal of which gave a radiocarbon date of 5330±80 BP
(4340–4030 cal. BC: Gif-5765). Recent excavations at the alignment of Les
Pierres Droites (Morbihan) revealed a similar lack of artefacts and
associated features. This is not in itself particularly surprising: with the
exception of funerary rituals, ceremonial activity, however elaborate,
need not necessarily involve depositing anything in the ground. The
lack of material, however, does pose obvious problems in terms of our
ability to reconstruct such activities on the basis of the archaeological
evidence.
The alignments of St-Just (Ille-et-Vilaine) are more extensive than most
other Armorican alignments, and they are better understood as a result of
recent excavation (Le Roux 1979b, 1981, 1983a). The principal surviving
menhirs form part of the ‘Alignements du Moulin’, consisting of three
parallel lines of stones, extending over 60 metres. The tallest menhirs are
over 2 metres in height. Like most megalithic alignments, the St-Just
complex seems to have suffered considerably at the hands of Medieval
and later quarrymen, and isolated groups of menhirs on the Coujoux
heathland, to the west of the surviving alignments, suggest that the
complex was originally more extensive than it is today (Burl 1985).
Excavation of the northern row of the Alignements du Moulin (Le Roux
1979b) revealed a scatter of pottery between two of the menhirs,
representing a series of hemispherical bowls, including at least one vessel
decorated with repoussé buttons. The excavation of the southern row (Le
Roux 1979b, 1981, 1983a) gave more surprising results: postholes were
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STATEMENTS OF POWER, SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
Figure 5.5 Distribution of megalithic alignments
found, suggesting that wooden posts were placed at intervals between the
menhirs of the alignment, and a hearth was found in line with the stones
of the alignment, surrounded by an irregular setting of postholes, possibly
representing a light roofed structure. Some of the stones of this southern
row were found to be set into a low, narrow cairn, and a series of six
hearths were found on the land surface underlying this cairn. Charcoal
from these hearths gave four radio-carbon dates:
5580
5550
5660
5570
± 120 BP
± 120 BP
± 120 BP
± 80 BP
=
=
=
=
4560–4340 cal. BC (Gif-5456)
4510–4330 cal. BC (Gif-5457)
4710–4370 cal. BC (Gif-5458)
4500–4350 cal. BC (Gif-5763)
Some of the menhirs of the alignment were apparently associated with
this level (Le Roux 1981), whilst others were set into the material of the
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
cairn itself. The date of the cairn is uncertain, but there is evidence for
continued activity on the site into the Bronze Age.
The St-Just alignments form part of a complex ritual landscape on the
Coujoux heathland, which seems to span the whole of the Neolithic
period. This landscape (figure 5.7) includes the Early Neolithic long
mounds of La Croix-St-Pierre and La Croix-Madame, the Middle
Neolithic passage graves of Chateau-Bu and La Croix-St-Pierre, and the
Late Neolithic lateral entrance grave of Le Four-Sarrazin. The complex
also includes a semi-circular setting of stones, known as ‘Les Demoiselles
de Coujoux’, which is of uncertain date. The precise relationships between
these monuments and the alignments themselves are obscured by the
destruction of so many stones over centuries of quarrying, but the
incorporation of the alignments in a wider landscape is important as a
parallel for the much more extensive ritual landscape surrounding the
alignments at Carnac.
Figure 5.6 The alignments of Lagatjar
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STATEMENTS OF POWER, SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
Figure 5.7 The ritual landscape of St-Just: 1 Le Four-Sarrazin; 2 La Croix-St-Pierre
long mound; 3 La Croix-St-Pierre passage graves; 4 Les Demoiselles de Coujoux; 5
Chateau-Bu passage grave; 6 Menhirs; 7 Les Alignements du Moulin
The alignments of Carnac (pl. 5.2) were conceived and built on a much
larger scale than any of the other megalithic alignments in the Armorican
region. The surviving alignments fall into three main groups, Menec,
Kermario and Kerlescan, which together extend over 3 km, with over 3000
stones. The more extensively damaged alignments of Petit Menec, SteBarbe and Kerzerho (Burl 1985) suggest that the original complex was
even larger, extending from the Crac’h Ria in the east to the sea near
Plouharnel, in all more than 8 km. The stones of the Carnac alignments
range from 50 cm to over 4 m in height, and in each group of alignments
the largest stones (weighing up to 50 tonnes) are located at the western
end.
The Carnac alignments are associated with stone circles. The Menec
alignment (figure 5.8) begins with a stone circle at its western end, and the
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Plate 5.2 The alignments of Kermario at Carnac (Morbihan)
remains of a second stone circle have been recorded (Thom and Thom
1978) at the eastern end. The Kermario alignment probably also had a
stone circle at either end: that at the western end has been completely
destroyed, but aerial photography has revealed traces of the eastern circle
(Burl 1985). The stone circle at the western end of the Kerlescan alignment
is particularly well preserved, but there is no trace of a circle at the eastern
end, where the alignments have been extensively damaged. There is a
further stone circle lying 90 metres to the north of the Kerlescan alignment
(Thom and Thom 1978).
The alignments themselves change direction at various points along
their length: the Menec alignment has one such change of direction
(figure 5.8), whilst the Kermario alignment has three. These changes in
direction suggest that the alignments may have been erected in several
phases. Thom and Thom (1978) make two significant claims with regard
to the Carnac alignments: firstly that both the alignments themselves and
the stone circles were laid out according to a precise geometry, with a
standard unit of measurement (the ‘Megalithic Yard’), and secondly that
the alignments form part of an extrapolation device for predicting
eclipses, linked to a ‘lunar observatory’ centred on the Grand Menhir
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Brisé at Locmariaquer. Neither of these claims has found widespread
acceptance. The ‘lunar observatory’ hypothesis is based on the
identification of several megalithic ‘backsights’ aligned (with the Grand
Menhir Brisé as a ‘universal foresight’) towards the rising and setting
positions of the moon at major and minor standstills. There is a problem,
however, in that the area is so rich in megalithic remains that plausible
‘backsights’ would be found on almost any line drawn outwards from
the Grand Menhir (Patrick and Butler 1974). As regards the geometry of
the alignments, there is a further problem in that both the alignments and
the associated circles have been extensively damaged and, more recently,
restored, so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to be certain of their
precise original form. In such cases, the Thoms have employed a good
deal of special pleading to fit the archaeological evidence to their precise
geometrical constructions: this is clear, for example, from their plan of the
Menec stone circle (figure 5.9), where only a few of the surviving stones
actually fall on the dotted line representing the ‘egg-shaped’ geometrical
Figure 5.8 The alignments of Le Menec (after Thom and Thom 1978)
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construction. The Thoms, however, have done an enormous service to
Breton archaeology in producing the first comprehensive set of detailed
and accurate plans of the Carnac alignments. Although statistical
analysis (Freeman 1975) does not support their claims for a precise unit of
length (the ‘Megalithic Yard’) in the Carnac alignments, it is clear that the
alignments and circles were laid out with considerable care. This
presupposes some form of measurement, and one possibility is that the
‘Megalithic Yard’ is simply a megalithic pace (Bender 1986). If the
argument for an astronomical function remains unproven, it does seem
likely that the megalithic alignments and circles of Carnac were the focus
of large-scale tribal gatherings and ceremonies. Burl (1985) suggests that
as many as a thousand people could have stood comfortably in one of the
large stone circles, and it does seem likely that such monuments were a
focus for very large gatherings of people. Unfortunately the evidence
currently available offers few clues as to the nature or significance of
these ceremonies. One possibility is that the erection of the stones
themselves was the main ceremonial event. In Melanesia, for example,
megalithic alignments and circles are erected in the context of male
initiation ceremonies (Deacon 1934, Layard 1942): the initiates are
required to sponsor the construction of these monuments and to offer a
large feast, but the megaliths themselves do not become a focus for
continued ritual activity after the initial ceremony. Each generation of
initiates is required either to build a new monument or, in some cases, to
extend an existing alignment.
Like the alignments of St-Just, the Carnac alignments lie at the centre of
a complex and extensive ritual landscape (figure 5.10) including
monuments of many types, spanning the whole of the Neolithic period.
Some of the monuments in this landscape are clearly earlier than the
alignments themselves (the Kermario alignments, for example, run over
the top of the Le Manio 1 long mound: Le Rouzic et al. 1923), whilst others
are contemporary with or later than the alignments. Such a landscape
must clearly have developed over several centuries.
The chronology of the alignments themselves remains uncertain (see
below), but they are clearly later than the long mounds, and are probably
earlier than the gallery graves. The construction of the alignments created
an artificial landscape in which the existing monuments were
incorporated: the monuments of the past were thus appropriated by the
alignment builders, as elements in their own religious system. Once
established, this culturally constructed landscape provided a spatial
network on which new monuments could be located, enabling subsequent
generations of monument builders to construct their own symbolic
relationship to the past.
The close relationship between the alignments and stone circles at
Carnac (figure 5.8) suggests that these should be seen as elements of a
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Figure 5.9 The western circle of Le Menec (after Thom and Thom 1978)
single ritual complex. Stone circles, however, also occur separately from
alignments, though they occur almost exclusively in Southern Brittany,
around the Golfe du Morbihan (Burl 1985). These stone circles, such as
Kergonan, Grah-Nioul, Grand-Rohu, Champ de la Croix, Crucuno and
Kerbourgnec (Burl op. cit.), are essentially similar to those associated with
the Menec (figures 5.8–5.9) and Kerlescan alignments. Most have been
extensively damaged, but where the dimensions can be established they
range from 33 metres (Crucuno) to 180 metres (Grand-Rohu) in diameter
(the two circles at Menec have diameters of 90 and 110 metres
respectively). In shape they are not true circles, but may be egg-shaped (as
at Menec; see figure 5.9), D-shaped (as at Kergonan) or even rectangular
(as at Crucuno). Like the alignments, these circles were probably used for
large-scale tribal gatherings and ceremonies but, like the alignments, they
have provided little detailed evidence. The only site to have been
excavated on a relatively large scale is the double stone circle of Er Lannic
(figure 2.4). The southern circle, and half of the northern one, are now
below sea level, and Le Rouzic’s (1930a) excavations were confined to the
part of the northern circle which remains above the high-tide mark. Le
Rouzic found a series of small cists, both inside the stone circle and around
the outside. These cists contained large quantities of charcoal, and in some
cases the stones themselves had been damaged by fire, leading Le Rouzic
(1930a) to conclude that the cists had been ‘ritual hearths’. Apart from the
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charcoal, the cists contained pottery, animal bone (cattle, deer and fish),
worked flints and polished axe fragments. The number of fibrolite axes
and rough-outs found at Er Lannic suggests that the site functioned as an
axe production site (see chapter 2), but it must also have been an important
ceremonial site, and this provides an interesting link between megalithic
ritual and the production and exchange of stone axes. The quantity of
pottery from the site is equally remarkable: Le Rouzic (1930a) records 800
kg of pottery, including fragments of 162 decorated vase-supports. The
ceramic assemblage from the site is essentially similar to that from the pre-
Figure 5.10 The ritual landscape of Carnac: 1 Rondossec; 2 Kergavet; 3 Le Menec; 4
Kermario/Le Manio; 5 Kerlescan alignments; 6 Kerlescan long mound; 7
Kerlescan lateral entrance grave; 8 Le Petit Menec; 9 Kermario passage grave; 10 Le
Tumulus-St-Michel; 11 Kercado; 12 Mané-Bras; 13 Kermarquer; 14 Mané-Kerioned;
15 Klud-er-Yer; 16 Mané-Keriavel; 17 Er Mané; 18 Le Moustoir
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megalithic horizon at La Table des Marchand (see chapter 3), suggesting a
date between c. 4250 and c. 3750 cal. BC.
The chronology of the Carnac alignments has always been
problematic, because of the lack of large-scale excavations and the
general scarcity of known archaeological material. Le Rouzic et al. (1923)
recognised that the Kermario alignments ran over the Le Manio 1 long
mound, and from this concluded that the alignments must be later. Since
the ‘Chasséan’ pottery assemblage from the long mound was considered
to be of Middle Neolithic date (c. 4250–3250 cal. BC), the alignments have
conventionally been dated to the Late Neolithic (cf. Giot et al. 1979). The
most recent evidence, however, suggests that they may be significantly
earlier. Recent excavations at Locmariaquer and elsewhere have
permitted a series of important refinements in Armorican Neolithic
chronology and, on the basis of these, it has been necessary to reconsider
the dating of long mounds such as Le Manio 1 (see chapter 3). Such
monuments are now thought to have been built in the early to mid-fifth
millennium cal. BC, providing a new terminus post quem for the
construction of the Carnac alignments. The radiocarbon dates from
megalithic alignments at Kersolan and St-Just suggest dates within the
second half of the fifth millennium cal. BC: we might expect the much
larger Carnac alignments to be slightly later than this, but this would still
put them firmly in the Middle, rather than the Late Neolithic. Given the
close association between alignments and stone circles in the Carnac
complex, it seems reasonable to suggest that these two classes of
monument are broadly contemporary. The stone circles at Er Lannic are
comparable to those at Menec and Kerlescan, and the ceramic
assemblage from this site suggests a date between c. 4250 and c. 3750 cal.
BC. On balance, then, it seems most likely that the alignments and stone
circles of Carnac were built during the first half of the fourth millennium
cal. BC.
Although the largest alignments are concentrated around Carnac, in
Southern Brittany (the same area as the Grand Tumulus monuments),
megalithic alignments are found in most areas of the Armorican massif,
apart from the Channel Islands and Western Normandy. Stone circles, on
the other hand, like the Grand Tumulus monuments, have a more restricted
distribution around the Golfe du Morbihan. Both the alignments and the
stone circles are likely to have served as arenas for large-scale gatherings
and ceremonies, in contrast to the passage graves (to which only a limited
number of people could have had access) and the Grand Tumulus
monuments (which seem to relate to a small social elite). The most recent
evidence, however, suggests a significant chronological overlap between
the passage graves, the alignments and circles, and the Grand Tumulus
monuments, and we should perhaps see these as complementary
elements in a single religious system. One question that remains
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unresolved is that of the relationship (if any) between the megalithic
alignments and circles and the earlier complexes of decorated menhirs
(see chapter 3). These early complexes, like the alignments and circles,
were open ceremonial sites which may have served as arenas for largescale communal gatherings and rituals. The restricted distribution of the
decorated menhirs also coincides broadly with that of the stone circles and
larger alignments. Unfortunately, the form of the earlier complexes
remains unclear, largely because of the apparently deliberate destruction
of these complexes at the end of the fifth millennium cal. BC. There are
significant differences between the early complexes and the surviving
alignments and circles: the stones of the early complexes are very much
larger, and are usually decorated with carved motifs. It is at least possible,
however, that the alignments and stone circles of the Carnac region reflect
a transformation of an earlier tradition, represented by the great menhirs
of Locmariaquer.
MONUMENTS AND SOCIETY IN THE CARNAC REGION:
4250–3250 CAL. BC
In the previous chapters, we have traced the development of a tribal
society in the Armorican Neolithic, with a social structure based on
elders’ control of religion, and control over the circulation of stone axes.
Through these related mechanisms, it is suggested, tribal elders were able
to control the social progression of young men to adult status, and could
thus make demands on their labour and loyalty. This social formation
seems to have emerged during the fifth millennium cal. BC (see chapter
3), and was closely linked to the adoption of agriculture. The evidence of
the passage graves (see chapter 4) suggests a consolidation and
expansion of this social system during the first half of the fourth
millennium cal. BC, with increasing control of ritual embodied both in
the structure of the monuments themselves and in the nature and
positioning of carved motifs within them. The same period is marked
by an expansion of stone axe exchange networks, and megalithic art
attests to a continued close link between axes and megalithic ritual (see
chapter 2).
The passage graves also provide evidence for a degree of centralisation
in ritual practice, linked to the development of larger segmentary societies
represented by massive monuments such as Petit Mont, Barnenez and La
Hougue Bie. This process of expansion and centralisation can perhaps be
understood as an outcome of competition between social groups.
Friedman and Rowlands (1977) have developed a general model to
explain the social dynamics involved in such processes. According to the
Friedman and Rowlands model, competition is mediated through the
sponsoring of lavish feasts. The ability of a community to produce a large
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agricultural surplus, and thus sponsor a more lavish feast, is taken as an
indication of supernatural patronage, which is in turn understood as
evidence for a close genealogical relationship to a founding ancestor or
spirit. Clans or lineages which are consistently able to sponsor the most
lavish feasts are thus able to present themselves as ‘older’ or ‘more direct’
lineages, with a privileged relationship to the spirit world, and such
groups may acquire a special role in relation to the control of initiation
ceremonies and other rituals. If marriage arrangements involve
bridewealth, such groups may be able to demand higher bride-prices,
enabling them to accumulate bridewealth valuables. These valuables can
then be used to acquire more women from other lineages in the context of
polygynous marriages, increasing the labour pool in the dominant lineage
and accelerating the process of social differentiation by permitting the
production of an even larger surplus.
This model may give some insight into the significance of
developments in the Carnac region during the fourth millennium cal. BC.
The scale of the Grand Tumulus monuments clearly suggests a degree of
centralisation, and the nature of the material found in the chambers of
these monuments suggests a specific association with high status social
groups. The variscite necklaces and elaborate ceremonial axes can
probably be seen as ‘symbols of power’, and the relative rarity of these
items suggests that they must have circulated within a closed social
network. The archaeological evidence points to a degree of chronological
overlap between the Grand Tumulus monuments and the Armorican
passage graves, and the carvings in the passage grave of Gavrinis include
representations (figure 4.16) of the elaborate ceremonial axes found in the
Grand Tumulus monuments. The monument of Gavrinis must have had
some special significance in relation to the other passage graves around
the Golfe du Morbihan: it is distinguished from most of the other
monuments both by its size and by the extent and nature of the carved
motifs. It may therefore be particularly significant that this monument
appears to have some special association with the elite group represented
by the Grand Tumulus monuments. Certainly it seems likely that this elite
group had some special status in relation to the religious life of
communities around the Golfe du Morbihan, and Gavrinis should be
seen as a powerful expression of this status. The Carnac alignments,
however, can perhaps be seen as an even more spectacular manifestation
of the power and status of this group. Although megalithic alignments
are found across most of the Armorican region, the scale and extent of the
Carnac complex sets it apart from any of the other alignments in Brittany.
This unique complex is located in the same area as the Grand Tumulus
monuments, and the Menec alignment is overlooked by the largest cairn,
Le Tumulus-St-Michel (figure 5.10). The most recent chronological
evidence suggests that the alignments and the Grand Tumulus
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monuments may be broadly contemporary with one another, dating
probably to the first half of the fourth millennium cal. BC. The extent of
the alignments, and the size of the associated stone circles, suggest that
the complex may have been a focus for ceremonies involving very large
numbers of people, and it seems likely that these ceremonies were
controlled by the same social elite as is represented by the Grand Tumulus
monuments. With the construction of the Carnac alignments, the
individual monuments which already existed in the area became
incorporated in a complex ritual landscape, and were thus encompassed
and appropriated by the elite responsible for the alignments. The
evidence from sites such as St-Just suggests that similar landscapes
developed elsewhere in the Armorican region, probably reflecting similar
social processes, but these developments are on a far smaller scale.
The Grand Tumulus monuments and the Carnac alignments together
represent a unique development in the area around Carnac and
Locmariaquer. Whilst this development can perhaps be seen as the
outcome of processes which affected the whole of the Armorican region,
it is nonetheless quite distinct. This area at the western end of the Golfe
du Morbihan, seems to have had a particular importance from the
beginning of the Armorican Neolithic, as suggested by the great carved
menhirs of Locmariaquer (see chapter 3): throughout the fifth and fourth
millennia cal. BC, the Carnac area seems to have been a focus for larger
social groupings, with more elaborate monumental ritual and greater
social differentiation. The diversity and productivity of the natural
environment was probably an important factor in the development of
Neolithic society in this area: the resources provided by the fertile
agricultural land on the higher ground, by the extensive marshes of
the Golfe du Morbihan and, of course, by the sea, would have facilitated
the increasing surplus production required for intensive social
competition.
Powerful though it must have been, however, the social elite
responsible for the Grand Tumulus monuments and the Carnac alignments
seems to have been relatively short-lived. Only a few Grand Tumulus
monuments were ever built, and in the second half of the fourth
millennium cal. BC, the passage grave of Gavrinis was deliberately sealed
up and abandoned. The period which followed saw the decline of larger
monuments and the proliferation of new types of megalithic tomb,
showing little evidence for social differentiation. The Grand Tumulus
monuments were once seen (cf. Briard and L’Helgouach 1957) as
precursors of the rich tumulus burials of the Armorican Early Bronze Age,
but it is now clear that the two monument types are separated from one
another by almost a thousand years. The Carnac elite, therefore, did not
evolve into a Bronze Age chiefdom, it simply collapsed. The collapse of
this local elite seems to have been part of a much more widespread socio126
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cultural development which affected the whole of the Armorican region,
involving the replacement of passage graves by new monument types.
The reason for this collapse remains unclear: one possibility is that the
natural environment was unable to sustain the increasing surplus
production demanded by a highly competitive social system, another
possibility is that internal conflict and social tensions caused the collapse
of the system. These hypotheses, in any case, are not mutually exclusive,
as social conflict and environmental pressure may have been closely
interlinked.
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LAND FOR THE LIVING,
TOMBS FOR THE DEAD
Burial monuments of the Late Neolithic
The second half of the fourth millennium cal. BC was marked by a series of
important social and cultural transformations across the Armorican
region. Firstly, the evidence suggests a marked expansion of settlement,
with much of the interior of the Armorican Massif being settled for the
first time. Secondly, the construction of passage graves ceased, though
many of the existing passage graves continued in use. The construction of
Grand Tumulus monuments also ceased. The evidence from St-Just
suggests that ritual activity around the alignments continued, though it is
unclear whether the actual construction of megalithic alignments
continued into the Late Neolithic. Thirdly, the period is marked by the
proliferation of new types of burial monument, most notably the gallery
graves and lateral entrance graves. The organisation of space in these
monuments is less complex than that of the passage graves: a gallery grave
(figure 6.1) consists of a simple rectangular chamber, in some cases
divided into a main chamber and an antechamber, whilst a lateral
entrance grave (figure 6.2) is a similar monument, elaborated by the
addition of a short entrance passage, set at right angles to the long axis of
the chamber. Gallery graves are found right across Northern France, from
Western Brittany to the Paris Basin, whereas lateral entrance graves occur
only in the Armorican region. Art is rare in Armorican gallery graves and
lateral entrance graves, but carved representations do occur in some
monuments in Northern Brittany. Unlike the motifs in passage graves,
which are highly stylised and often hidden from general view, these
motifs are in prominent positions and are often explicitly representational.
The most common motif is a female anthropomorphic representation,
stylised as a pair of breasts and a necklace and executed in haul-relief
(figure 6.11a).
In chapter 4 it was argued that the organisation of space within passage
graves and the nature of associated carved motifs embodied restrictions of
access to ritual knowledge. In this chapter it will be suggested that these
restrictions broke down during the second half of the fourth milennium
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Figure 6.1 Mogau-Bihan (after L’Helgouach 1965)
cal. BC. The model outlined in chapter 4 also involved restricted access to
the monuments in death: where human remains are found in passage
graves, the number of individuals represented is generally very small. The
evidence is limited by the fact that human remains are rarely preserved on
the acidic soils of Brittany, but gallery graves in the Paris Basin have been
found to contain the skeletons of several hundred people, suggesting a
more open access to the tombs in death. The large quantities of human
remains found in some gallery graves, combined with the relatively
simple structure of the monuments themselves, also suggest a greater
emphasis on the remains of the dead as a focus of ritual activity: whilst
death and burial appear to have been only one aspect of the rituals
associated with passage graves, the gallery graves can perhaps be seen as
true charnel houses.
In addition to the gallery graves and lateral entrance graves, the period
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is marked by the appearance of other new monument types, including
megalithic cists, angled graves and T-shaped graves. Some of these
monument types have restricted distributions and appear to reflect the
development of distinct regional traditions in megalithic architecture. The
emergence of regional traditions is also evident from a study of the
material culture of the period. Regional pottery styles such as Quessoy
(figure 6.3d), Kerugou (figure 6.3e) and Conguel (figure 6.3f) are found
alongside material of the more widely distributed Seine-Oise-Marne
tradition (figure 6.3a-b).
In comparing Middle Neolithic and Late Neolithic monument forms in
the Armorican region, it is also important to note a marked transformation
in terms of the spatial distribution of monuments and the articulation of
monuments in the landscape in relation to one another. The distribution of
passage graves (see chapter 4) is essentially coastal, and there are marked
clusters of monuments in particular areas. Certain passage graves stand
Figure 6.2 Crec’h-Quillé (after L’Helgouach 1967)
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Figure 6.3 Armorican Late Neolithic pottery styles (after L’Helgouach 1965): (a)(b) Seine-Oise-Marne; (c) Bouteille à collarette; (d) Quessoy; (e) Kerugou; (f)
Conguel
out from others by virtue of their size and other features, and should
probably be seen as higher order ritual centres. Gallery graves and lateral
entrance graves, by contrast, occur extensively in the interior of the
Armorican Massif as well as in coastal areas, and no monuments stand out
as having special importance. In contrast to the clustered distribution of
passage graves, Late Neolithic monuments are in most cases relatively
evenly spaced and Renfrew’s (1976) ‘territorial marker’ hypothesis is more
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convincing when applied to these monuments than it is when applied to
passage graves.
Some of the transformations of the late fourth millennium cal. BC can
perhaps be explained in relation to subsistence changes. With the
expansion of settlement into the interior of the Armorican Massif the
diversity of the resource base decreased, making communities
increasingly dependent on agriculture and husbandry and making land
increasingly important as the means of food production. This might
involve the appearance of ‘territorial markers’, linked to an increasing
emphasis on the ancestors as a focus of ritual activity (cf. Renfrew 1976).
This, however, cannot explain the full significance of the transformations
which occurred. It is necessary also to explain the disappearance of higher
order ritual centres, and it is necessary to explain the transformations
which occurred in terms of the organisation of space within monuments
and in terms of the nature and positioning of carved motifs within them. It
will be argued that these transformations relate to a progressive
disintegration of the social formation which had developed during the
Middle Neolithic period, and this is a theme which will be taken up in the
following chapter.
MONUMENTS IN DECLINE
Although the construction of passage graves appears to have ceased in the
mid-fourth millennium cal. BC, many of these monuments continued in
use through the Late Neolithic period, before being finally abandoned in
the early third millennium cal. BC. Late Neolithic artefacts are frequently
found in secondary contexts in Armorican passage graves: L’Helgouach
(1965) lists blades of Grand Pressigny flint from thirteen monuments,
Kerugou pottery from eight monuments and Conguel pottery from four. It
is often difficult to establish the nature and significance of Late Neolithic
activity in passage graves, owing to the disturbed condition of the
deposits and the inadequacy of early excavation techniques. In some
cases, Late Neolithic re-use of passage graves may have involved the
clearing out of earlier deposits. In the passage grave of Le Déhus
(Guernsey), for example, a series of important Late Neolithic and
Chalcolithic depositions were found in the main chamber (Kendrick
1928), whilst almost all of the Middle Neolithic material was found sealed
in the side chambers, suggesting that the main chamber had been cleared
of earlier deposits (Patton in press). In other cases the re-use of earlier
monuments involved the laying of a new floor on top of the original
deposits: in the passage grave of Conguel (St-Pierre-Quiberon, Morbihan),
for example, Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic pottery was found in
association with two skeletons on the uppermost of two floor levels
(L’Helgouach 1962). Insofar as it is possible to reconstruct the activities
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carried out in passage graves, these do not seem to have changed
fundamentally from Middle Neolithic times: at Le Déhus and at Conguel
both Middle and Late Neolithic phases involved the deposition of human
remains and pottery. In most cases, however, the surviving evidence does
not permit the detailed analysis of depositional activity within the
monuments. In one unusual case, at Beg-an-Dorchenn (Plomeur,
Finistère), a gallery grave (figure 6.4) seems to have been tacked onto the
end of an abandoned passage grave (Giot 1947).
Although many passage graves have produced evidence for continued
activity throughout the Late Neolithic period, some monuments were
abandoned in the mid-fourth millennium cal. BC. This is particularly the
case with some of the larger passage graves identified in chapter 4. The
passage grave of La Hougue Bie (Jersey) has provided no evidence for Late
Neolithic activity (Patton 1987a and in press), whilst the closure of the
Gavrinis passage grave (Larmor-Baden, Morbihan) is dated by a
Figure 6.4 Beg-an-Dorchenn (after L’Helgouach 1965)
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radiocarbon date (Le Roux 1983b) of 4470±80 BP (3340–2910 cal. BC: Gif5766). The abandonment and closure of passage graves will be discussed
in more detail in the following chapter.
The Grand Tumulus monuments, in contrast to the passage graves,
seem to have been abandoned completely at the end of the Middle
Neolithic period. Although the precise chronology of these monuments
remains uncertain (see chapter 5), there is no evidence for Late Neolithic
activity at any of the monuments. The final phase of the cairn at Le
Moustoir incorporates a cist which contained Middle Neolithic pottery
(L’Helgouach 1965). The chronology of the megalithic alignments is even
more problematic, though it has been argued (see chapter 5) that most
were probably constructed during the Middle Neolithic period. Certainly
the evidence from Carnac and St-Just suggests that the alignments
continued to be a focus for ritual activity, and that Late Neolithic
monuments were located with reference to them (see figures 5.7 and
5.10).
THE ARMORICAN GALLERY GRAVES
A gallery grave (figures 6.1, 6.5) consists of a rectangular megalithic
chamber, built of upright stones and roofed with horizontal slabs. Unlike
the gallery graves of the Paris Basin (Bailloud 1964), which are generally
sunk into bedrock, those of the Armorican region are fully megalithic and
free-standing (pl. 6.1).
In many cases the chamber is divided into a main chamber and an
antechamber or vestibule, as at Mogau-Bihan (Commana, Finistère:
figure 6.1) and Liscuis III (Laniscat, Côtes d’Armor: figure 6.6). This
division of space is also found in the Paris Basin gallery graves (Bailloud
1964) where the junction between antechamber and main chamber is
often formed by a ‘port-hole slab’. True port-hole slabs are not found in
Armorican gallery graves (the predominantly hard igneous rocks of the
Armorican Massif would make them difficult to execute), but in some
cases the junction is made by a single slab with a semi-circular hollow or
notch carved into it: such stones are known (Hawkes 1937, L’Helgouach
1965) from the gallery graves of Le Couperon (Jersey), Toul-an-Urz
(Duault, Côtes d’Armor), Liscuis I-III (Laniscat, Finistère), Coat-MenezGuen (Melgven, Finistère) and Men-Meur (Le Guilvinic, Finistère). More
commonly, however, the junction between antechamber and main
chamber is formed simply by the addition of a transverse pillar, as at
Mogau-Bihan (figure 6.1).
Some Armorican gallery graves are elaborated by the addition of
terminal cells, as at Mogau-Bihan (figure 6.1), Kernic (figure 6.5) and
Liscuis III (figure 6.6). These cells, formed by two or three blocks, are
generally separated from the main chamber by a transverse slab and may
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Figure 6.5 Kernic (after L’Helgouach 1965)
be open to the exterior, as at Liscuis III, or sealed, as at Kernic. In many
cases, as at Liscuis, the terminal cells are unroofed. L’Helgouach (1965)
lists twenty Armorican gallery graves with terminal cells.
‘Arc-Boutée’ gallery graves, such as Lesconil (Poullan, Finistère)
represent a distinctive variation on the gallery grave theme, in which the
uprights lean inwards at an angle of 45°, making capstones unnecessary
(figure 6.7). L’Helgouach (1965) lists eight such monuments, all in the
south of Brittany (the département of Morbihan and the southern part of
Finistère).
Most of the existing gallery graves of the Armorican region are
freestanding, and are not covered by cairns or mounds. L’Helgouach
(1965) argues, however, that this is largely a result of post-depositional
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Plate 6.1 The gallery grave of Ville-ès-Nouaux (Jersey), under excavation in 1884
(photo: Société Jersiaise)
factors: many of the monuments are situated on fertile agricultural land
and the area around them has been intensively farmed, possibly
destroying any trace of a mound. A few monuments have provided
evidence for mounds but these are generally of earth, rather than stone,
and are considerably less monumental than the rubble cairns which cover
passage graves. Traces of mounds are recorded (L’Helgouach 1965) at the
gallery graves of Liscuis II and III (Laniscat, Finistère), Coat-Menez-Guen
(Melgven, Finistère), St-Nizon (Malguenac, Morbihan) and Kerfily
(Trédion, Morbihan) and (L’Helgouach and Lecornec 1968) at MeinGoarec (Plaudren, Morbihan). The gallery grave of Coat-Menez-Guen was
contained (L’Helgouach 1965) within a rectangular mound, 22 metres in
length and 12 metres in width, defined by stone blocks. The mound itself
was of earth with quartz pebbles, and extended to the height of the tops of
the orthostats. The arrangement at Liscuis III (Le Roux 1977) is essentially
similar: the subquadrangular earth mound, which does not cover the
capstones, is delimited at each end by a façade of upright stones (figure
6.6) and on the sides by a poorly preserved drystone wall, which probably
completed a system of isolated uprights, a few of which have survived. It
is likely that similar mounds on other monuments have been destroyed
without trace.
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Although the mounds themselves have in most cases been destroyed,
many of the Armorican gallery graves are set within rectangular
enclosures, similar to those which define the mounds at Coat-MenezGuen and Liscuis. The gallery grave of Kernic, for example, has an
enclosure with a forecourt (figure 6.5). L’Helgouach (1965) lists ten Breton
gallery graves with similar enclosures, to which must be added the
monuments of Le Couperon and Ville-ès-Nouaux in Jersey (Hawkes 1937)
and the Norman gallery graves of Le Bois de la Plesse (Lithaire, Manche:
Edeine 1971) and Le Clos-ès-Pierres (Bretteville, Manche: Bender 1968).
The distribution of gallery graves (figure 6.8) is more widespread than
that of earlier monument types. They are not confined to Armorica, but
are found right across Northern France (cf. Bailloud 1964, Daniel 1960),
though there are important regional variations. Within the Armorican
region itself, gallery graves are quite evenly dispersed (figure 6.8), in
contrast to the coastal distribution of passage graves (figure 4.1). This
may reflect an expansion of settlement, with increasing exploitation of
Figure 6.6 Liscuis III (after Le Roux 1977)
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Figure 6.7 Lesconil (after L’Helgouach 1965)
inland zones in the second half of the fourth millennium cal. BC. The
distribution of gallery graves is also less clustered than that of earlier
monument types.
Figure 6.9 shows the radiocarbon dates from Armorican gallery graves
with, for comparison, those from gallery graves in the Paris Basin. It
should be stressed that these dates relate to activity within the
monuments, and not necessarily to their construction. The range of dates
in the two areas are broadly comparable. The assemblages from
Armorican gallery graves (L’Helgouach 1965) include pottery of SeineOise-Marne type, axe-shaped stone pendants and blades of Grand
Pressigny flint, suggesting a date range of c. 3250–2850 cal. BC. Where later
material is found (see chapter 7), it is usually in a clearly secondary
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context. The assemblage from the gallery grave of Kerbannalec (BeuzecCap-Sizun, Finistère) is fairly typical, including local round-based vessels
(similar to those found in Middle Neolithic contexts) as well as flat-based
Seine-Oise-Marne (SOM) forms (figure 6.10). The question of the
derivation of gallery graves remains an open one. The traditional view (cf.
Daniel 1960) has been that gallery graves emerged in the Paris Basin, and
were diffused from there into the Armorican region, supplanting earlier
monument types. More recently, however, an Armorican origin for gallery
graves has been sought and L’Helgouach (1973) argues for an
evolutionary sequence from passage graves to gallery graves, with Vshaped passage graves as an intermediate form. Some support for this
hypothesis comes from the site of Liscuis (Laniscat, Finistère), where a Vshaped passage grave (Liscuis I) and two gallery graves (Liscuis II and III)
were found in close proximity (Le Roux 1975, 1977). The monument of
Liscuis I, like the associated gallery graves, has a vestibule or antechamber
defined by a transverse slab, and a terminal cell, formed by two uprights,
Figure 6.8 Distribution of Armorican gallery graves
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 6.9 Radiocarbon dates from gallery graves in Armorica (1) and the Paris
Basin (2)
suggesting a clear link between these two monument types. The precise
typology and chronology of these monument types, however, remain
unclear (it is uncertain, for example, whether Liscuis I can really be seen as
a ‘passage grave’) and the question of derivation must therefore remain
open.
Because of the acidic soil conditions prevalent across most of the region,
none of the Armorican gallery graves has produced significant human
remains, and it is therefore difficult to speculate on the nature of funerary
practices within these monuments. It is always dangerous to extrapolate
from one area to another, as this may mask important regional differences,
but in Upper Normandy and the Paris Basin, the role of gallery graves as
collective tombs is beyond doubt. In most of the Paris Basin gallery graves,
human remains are concentrated in the main chamber. These monuments
often contain large numbers of skeletons. At La Chausée-Tirancourt
(Somme), for example, a minimum of 350 individuals were represented by
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bones found on two levels, completely covering the floor of the chamber
(Masset 1971). If the Armorican gallery graves were used in a similar way,
this would mark a dramatic departure from the Middle Neolithic practices
outlined in chapter 4.
The assemblages from Armorican gallery graves include pottery (predominantly of SOM type with some local round-based vessels; figures 6.3,
6.10), polished stone axes, stone pendants and blades of Grand Pressigny
flint. Grand Pressigny flint is a significant component of gallery grave
assemblages, but never occurs in large quantities: in most monuments
where it occurs, it is represented by a single blade (L’Helgouach 1965). It is
rare that discrete formal depositions can be identified in gallery graves:
where these have been recognised, they are generally of Chalcolithic date
Figure 6.10 Pottery from the gallery grave of Kerbannalec (after L’Helgouach
1965)
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
(see chapter 7), suggesting that the original deposits were disturbed by
later activity. Many of the monuments have paved chambers
(L’Helgouach 1965) and, where records exist, the material can usually be
shown to have been resting on the paving. At Liscuis II (Le Roux 1975,
1977) the paving was particularly well preserved, and was found to be
resting on horizontal ‘sleepers’. SOM type pottery was found in the
antechamber, and fragments of a carinated bowl were found at the
opposite end of the chamber. At Prajou-Menhir (Trébeurden, Côtes
d’Armor) the main chamber contained a scatter of SOM pottery, whilst the
terminal cell contained an intact ‘collared bottle’ (L’Helgouach 1966).
There is little evidence for ritual activity around the outside of Armorican
gallery graves, though this may simply be a factor of post-depositional
disturbance and inadequate excavation on many sites. The forecourt at
Kernic (figure 6.5) is highly suggestive but, as this site is situated in the
intertidal zone (Giot 1984), no trace of these activities could be expected to
survive.
Art is rare in Armorican gallery graves, but is recorded (Shee-Twohig
1981) in four surviving monuments (Tressé, Prajou-Menhir, Mogau-Bihan
and Mein-Goarec) and two destroyed sites (Kerallant and Kerdonnars).
The art comprises a very restricted range of motifs (figure 6.11). The most
significant motif, present in all four of the surviving decorated
monuments, is a female anthropomorph, stylised as a pair of breasts and a
necklace (figure 6.11a) and executed in haut-relief. The identification of this
motif as a female anthropomorph is confirmed by the existence of
identical motifs (figure 6.12) on statue-menhirs (Shee-Twohig 1981) from
Le Trévoux (Laniscat, Finistère), Kermené (Guidel, Morbihan), Le Catel
and St Martin (Guernsey). Other motifs include an arc (figure 6.11b),
possibly related to the earlier ‘crook’ motif found in passage graves, a
motif (figure 6.11e) which is probably derived from the earlier ‘écusson’
representation and a hafted axe (figure 6.11e), which is recorded from the
destroyed sites of Kerdonnars and Kerallant as well as from the gallery
grave of Mogau-Bihan. A further motif (figure 6.11d) is of uncertain
significance, having been interpreted variously as a representation of a
Cypriot tanged dagger (this must certainly be discounted) and as
depictions of hallucinogenic mushrooms!
These motifs are fundamentally different from those found in passage
graves and are often more visible, being executed in haut-relief. Abstract
and ‘entoptic’ motifs are entirely absent. Unlike the carved motifs found in
passage graves, they are not concentrated in parts of the chamber hidden
from direct light. Figure 6.13 shows the positioning of carved motifs in the
gallery graves of Tressé, Prajou-Menhir and Mogau-Bihan. Carved motifs
occur both in the main chamber and in the antechamber but female
anthropomorphs are concentrated in the antechamber, whilst the only
representation of an axe (at Mogau-Bihan) is in the main chamber. Whilst
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Figure 6.11 Motifs in Armorican gallery grave art
it would be dangerous to draw conclusions on the basis of such a small
sample, it is interesting to note that Kinnes (1980) has identified a similar
opposition between the placing of representations of axes and women in
the gallery graves and rock-cut tombs of the Paris Basin. This can perhaps
be linked to the axe symbolism discussed in previous chapters.
LATERAL ENTRANCE GRAVES
A lateral entrance grave (figure 6.2) consists of a rectangular chamber
approached by a short entrance passage, usually on the south side. The
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
construction of these monuments is essentially megalithic, with upright
stones covered by capstones. Gaps between the stones of the chamber,
however, are frequently filled with drystone walling, as in passage graves.
Most monuments are asymmetrical, as the passage is not central (figure
6.2). The junction between passage and chamber is in some cases formed
by a pair of notched stones placed together to form a ‘porthole’
(L’Helgouach 1965), as at Kerlescan and Kerléarec (Carnac, Morbihan),
Coët-Correc (Mur-de-Bretagne, Côtes d’Armor) and Les Cartésières (StSymphorien-des-Monts, Manche). At Kerlescan (L’Helgouach 1965) the
Figure 6.12 Statue-menhirs from (a) Le Trévoux, (b) Kermené, (c) Le Catel, (d)
St-Martin ((a)-(b) after Shee-Twohig 1981; (c)-(d) after Kinnes 1980)
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Figure 6.13 Positions of carved motifs in the gallery graves of (a) Prajou-Menhir,
(b) Mogau-Bihan, (c) Tressé. The letters refer to the classification of motifs on
figure 6.11
chamber itself was divided into two parts (recalling the antechamber/
main chamber division in gallery graves) by a further pair of these
notched uprights.
Most of the Armorican lateral entrance graves were probably
associated with mounds, but these have survived in only four cases (the
monuments of Kerlescan, Champ-Grosset, La Roche-Camio and Crec’hQuillé). Like the mounds associated with gallery graves, these are
rectangular and consist principally of earth. The mounds themselves are
defined by rectangular enclosures, usually of mixed megalithic and
drystone construction. The monument of Crec’h-Quillé (St-Quay-Perros,
Côtes d’Armor) has provided the clearest evidence for the construction of
the mound (L’Helgouach 1967a). The rectangular enclosure surrounding
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
this monument (figure 6.2) consists of upright stones and areas of
drystone walling, sloping inwards to form a revetment to the earth
mound. The top of the mound is level with the bases of the capstones,
which were probably never covered.
There is a particular concentration of lateral entrance graves in
Northern Brittany, but monuments are known in most areas of Brittany
and in Western Normandy (figure 6.14). As far as chronology is concerned,
the assemblages from the lateral entrance graves (L’Helgouach 1965,
1967b) are almost identical to those from Armorican gallery graves. There
are only three radiocarbon dates from Armorican lateral entrance graves,
and these seem to relate to the final blocking of the monuments rather
than to their main period of use:
Crec’h Quillé;
Champ Grosset;
3740±200 BP=2450–1890 cal. BC (GSY-344)
3760±120 BP=2440–1970 cal. BC (Gif-814)
3820±200 BP=2560–1970 cal. BC (Gif-283).
Figure 6.14 Distribution of Armorican lateral entrance graves
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L’Helgouach (1967b) has sought to trace an evolutionary sequence in
Armorican megalithic architecture, deriving lateral entrance graves from
passage graves. In many respects, however, the lateral entrance graves are
closer to gallery graves, and one possibility is that they represent a
synthesis of these two megalithic traditions. The basic form of a lateral
entrance grave is similar to that of a gallery grave, and the assemblages
from Armorican gallery graves and lateral entrance graves are also
comparable. In the lateral entrance graves, however, the existence of a
passage involves a division of space essentially similar to that which
characterises the passage graves. This division of space embodies a
restriction of access, and limits the extent to which objects and activities
within the chamber could be seen and understood by people standing
outside.
Because of acidic soil conditions, bone has rarely been preserved. At
Champ Grosset (Quessoy, Côtes d’Armor), however, there were
apparently two successive floor levels, each associated with a deposition
of human bones extending along the entire length of the monument
(L’Helgouach and Le Roux 1965). In some cases, there is evidence for reuse of the chamber over several generations: at Bretteville-le-Saire
(Manche), three successive pavements were found (Verron 1973). The
archaeological material recovered from lateral entrance graves is
essentially similar to that from the gallery graves: ceramic assemblages
typically include both flat and round-based vessels (cf. figure 6.10), and
collared flasks are recorded from Le Mélus (Fournier et al. 1956) and
Crec’h-Quillé (L’Helgouach 1967a). Kerugou pottery is recorded from
Lestrigiou and Kerlescan (L’Helgouach 1965, 1967b). Other finds include
polished stone axes and pendants and, in some cases, blades of Grand
Pressigny flint (L’Helgouach 1965, 1967b). In most cases the material
recovered is from disturbed contexts within the chamber, but at Crec’hQuillé (St-Quay-Perros, Côtes d’Armor), a cist was found at the junction of
passage and chamber, containing five pottery vessels and a schist pendant
(L’Helgouach 1967a).
Carved motifs are known only from one lateral entrance grave, the
monument of Kerguntuil (Trégastel, Côtes d’Armor). The carvings in this
monument (Shee-Twohig 1981) are typical of the gallery grave tradition,
including motifs of types A, B and D (figure 6.11), emphasising the link
between Armorican gallery graves and lateral entrance graves.
ANGLED GRAVES AND T-SHAPED GRAVES: REGIONAL
TRADITIONS IN MEGALITHIC ARCHITECTURE
An angled grave (figure 6.15) is a megalithic tomb in which the chamber is
placed at an angle of 45–90° to a passage. In the early literature (cf. Le
Rouzic 1933) they were described as ‘angled gallery graves’, but it has
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Plate 6.2 The Chalcolithic site of La Tête des Quennevais (Jersey) under excavation
in 1988
since been argued (L’Helgouach 1965) that the monuments are
morphologically closer to passage graves than to gallery graves, and the
term sépulture coudée is now almost universally preferred. In most cases the
chamber form does recall that of the passage graves (figure 6.15a), but at
Goërem (Gavres, Morbihan) and Mané-Bihan (Locoal-Mendon,
Morbihan), the chambers are rectangular (figure 6.15b), like those of
gallery graves (L’Helgouach 1965, 1970). Angled graves have a very
localised distribution (figure 6.16) in the South Breton départements of
Morbihan and Loire-Atlantique.
The chambers are in most cases of mixed megalithic and drystone
construction, and are roofed with capstones. The structures themselves are
covered by oval cairns, up to 4 metres in height (L’Helgouach 1965).
Several of the monuments show evidence for an internal subdivision of
space. The angled grave of Les Pierres Plates (Locmariaquer, Morbihan)
has an end chamber (figure 6.15a), demarcated by a transverse slab: this
feature finds a parallel in the passage grave of La Hougue Bie, Jersey
(figure 4.17). The angled grave of Goërem is divided into four
compartments by means of transverse slabs placed on alternate sides of
the chamber (figure 6.15b). The fourth compartment is an end chamber,
similar to that at Les Pierres Plates, demarcated by two slabs placed at the
centre of the chamber: when the monument was abandoned, the spaces
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LAND FOR THE LIVING, TOMBS FOR THE DEAD
Figure 6.15 (a) Les Pierres Plates (after L’Helgouach 1965); (b) Goërem (after
L’Helgouach 1970)
between these slabs and the walls of the chamber were blocked up with
dry stone walling, sealing the end chamber completely (L’Helgouach
1970). The Pierres Plates monument has a side chamber similar to those
found on some passage graves (cf. figure 4.8).
The chronology of angled graves is problematic, since most
monuments have suffered at the hands of early excavators. Only at
Goërem has an undisturbed monument been excavated in recent times
(L’Helgouach 1970). Charcoal from this monument produced the only
radiocarbon date so far available for this class of monument: 4430±140
BP= 3360–2920 cal. BC (Gif-1148).
The assemblages from Armorican angled graves (L’Helgouach 1965)
are dominated by Late Neolithic elements, including Kerugou and
Conguel pottery and blades of Grand Pressigny flint. L’Helgouach (1965)
considers the angled graves to be earlier than gallery graves, and argues
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
for a derivation from passage graves. It seems clear that angled graves
developed locally in Southern Brittany, and certain aspects of their
structure do support the idea of an evolution from passage graves. The
division of space within the angled graves of Les Pierres Plates and
Goërem (figure 6.15) finds parallels in some passage graves (see chapter
4), as does the side chamber at Les Pierres Plates. The angled structure,
like the passages of Armorican passage graves, would effectively restrict
access to the chamber, and would conceal the ceremonies conducted
within the monument from the view of people standing outside. Whilst it
seems likely that angled graves developed from passage graves, the
precise chronological relationship between passage graves, gallery
graves and angled graves remains unclear. The assemblages from the
angled graves, however, suggest that most of these monuments were
built during the second half of the fourth millennium cal. BC.
The assemblages from Armorican angled graves are quite different
from those found in gallery graves and lateral entrance graves. Round-
Figure 6.16 Distribution of Armorican angled graves
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based vessels were present at Mané-Bihan (L’Helgouach 1965), but SOM
tradition flat-based vessels (figures 6.3a-b, 6.10) are absent from angled
graves. Ceramic assemblages are dominated by Kerugou style pottery
(figure 6.3e) recorded at Mané-Bihan, Le Rocher, Luffang, Moulin Peret
and Goërem (L’Helgouach 1965). Conguel style pottery is recorded from
Le Rocher (L’Helgouach op. cit.). Stone axes are recorded from several
sites, as are blades of Grand Pressigny flint (L’Helgouach 1965). More
surprisingly, ten variscite beads were found at Luffang (Crac’h,
Morbihan): these are identical to the beads found in Grand Tumulus
monuments (see chapter 5) and in certain passage graves, and such beads
are unknown in assemblages from gallery graves and lateral entrance
graves. Understanding of depositional practice and the function of the
monuments is hampered both by preservation factors and by inadequate
recording. Traces of bone were identified at Goërem (L’Helgouach 1970),
but these were not identifiable: elsewhere, bone has not been preserved.
The excavations at Goërem (L’Helgouach 1970) have added considerably
to our understanding of these monuments since, for the first time, we
have detailed contextual information from a virtually undisturbed
monument. Traces of a wooden floor were noted on top of a stone
pavement, and most of the depositions seem to have been placed on this
wooden floor. Fragments of four pottery vessels were found in the
passage, and a single flint arrowhead was found in the first compartment
of the chamber. The second compartment contained traces of bone (not
identifiable) but no artefacts, whilst the third compartment contained a
quartz pebble pendant and fragments of three vases. The end chamber
was distinguished by a layer of deliberately deposited marine sand
below the stone paving. This chamber contained a deposition of Bell
Beakers and objects of copper and gold, probably placed in it at the time
of abandonment of the monument (see chapter 7).
Carved motifs are recorded from the angled graves of
Goërem, Luffang, Le Rocher and Les Pierres Plates (Shee-Twohig 1981),
and these carvings make up a distinctive artistic tradition, specific to the
angled graves. There is a single dominant motif (figure 6.17), which is
usually interpreted as a variation on the theme of the ‘écusson’ motif
found in Armorican passage graves (see chapter 4). Bradley (1989)
identifies this as an ‘entoptic’ motif (see chapter 4). At Goërem, Luffang
and Le Rocher, this motif occurs exclusively in the chamber, but at Les
Pierres Plates it is also found on stones in the passage and side chamber
(Shee-Twohig 1981). Other motifs are relatively rare in the art of the
angled graves: a very stylised representation of a stone axe has been
noted on one of the uprights at Luffang (Shee-Twohig 1981, figure 40)
and simple abstract motifs are recorded on stones of the passage at
Goërem and Le Rocher.
The angled graves represent a distinct megalithic tradition which
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Figure 6.17 Carved motifs from Armorican angled graves ((a) Luffang; (b)-(e) Les
Pierres Plates)
developed locally in Southern Brittany in the late fourth millennium cal.
BC. In several respects, this tradition could be seen as a localised survival
of some aspects of the passage grave tradition into the Late Neolithic
period. In terms of structure and division of space, the angled graves are
certainly closer to passage graves than to gallery graves or lateral
entrance graves, and their design embodies the same possibilities for
restriction of access. The link with passage graves is also evident from the
carved motifs found in angled graves, which are not explicitly
representational and which are in most cases located in parts of the
monument which would not receive direct light. In contrast to the art of
the gallery graves and lateral entrance graves, that of the angled graves
apparently includes ‘entoptic’ images. Given the importance of Southern
Brittany in the development of Middle Neolithic monumental traditions
(see chapters 3 and 4), and the spectacular elaboration of these traditions
(see chapter 5) in the area around Carnac and the Golfe du Morbihan, it is
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LAND FOR THE LIVING, TOMBS FOR THE DEAD
perhaps not surprising that aspects of these traditions survived longer in
this area than elsewhere, and the angled graves provide some evidence
for this.
L’Helgouach (1965) identifies three monuments which he characterises
as T-shaped passage graves. These monuments (Keriven at St-Pol-deLéon, Kerugou at Plomeur and Poulguen at Penmarc’h) are all located in
the West Breton département of Finistère and, like the angled graves of
Southern Brittany, they must be seen as reflecting a local megalithic
tradition. Like the angled graves also, they can in some respects be
considered to reflect a survival of aspects of the earlier passage grave
tradition. A T-shaped passage grave consists of a rectangular chamber
with a passage set perpendicular to it (figure 6.18). The construction is
fully megalithic, and the chamber is contained within a circular or oval
cairn: the cairn at Poulguen was particularly large, with a diameter of 40
metres and a height of 8 metres (L’Helgouach 1965). Like the angled
graves, the T-shaped graves can probably be dated to the second half of
the fourth millennium cal. BC: the assemblage from Poulguen includes an
SOM tradition pottery vessel and a blade of Grand Pressigny flint, whilst
that from Kerugou includes pottery of the Kerugou style (figure 6.3e) as
well as polished axes and stone pendants (Martin 1902, Du Chatellier
1877, L’Helgouach 1965). Martin (op. cit.) records that fragments of burnt
bone were found in the chamber at Poulguen, resting (with the pottery
and flint blade) on what was interpreted as the remains of a wooden floor.
Since the publication of L’Helgouach’s (1965) book, a fourth monument of
this class has been identified (Lecornec 1983) at Port-Maria (St-Gildas-deRhuys, Morbihan) and this is interesting, since it extends the distribution
of T-shaped monuments into Southern Brittany, overlapping with the
angled graves. This monument had been extensively damaged, but
paving had survived in parts of the chamber, and a series of round-based
bowls were recovered.
MEGALITHIC CISTS
The late fourth millennium cal. BC is marked by the appearance of simple
megalithic cists, which seem to have existed alongside the larger
monuments. These cists are rectangular or irregular in shape and are built,
like the larger megaliths, of upright stones, and roofed with horizontal
slabs. The chambers themselves are relatively small, covering an area of 2–
8 m2 and with a height of 1–1.5 metres. Where evidence for a cairn has been
found, as at L’Hotié-Viviane (Le Roux 1983a, Briard 1984) and Lost-erLenn (Lecornec 1972), this is circular or oval in form, with a diameter of 8–
18 metres and a height of 1–1.5 metres. At Les Platons, Jersey (Baal and
Sinel 1915a), the mound covering a megalithic cist was surrounded by a
circle of boulders. In comparison with the gallery graves, lateral entrance
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
graves, angled graves and T-shaped graves, these cists are relatively
modest megalithic constructions.
There are, in the Armorican region, a great many of these ‘simple
dolmens’, most of which have been plundered or excavated in antiquity.
Bender (1968) lists seven monuments on the Cotentin peninsula, but no
archaeological material is preserved from any of these sites, so that their
date and significance remain uncertain. In Brittany, cists such as Trédion
(Coëtby, Morbihan) and Ezer (Loctudy, Finistère) pose similar problems
(Le Roux 1977, Milon and Giot 1949). A few cists, however, have produced
datable material. The assemblage from L’Hotié-Viviane (Le Roux 1983a,
Briard 1984) includes pottery of SOM type, stone pendants and axes of
Type A dolerite, whilst that from Lost-er-Lenn (Lecornec 1972) includes
pottery of SOM and Kerugou affinities, as well as a single variscite bead.
The Channel Island cists of Les Platons (Jersey) and Herm I have also
produced SOM type pottery (Baal and Sinel 1915a, Kendrick 1928, Patton
in press). These assemblages suggest a date between 3250 and 2850 cal. BC.
Other monuments of essentially similar form (e.g. The Ossuary’, Jersey),
however, appear to be significantly later (see chapter 7), so that it is
Figure 6.18 Keriven (after L’Helgouach 1965)
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LAND FOR THE LIVING, TOMBS FOR THE DEAD
impossible to be certain as to the date of those monuments from which no
material is known.
The assemblages from Late Neolithic cists include the same elements as
are found in other contemporary monuments (pottery of SOM and
Kerugou affinities, stone pendants, polished axes, flint arrowheads), but
burial rites seem to have varied considerably. Because of acidic soil
conditions, skeletal remains are not preserved from most sites. The cist of
Herm I, however, contained the disarticulated bones of ‘a vast number’ of
individuals, deposited on two separate levels (Kendrick 1928), whilst the
monument of Les Platons, Jersey (Baal and Sinel 1915a) contained
cremated human remains (representing one or two individuals) placed in
the larger of two SOM type pottery vessels.
Unlike the other monument types discussed in this chapter, the
megalithic cists are in most cases small enough to have been built by
individual domestic groups of less than 100 people. The proliferation of
such monuments is an important feature of the third millennium cal. BC,
particularly in the Channel Islands, and this is a theme to which we will
return in chapter 7. It may be possible to see these monuments as reflecting
a progressive decentralisation of ritual practice, associated with the
disintegration of larger social groupings: this process seems to have
started in the late fourth millennium cal. BC, with the disappearance of
Grand Tumulus monuments and the abandonment of larger passage
graves, and continued into the third millennium cal. BC with the
abandonment of gallery graves and lateral entrance graves, as well as the
remaining passage graves, and the proliferation of much smaller
megalithic cists (see chapter 7).
CAIRNS WITHOUT CHAMBERS
Most of the cairns described in this book were built to cover megalithic or
dry stone chambers. There is, however, a small group of Late Neolithic
monuments in Brittany and the Channel Islands consisting of cairns
without chambers or internal structures. The precise significance of these
monuments is uncertain: ceremonies may have been conducted around
them or on top of them. This group includes only four known monuments:
Kermené (Guidel, Morbihan), Pleyben (Finistère), Tossen-Keler (Peneven,
Côtes d’Armor) and La Hougue Mauger (Jersey). These cairns are all
circular or oval in form, but vary considerably in size. Diameters vary
from 17 metres at La Hougue Mauger (Baal and Sinel 1915b) and 18 metres
at Kermené (Giot 1960, 1973) to 40 metres at Pleyben (Anon 1876) and
Tossen-Keler (Briard and Giot 1968), whilst heights vary from 2.5 metres
(Pleyben) to over 7 metres (Tossen-Keler). The mound at Tossen-Keler has
a megalithic peristalith which incorporates a number of re-used decorated
stones (Briard and Giot 1968).
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Where material has been recovered from these monuments, it is
invariably of Late Neolithic date. The assemblage from Kermené (Giot
1960, 1973) includes SOM tradition pottery vessels and a stone pendant,
as well as three fragments of a statue-menhir with breasts and a necklace.
This statue-menhir is essentially comparable to that of Le Catel,
Guernsey (Kendrick 1928, Patton in press), and is clearly related to the
female anthropomorphic motifs found in Armorican gallery graves.
Charcoal from the Kermené site gave a radiocarbon date (Gif-1966) of
4390±140 BP (=3340–2910 cal. BC). Charcoal from a hearth at TossenKeler gave a radiocarbon date (Gif-260) of 4500±500 BP (=3780–2575 cal.
BC). The assemblage from La Hougue Mauger (Baal and Sinel
1915b) includes pottery vessels with afinities in the Gord group of
the Paris Basin (Blanchet 1984), dating to the early third millennium
cal. BC.
None of these monuments has produced any indication of burials, or
of any internal structure, though it is possible that wooden structures
were missed by the excavators at Pleyben (Anon 1876) and La Hougue
Mauger (Baal and Sinel 1915b). The only indication of features beneath
the mound is from Tossen-Keler (Briard and Giot 1968), where two large
hearths were found on the pre-mound land surface. Most of the material
from these sites (including the statue-menhir fragments from Kermené)
comes from the matrix of the mounds themselves, and must be
considered as redeposited. The assemblages include pottery, flint
arrowheads and polished stone axes, but perhaps the most remarkable
feature is the presence of broken querns. Fragments of seventy-five
querns were found at Kermené (Giot 1960, 1973) and twenty-two were
found at La Hougue Mauger (Baal and Sinel 1915b). These querns are
almost invariably broken. Querns are also recorded from Pleyben (Anon
1876) and a single quern was found in the peristalith of the Tossen-Keler
mound (Briard and Giot 1968). The significance of these depositions is
unclear, but it seems difficult to interpret them as anything other than
ritual deposits.
MEGALITHIC ARCHITECTURE AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE
IN THE ARMORICAN LATE NEOLITHIC
The archaeological evidence outlined in this chapter points to a series of
important changes in megalithic architecture during the second half of the
fourth millennium cal. BC, which in turn suggest fundamental changes in
Neolithic religion and society.
The spatial distribution of Late Neolithic monuments is fundamentally
different from that of earlier monument types. The proliferation of
monuments in inland areas seems to be associated with a general
expansion of settlement, which can perhaps be seen as a response to
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pressure on resources in coastal areas brought about both by
demographic factors and by the social demands for increasing surplus
production caused by intensifying social competition (see chapters 4 and
5). As communities were severed from the nutritional life-line provided
by coastal resources, land became increasingly important as the sole
means of food production. Following Renfrew’s (1976) hypothesis, we
would expect to see evidence for an increasing importance of megalithic
monuments as ‘territorial markers’ and this is perhaps reflected in the
dispersed distribution pattern of Late Neolithic monuments, in marked
contrast to the clustered distribution of Early and Middle Neolithic sites.
If group titles to land were legitimised by reference to the ancestors, we
might also expect to see an increasing emphasis on the dead as a focus of
ritual activity and, although there is no direct evidence from the
Armorican region itself, the evidence from neighbouring areas, such as
the Paris Basin, suggests that the appearance of gallery graves was
indeed associated with developments of this nature.
Whilst changes in the distribution of monuments may reflect
responses to pressure on resources, changes in the structure and
ceremonial function of the monuments themselves require a more
complex social explanation. The gallery graves (by far the most
numerous and the most widespread of Late Neolithic monument types)
embody a division of space which is fundamentally different from that of
the passage graves. In chapter 4 it was argued that the division of space in
passage graves embodies a restriction of access to sacred space and
knowledge. This is manifest both from the structure of the monuments
themselves (relatively small chambers separated from the outside world
by dark, narrow passages, preventing those outside from seeing or
comprehending the ceremonies conducted within) and from the nature
and positioning of carved motifs (often highly stylised motifs, the
meanings of which would be apparent only to initiates, carved in
positions hidden from direct light). It was suggested that this restriction
of access was linked to the development of a tribal social formation, in
which power was based on elders’ control of religion. If the appearance
of passage graves can be considered to reflect increasing restriction of
access to ritual, associated with the development of such a system, the
appearance of gallery graves seems to correspond to a breakdown of
these restrictions, perhaps linked to a weakening of existing power
structures. The chambers of these monuments are not separated from the
outside world by narrow passages and, where carved motifs are present,
these are not concentrated in parts of the monument hidden from direct
light. The carved motifs themselves are in many cases more explicitly
representational than those found in the passage graves, and ‘entoptic’
motifs are conspicuous only by their absence. In other Late Neolithic
monument types, however (lateral entrance graves, angled graves, T157
STATEMENTS IN STONE
shaped graves), the restrictions of access characteristic of the passage
graves reappear, both in the structure of the monuments themselves, and
(in the case of the angled graves) in the nature and positioning of the
carved motifs found within them. The existence of such monuments
alongside the gallery graves suggests at least a limited survival of earlier
traditions, albeit in an altered form.
Angled and T-shaped graves are both confined to relatively small areas:
angled graves are found exclusively in Southern Brittany (the area which
seems to have been the greatest centre of megalithic activity throughout
the Neolithic period), whilst T-shaped graves are confined to Western
Brittany. The existence of these local monument types provides evidence
for increasing regional differences, also reflected in the distribution of
certain pottery styles such as Conguel (confined to Southern Brittany) and
Kerugou (found in Southern and Western Brittany). It may be significant
to note that these regional pottery styles are largely absent from gallery
graves and lateral entrance graves, but dominate the assemblages from
angled graves and T-shaped graves (L’Helgouach 1965), suggesting the
existence of two parallel traditions, distinguished from one another both
by monument types and by material culture. The emergence of distinct
regional traditions is linked to a more general diversification in terms of
ritual practice, marked by the appearance of new monument types. This
pattern of increasing diversification and regionalisation suggests a
breakdown of the earlier regional unity, marked by the predominance of
passage graves.
A further trend which can be noted is the disappearance of higher order
centres: none of the Late Neolithic monuments stands out from the others
in terms of their size, monumental construction or location, in the way that
passage graves such as Gavrinis and La Hougue Bie clearly do. These large
passage graves were in many cases sealed and abandoned in the midfourth millennium cal. BC, whilst other passage graves remained open
and continued to be used (see chapter 7). The Grand Tumulus monuments
were also abandoned, and no comparable monuments were built during
the Late Neolithic. The disappearance of these higher order monuments
suggests a collapse of the larger social groupings which had emerged
during the Middle Neolithic period. Most of the gallery graves, lateral
entrance graves and other Late Neolithic monuments could have been
built by communities of a few hundred people, whereas the construction
of the larger passage graves would clearly have required the co-operation
of several such communities (see chapter 4), corresponding to a higher
(‘tribal’) level of social organisation. The disappearance of these large
monuments coincides with a proliferation of much smaller megaliths
(notably the megalithic cists) which could in many cases have been built
by individual domestic groups of less than a hundred people, suggesting a
progressive decentralisation of Neolithic religion.
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It seems clear that changes in megalithic architecture during the late
fourth millennium cal. BC must correspond to a fundamental social
transformation. The structure of the gallery graves suggests a more open
access to ritual, perhaps linked to a weakening of elders’ power, whilst the
abandonment of higher order centres and the proliferation of smaller
monuments suggests the collapse of Neolithic tribal groupings. The
expansion of settlement into inland areas suggests that these
transformations may have occurred in the context of pressure on
resources. In other respects, however, the basis of the Middle Neolithic
social formation seems to have remained intact.
In previous chapters it was argued that the Neolithic social system was
based on inter-generational bonds and asymmetries, mediated through
elders’ control of ritual practice and control over the circulation of socially
valued objects (most significantly stone axes). Although control of ritual
practice appears to have been weakened, the continued construction and
use of megaliths suggests that such control remained a significant feature
of the social formation during the Late Neolithic. The exchange of stone
axes also continued, and the production of axes for exchange at the
‘factory’ site of Plussulien seems to have intensified in the mid-fourth
millennium cal. BC (Le Roux 1970). Alongside the established networks of
stone axe exchange, however, new exchange systems developed which
may provide some clues to the significance of the cultural transformations
which occurred during the Late Neolithic. Foremost among these new
exchange systems is the exchange of flint blades produced at Grand
Pressigny, in Central France. The flint from Grand Pressigny has a
characteristic ‘honey’ colour, and was used principally to produce finely
worked long blades, which were probably more ceremonial than
functional. These blades are widely distributed in Northern France but,
unlike the stone axes discussed in chapter 2, they are relatively rare.
L’Helgouach (1965) lists blades from thirteen passage graves, eight gallery
graves, four angled graves and two lateral entrance graves, but in most
cases there is only a single blade per monument. The widespread
distribution and relative rarity of these blades suggest that they circulated
within a more competitive and individualistic exchange system than that
represented by stone axes.
Such competitive exchange networks are typical of political systems
dominated by ‘Big Men’ (Sahlins 1963). Unlike tribal elders, ‘Big Men’
acquire their status through competing for clients. Normally they gain
clients by producing a surplus and using this to offer assistance to others
(often in putting together payments for bridewealth transactions or
initiation ceremonies). This creates a situation of indebtedness, which
enables the ‘Big Man’ to make demands on his client’s labour at a later
stage. This in turn enables him to produce a larger surplus, which may be
used either to acquire more clients or to acquire prestige items through
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competitive exchange. The emergence of ‘Big Men’ in the mid-fourth
millennium cal. BC may have been facilitated by increasing dissatisfaction
with the demands that elders had to make in order to sustain the cycle of
intensifying social competition associated with the construction of
increasingly large monuments. Once established, ‘Big Men’ would
undermine the power of the elders by offering younger men an alternative
route to economic independence. As the ‘Big Men’ gained more clients, the
elders’ ability to requisition surplus production to support the
construction of large monuments would be greatly diminished, and their
claims to supernatural or divine patronage would look less and less
credible. As the cycle of social competition and large monument
construction wound down, the larger social groupings which had
emerged as a result of it would have collapsed, leading to the
abandonment of higher order centres and the progressive decentralisation
of ritual practice noted in the archaeological record. Tribal elders may
have responded to the crisis by adapting their own legitimation strategies
to play down their power and mask social asymmetries: this may have
been manifested in a religious ‘reformation’, removing some of the
restrictions of access to sacred space and knowledge. The Late Neolithic
period appears, then, as a time of crisis marked by conflict between the
established power structures and an emergent new political system which
would ultimately supplant them. The outcome of this conflict will be seen
in the following chapter.
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SEALING THE TOMBS
The abandonment of megaliths
Although the construction of passage graves ceased in the mid-fourth
millennium cal. BC, many of these monuments seem to have remained
open, and to have continued in use alongside the gallery graves, lateral
entrance graves and other Late Neolithic monuments. Late Neolithic
material, essentially similar to that known from gallery graves, has been
recorded in secondary contexts in a number of passage graves
(L’Helgouach 1965 and see chapter 6). During the third millennium cal.
BC, virtually all of the Armorican megaliths (passage graves, gallery
graves, lateral entrance graves and other monuments) were abandoned.
Where evidence has been preserved and adequately recorded, it suggests
a deliberate sealing of the monuments, accompanied by rituals and, in
some cases, involving terminal depositions.
For previous generations of archaeologists, this transformation was
understood as reflecting the arrival of a new people, who suppressed the
religious practices of the native population. Much has been made of the
relationship between the abandonment of megalithic tombs and the
appearance of a new material culture package including Bell Beakers and
metal objects. The assumption that material culture packages correspond
to ‘peoples’ or ethnic groupings, however, is no longer accepted
uncritically and, in any case, the abandonment of Armorican megaliths
seems to have taken place over a period of several centuries: some were
clearly abandoned before the appearance of Bell Beakers.
This chapter will focus on the evidence relating to the abandonment of
megaliths in Armorica. In some cases there is evidence for terminal
depositions, placed within the chamber or at the entrance to the
monument as a final offering. Pottery is the most common element of
these depositions, but metal objects, flint arrowheads and animal and
human remains are also known. In some cases the floor of the monument
seems to have been covered by a sterile layer of earth, rubble or limpet
shells, a procedure which finds parallels in Paris Basin gallery graves
(Leclerc 1987). Of particular interest, however, is the evidence relating to
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the physical closure of the monuments: in some cases this involves a
simple wall built across the entrance, whilst in others it involves a massive
extension of the cairn to enclose the earlier monuments.
The evidence suggests that the Armorican passage graves were
abandoned between 3250 and 2250 cal. BC, whilst the gallery graves and
lateral entrance graves were abandoned between 2850 and 2250 cal. BC.
Within this broad sequence, some of the larger passage graves seem to
have been abandoned at a relatively early stage (3250–2850 cal. BC).
Following on from the discussion in the previous chapter, this can
perhaps be seen as evidence for the progressive disintegration of the
Neolithic social formation, with the higher order centres being
abandoned first, followed by the smaller monuments. In some areas, the
third millennium cal. BC is also marked by the proliferation of smaller
ritual complexes, sometimes associated with individual settlements,
lending further weight to the suggestion of increasing decentralisation of
ritual practice. The period is also marked, across the Armorican region,
by the appearance of new material culture forms and the development of
new exchange systems, and these may give some important clues to the
nature and significance of the social transformations taking place. It will
be argued that the collapse of the Neolithic tribal organisation was
matched by the rise of a new social order, involving competition between
local ‘Big Men’.
EXCHANGE SYSTEMS AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN THE
THIRD MILLENNIUM CAL. BC
The appearance of new material culture forms in the Armorican region in
the early third millennium cal. BC is part of a pan-European development.
Bell Beakers (figure 7.1), the most characteristic element of the new
‘package’, are found from the Netherlands to Italy, and from Portugal to
Czechoslovakia. Whilst recent research (cf. Harrison 1980) has stressed
regional differences, destroying the notion of a homogenous ‘Beaker
People’ or ‘Beaker Culture’, Beakers in the different areas of Europe are
sufficiently similar to be recognisable as Beakers. In most areas, Bell
Beakers occur as part of a distinctive material culture ‘package’, which
also includes stone wristguards, barbed and tanged flint arrowheads,
copper axes and daggers and gold jewellery. Clearly, then, the appearance
of Bell Beakers in the Armorican region must be seen as part of a much
more widespread phenomenon, the scale of which suggests a considerable
expansion of inter-regional contacts and exchange. Western France
became, to a far greater extent than before, part of a wider European social
and economic system. In many areas of Europe, the appearance of the
‘Beaker Package’ coincides, as it does in Brittany, with major social and
cultural changes, involving the development of new religious and
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SEALING THE TOMBS
funerary practices. In Armorica, the Neolithic axe exchange systems seem
to have collapsed. The production of dolerite axes at Plussulien (see
chapter 2) seems to have halted at around 2700 cal. BC (Le Roux 1979a),
whilst axes of fibrolite, jadeite and eclogite are rarely found in Chalcolithic
or later contexts. This is not to say that the production and use of stone
axes ceased: copper remained a rare commodity well into the Early Bronze
Age, and (until it was alloyed with tin) was inferior to stone as material for
making functional tools. The Early Bronze Age settlement of La Moye I
(Jersey) has provided evidence for the manufacture of stone axes in the
first half of the second millennium cal. BC (Patton 1988). The production
of stone axes at ‘factory’ sites, however, seems to have been abandoned in
favour of local procurement, and stone axes ceased to have exchange
value. In place of stone axe exchange, new exchange systems developed,
centred principally on metal objects.
Most of the Bell Beakers found in the Armorican region belong to a
distinctive style known as Type Maritime (cf. L’Helgouach 1963),
characterised by vessels with smooth S-shaped profiles, with decoration
(often comb-impressed) organised in evenly spaced horizontal bands
(figure 7.1 ). Finewares predominate, though coarseware sherds with
Beaker-derived decoration have recently been found in surface surveys at
Les Blanches Banques, Jersey (Finlaison and Patton in press) and at StNicholas-du-Pelem, Côtes-d’Armor (Le Provost et al. 1972). Most of the
Bell Beakers known from the Armorican region come from secondary
contexts in earlier monuments. L’Helgouach (1963) lists Beakers from
thirty-eight passage graves, seventeen gallery graves, seven cists and
three other sites in Brittany: to this list must be added the material from
the Channel Islands, where Beakers are known from seven passage
graves, one gallery grave, one cist and one other site (Patton in press).
The concentration of Bell Beakers in monuments and ritual sites may be
partly a function of recovery bias (few settlements are known in the
Armorican region), but where Chalcolithic settlements have been
excavated (as at Les Blanches Banques, Jersey and Les Fouaillages,
Guernsey) true Beaker sherds are rare, despite the abundance of
contemporary decorated and undecorated coarseware sherds (Finlaison
and Patton in press, Kinnes in press). The distribution of Armorican Bell
Beakers (figure 7.2) is essentially coastal, though this may simply reflect
the distribution of the earlier monuments (especially passage graves) in
which most of the vessels have been found. Stone wristguards are found
in similar contexts, and often in association with Bell Beakers. Briard and
L’Helgouach (1957) list wristguards from six Breton gallery graves, and
two ‘dolmens’.
Flat tanged daggers and flat axes of copper are also found in contexts
dating to the third millennium cal. BC. Daggers are relatively rare (Briard
and L’Helgouach 1957 list only eight surviving examples in Brittany,
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 7.1 Armorican Bell Beakers from the Channel Islands
though there are records of several others) but occur in similar contexts to
the Beakers and wristguards: Briard and L’Helgouach (op. cit.) list
examples from two passage graves, two gallery graves and a megalithic
cist (there is a further example from the passage grave of Le Déhus,
Guernsey). Flat axes, by contrast, are never found in megalithic
monuments. Briard (1965) lists 181 examples from Brittany, of which the
vast majority are chance finds with no archaeological associations:
Briard’s inventory, however, does include several hoards. Many of the
axes included in Briard’s inventory are of bronze rather than copper, and
must therefore post-date the abandonment of megaliths. The earliest
copper axes, however, are apparently contemporary with the tanged
daggers (Briard 1965) and it is significant that none of these has been
found in a megalith.
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SEALING THE TOMBS
Gold objects have been found in a number of monuments, and in 1811 a
company was even established at Auray (Le Rouzic 1930c) to prospect for
gold in the megaliths of Locmariaquer! Chalcolithic gold objects from the
Armorican region include beads, perforated plaques (typologically
similar to the stone wristguards), bands of gold with ‘palette’ terminals
and bands with zig-zag edges, possibly used to decorate wooden or bone
maces. Two massive collars were found in the passage grave of Rondossec
(Plouharnel, Morbihan), and these have been compared (L’Helgouach
1965) to gargantillas of the Iberian Chalcolithic. Most of the Chalcolithic
gold objects known from the Armorican region are from secondary
contexts in megalithic monuments: Gold objects are recorded from twelve
passage graves and one gallery grave (Le Rouzic 1930c, Briard and
L’Helgouach 1957, L’Helgouach 1965). A major exception to this rule,
however, is provided by gold lunulae (crescent-shaped gold ornaments,
often decorated, probably worn around the neck): Briard (1965) lists five
finds of lunulae in the Armorican region, none of which are from passage
graves or gallery graves. The finds from Kerivoa (Bourbriac, Côtes
Figure 7.2 Distribution of Armorican Bell Beakers
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
d’Amor) and La Montagne du Roule (Tourlaville, Manche) were
apparently hoards (the Tourlaville hoard comprises two lunulae, whilst
that from Kerivoa includes three lunulae, a small torque and a gold band
with ‘palette’ terminals).
The material culture of Armorican Chalcolithic communities testifies
to the extensive network of international contacts in which they were
involved. The widespread occurrence of Bell Beakers themselves has
already been mentioned, but stone and metal objects also provide
evidence for exchange. Stone wristguards, for example, occur with
Beakers in many areas of Europe. A tanged copper point from
Kercadoret (Locmariaquer, Morbihan) has been compared
(L’Helgouach 1965) to ‘palmella points’ from Iberia, whilst the gold
collars from Rondossec have affinities in the Chalcolithic of Portugal.
The Armorican gold lunulae are probably of Irish origin (Coffey 1913),
though examples are also known from Britain, Luxembourg, Germany
and Denmark. The expansion of inter-regional exchange networks in
the third millennium cal. BC was probably, at least in part, a function of
the increasing importance of metals. Unlike stone, metal ores are very
unevenly distributed in Europe, and most communities could only have
obtained copper and gold by exchange. Copper is relatively rare as a
natural resource in the Armorican Massif and, although Briard (1965)
suggests that small-scale exploitation of copper may have occurred at
Huelgoat (Finistère) and at St-Pierre-Montlimart (Maine-et-Loire, on
the southern edge of the Massif) this is unlikely to have been sufficient
to meet local demand. Gold, by contrast, occurs in significant quantities
in rock outcrops at St-Pierre-Montlimart and at La Lucette (Mayenne,
on the eastern edge of the Massif), and in alluvial deposits of the rivers
Vilaine and Odet, so that some Armorican communities may have been
exporters of gold. The growing importance of metals, however, does not
provide a sufficient explanation for the development of wide-reaching
exchange networks during the third millennium cal. BC. These
exchange networks are not only quantitively, but also qualitatively,
different from those of the Middle Neolithic period. Whilst stone axes
(even those of fibrolite and eclogite) are relatively common, copper and
gold objects are much rarer, and the exchange networks in which they
circulated are likely to have been intensely competitive: it is clear that
only a few people can ever have possessed gold lunulae, gargantillas, or
even copper daggers. Many of the new material items which
characterise the Chalcolithic period are symbolic or ornamental rather
than functional, and are likely to have served as ‘symbols of power’.
The development of these new exchange systems, therefore, implies the
development of a fundamentally different social formation, and this is a
question to which we will return at the end of this chapter. The third
millennium cal. BC also saw a significant increase in the practice of
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SEALING THE TOMBS
hoarding, which became even more important during the Bronze Age.
There seems to be a distinction between objects considered appropriate
to place in earlier megaliths (Bell Beakers, copper daggers, gold beads,
bands and plaques) and those which were buried as hoards (copper
axes and gold lunulae), though this distinction may (at least in part) be
a chronological one.
THE ABANDONMENT OF PASSAGE GRAVES
Successive generations of archaeologists (cf. Lukis 1849, Daniel 1960,
L’Helgouach 1965, Joussaume 1985) have focused on the question of
megalithic origins: the appearance of large stone monuments along the
Atlantic façade of Europe must correspond to a fundamental
transformation in religion and society, which merits explanation. It has
seemingly occurred to fewer specialists, however, to think that the
disappearance of these monuments around 2000 years later must
correspond to an equally fundamental transformation. To earlier
generations of archaeologists, who interpreted changes in material culture
and burial practice as evidence for invasions and migrations, the solution
was simple: the megalith builders were replaced by another race, who
imposed their own religion on the natives in much the same way as the
sixteenth-century Spaniards imposed Christianity on the Indians of
Central America. To modern archaeologists, however, such interpretations
appear simplistic and inadequate.
Part of the problem arises from the quality of the recorded evidence.
Early excavators were in most cases concerned only with the chambers of
passage graves, and failed to record the structure of the cairn in any detail.
In many cases the cairn had already been destroyed by erosion, quarrying
or agriculture. Recent excavations of megalithic cairns, however, have
provided important new evidence, suggesting that the passage graves did
not simply fall into disuse, but were deliberately sealed and abandoned.
This evidence comes principally from the sites of Ile Carn
(Ploudalmézeau, Finistère), Gavrinis (Larmor-Baden, Morbihan) and TyFloc’h (St-Thois, Finistère).
At Ile Carn (Giot 1967, 1987), a trapezoidal cairn containing three
passage graves was completely enclosed within a massive circular cairn,
blocking the entrances to the structures (figure 7.3). There is no precise
dating evidence for the construction of this massive cairn, but the
chambers contained Late Neolithic pottery, and charcoal from the North
chamber gave a radiocarbon date (4160±120 BP=3030–2425 cal. BC; Gif810), providing a terminus post quem for the blockage itself. At Gavrinis, the
façade of the cairn was obscured by a deposit of rubble, blocking the
entrance to the passage grave (Le Roux 1983b). This blockage covered a
deposit of charcoal, which gave a radiocarbon date (Gif-5766) of 4470±80
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BP (=3340–2910 cal. BC). At Ty-Floc’h (Le Roux 1979b, 1981), a similar
blockage placed in front of the façade covers a deposit which has given a
radiocarbon date (Gif-5233) of 4670±120 BP (=3560–3340 cal. BC). The
evidence from these three sites suggests that the passage graves were
deliberately sealed. It is likely that similar evidence from other sites has
gone unrecorded in the course of earlier excavations. In several cases,
simple dry stone walls have been noted, blocking access to passage graves.
At Ile Carn, the central structure was blocked by two such walls (figure
7.4), one near the entrance to the passage, the other at the junction between
passage and chamber (Giot 1987). Similar blockage walls were noted by
early excavators at Port-Blanc (Gaillard 1883) and Rosmeur (Du Chatellier
1879). At La Hougue Bie, Jersey, the passage was blocked by a dry stone
wall (Baal et al. 1925, Mourant 1974), whilst the passage at Grantez, Jersey
(Nicolle et al. 1913) was effectively blocked by a cairn of pebbles, covering
a skeleton, supposedly interred in a seated position. At La Hougue des
Géonnais, Jersey, a low rubble blockage, associated with Chalcolithic
pottery, was placed in front of the entrance to the passage (Forrest and
Rault forthcoming).
The radiocarbon dates from Gavrinis and Ty-Floc’h suggest that
these monuments were sealed at a relatively early stage in the Late
Neolithic, whilst the closure of Ile Carn seems to have been significantly
later. The abandonment of passage graves seems, therefore, to have
occurred over a period of several centuries, beginning in the late fourth
millennium cal. BC and continuing into the third: L’Helgouach (1963)
lists Bell Beakers from thirty-eight Armorican passage graves, and these
must have remained open at least until c. 2850 cal. BC. The evidence
from Gavrinis (Le Roux 1983b) suggests that the closure of the tomb
was preceded by a series of rituals. Excavation beneath the rubble of the
blockage revealed an extensive area of burning, associated with a series
of postholes and with concentrations of flint, stone tools (including a
hoard of three polished axes), pottery and animal bone. The condition
of the burnt wooden stakes preserved in some of the postholes suggests
that the blockage was placed on almost immediately after the structure
had been fired. Once again, it is likely that similar evidence on other
sites has been missed, though fragments of several ‘Jersey Bowls’ (a
local pottery style contemporary with Bell Beakers) were found
associated with the blockage at Géonnais, Jersey (Forrest and Rault
forthcoming).
In a few cases, structured formal depositions have been identified
within the chambers of passage graves, representing final offerings placed
in at the time of closure. The clearest example of this is at Le Déhus, in
Guernsey, where human remains, three decorated Bell Beakers and a
tanged copper dagger were placed on the floor of the chamber, before the
floor was completely covered by a thick layer of limpet shells, which
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SEALING THE TOMBS
Figure 7.3 The cairn of Ile Carn, showing the extension to the mound blocking
access to the passage graves (after Giot 1987)
would effectively have prevented access to the chamber. The arrangement
of these objects (figure 7.5) can be largely reconstructed (Patton in press)
on the basis of the diary and notes (cited in Kendrick 1928) kept by the
excavator, F.C.Lukis, when the site was explored in 1837. According to
Lukis, the human remains were found within the layer of limpet shells: his
original diary notes suggest that three skeletons (two adults and a child)
were found, but his description in the Collectanea Antiqua (a series of
unpublished volumes, produced between 1853 and 1865) suggests
disarticulated remains. The practice of covering the floor of the chamber
(presumably to protect it and perhaps also to prevent access) is paralleled
at Barnenez (Plouézoc’h, Finistère), where the floors of chambers D, G and
G’ were found (Giot 1987) to be covered by layers of rubble, and that of
chamber A was covered by a layer of earth.
Unfortunately, few sites have provided evidence for final depositions
as clear as that from Le Déhus and, even in this case, there are ambiguities
in the description. In several cases, however, passage graves have
169
STATEMENTS IN STONE
produced important Chalcolithic assemblages. In cases where the material
appears to represent the final activity in the chamber, and particularly
when the pottery vessels are largely intact (suggesting minimal postdepositional disturbance), it is likely that such material was placed in the
chamber immediately prior to its closure. The passage grave of Mané-Lud
(Locmariaquer, Morbihan), for example, produced Beaker pottery and a
number of gold objects (Le Rouzic 1911), as did the passage grave of
Kerlagad (Carnac, Morbihan: Le Rouzic 1930c). In the Channel Islands,
the passage grave of La Creux-ès-Faies (Guernsey) produced a series of
nine intact Beakers, associated with barbed and tanged flint arrowheads
(Kendrick 1928, Patton in press).
THE ABANDONMENT OF LATE NEOLITHIC MONUMENTS
Like the passage graves, the gallery graves, lateral entrance graves, angled
graves and T-shaped graves seem to have been systematically abandoned
Figure 7.4 The central passage grave of Ile Carn, showing two blockage walls in
the passage (after Giot 1987)
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SEALING THE TOMBS
Figure 7.5 Terminal deposition in the passage grave of Le Déhus (Guernsey): A:
concentration of pottery (Bell Beaker sherds); B: concentration of human bone; C:
copper dagger
during the third millennium cal. BC. Because the mounds covering these
monuments are less monumental than the cairns of the passage graves,
however, the closure is never on the same spectacular scale as at Gavrinis
or Ile Carn.
Because of the relatively small scale (and, in most cases, poor state of
preservation) of the mounds covering Armorican gallery graves, it has
generally been difficult to identify evidence for closure. At Prajou-Menhir
(Trebeurden, Côtes d’Armor), L’Helgouach (1966) noted a deposit of
rubble in front of the structure, which was interpreted as an external
blockage, whilst at Mein-Goarec (Plaudren, Morbihan), the floor of the
chamber was covered by a protective layer of rubble (L’Helgouach and
Lecornec 1968), similar to those found in the Barnenez passage graves,
171
STATEMENTS IN STONE
and in gallery graves of the Paris Basin (Leclerc 1987). Several Armorican
gallery graves have produced Chalcolithic assemblages which can
probably be seen as terminal depositions: a tanged copper dagger, a jet
button and a stone wristguard were found in the gallery grave of Penker
(Plozevet, Finistère) and a wristguard and a copper dagger were found at
Kerandrèze (Moelan, Finistère: Briard and L’Helgouach 1957). The gallery
grave of Men-ar-Rompet (Kerbors, Côtes d’Armor) produced an
assemblage of thirty-eight Bell Beakers (Giot et al. 1957), one of which
contained a stone wristguard: no earlier material was found in this
monument, so it seems likely that this was cleared out. The clearest
evidence for a final deposition, however, comes from the gallery grave of
Ville-ès-Nouaux (Jersey), where a series of intact Bell Beakers and ‘Jersey
Bowls’ had been placed in groups of three (figure 7.6) along the north side
of the chamber, protected by small stone slabs (Oliver 1870). A stone
wristguard was also found at Ville-ès-Nouaux.
The lateral entrance grave of Crec’h-Quillé (St-Quay-Perros, Côtes
d’Armor) was found to be blocked (L’Helgouach 1967a) by a drystone
wall placed across the passage. The stones of this wall were found to be
Figure 7.6 Terminal deposition in the gallery grave of Ville-ès-Nouaux (Jersey):
nineteenth-century plan by Lieut. S.P.Oliver
172
SEALING THE TOMBS
resting on a hearth, which was considered to be contemporary with
the closure ceremony. Charcoal from the hearth gave two radiocarbon
dates:
3740 ± 200 BP = 2450–1890 cal. BC (Gif-344)
3760 ± 120 BP = 1440–1970 cal. BC (Gif-814).
A radiocarbon date (Gif-283) of 3820±200 BP (=2560–1970 cal. BC) from the
lateral entrance grave of Champ-Grosset (Quessoy, Côtes d’Armor) is
broadly comparable, and probably also relates to the closure of the
monument (L’Helgouach and Le Roux 1965). Other lateral entrance
graves have provided little evidence relating to closure, though a Bell
Beaker from Kerlescan (Carnac, Morbihan) and a wristguard from
Lestrigiou (Plomeur, Finistère) may represent final depositions
(L’Helgouach 1965).
Most of the Armorican angled graves were excavated or plundered in
antiquity, so that these monuments have provided only limited
information. The monument of Goërem (Gavres, Morbihan), however, has
been excavated using modern techniques and is therefore more
informative (L’Helgouach 1970). A rubble blockage was found at the
entrance to the passage, but L’Helgouach (op. cit.) considers this to be
natural, resulting from cairn collapse. The chamber of the monument was
found to be divided into four compartments, by means of transverse slabs
(figure 6.15b), and the end chamber had been completely sealed by the
construction of drystone walling between the slab which demarcates it
and the walls of the chamber. Within this compartment were found two
Bell Beakers, two gold fasteners, two barbed and tanged flint arrowheads
and a fragment of a copper awl. These objects were resting on stone
paving, below which was found a layer of sterile marine sand. Above the
paving was a layer of earth and stones (probably collapsed from the
mound), above which was a hearth, associated with Early Bronze Age
material. Charcoal from the floor level of this end chamber produced a
radiocarbon date (Gif-1148) of 4430±140 BP (=3350–2900 cal. BC), though
this is probably not contemporary with the Chalcolithic material.
L’Helgouach (1970) noted that the drystone wall sealing the end chamber
had been broken into in antiquity and, on the basis of this, he suggests that
the Chalcolithic material represents intrusive activity, after the closure of
the monument. Given the evidence for final depositions at other sites,
however, and the fact that the Chalcolithic material at Goërem is stratified
beneath an Early Bronze Age hearth, it seems more reasonable to attribute
the violation of the monument to the Bronze Age, and to see the
Chalcolithic assemblage as a terminal deposition, placed in at the time of
closure.
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
CHALCOLITHIC RELIGION AND SOCIETY
At c. 3000 cal. BC, most of the Armorican gallery graves, lateral entrance
graves, angled graves and T-shaped graves, as well as many of the
passage graves, were in regular use. By c. 2250 cal. BC, almost all of
these monuments had been abandoned: very few have produced
Bronze Age material and, where such material has been found, it is
usually in an intrusive context. The chronological evidence suggests
that these monuments were abandoned over a period of centuries; the
passage graves between 3250 and 2250 cal. BC, the other monuments
between 2850 and 2250 cal. BC. The evidence from passage graves such
as Ile Carn, Gavrinis and Ty-Floc’h, the gallery grave of Prajou-Menhir,
the lateral-entrance grave of Crec’h-Quillé and the angled grave of
Goërem suggests that, far from simply falling into disuse, the
monuments were deliberately sealed and closed. The existence of final
depositions in some monuments, and of protective layers of rubble,
earth or limpet shells covering the floor, suggests that this closure was
conducted in a spirit of reverence rather than desecration and, in some
cases (as at Gavrinis), the evidence suggests that the closure of the
monuments was accompanied by elaborate rituals. It is true, of course,
that only a minority of sites have furnished evidence of this sort, but
this is probably a result of recent disturbance and inadequate recording,
and excavations in the future will undoubtedly provide further
information.
At the same time as the large megaliths were being abandoned, other
monuments were being built and new ritual sites were being
established. Megalithic cists and ‘simple dolmens’ have already been
mentioned in the previous chapter: some of these, such as L’HotiéViviane and Lost-er-Lenn, have produced material of Late Neolithic
date, whilst others are dated to the Chalcolithic. Many of these
monuments, however, have produced no material, having been
plundered in antiquity (Bender 1968). The site of Kourégan (Ploemeur,
Morbihan) seems to have been a complex of small cists, possibly
surrounded by an enclosure of upright stones (Le Rouzic et al. 1922).
One of the excavated cists produced an important Chalcolithic
assemblage, including fragments of six decorated Bell Beakers. A
second, adjacent cist (interpreted by the excavators as the chamber of a
passage grave) contained a hearth, associated with pottery sherds and
flint flakes. In the Channel Islands, Chalcolithic material has been
recovered from megalithic cists at Beauport (Cable 1877, Johnston
1972), and Les Blanches Banques (The Ossuary’: Darrell Hill 1924),
Jersey, La Platte Mare (Kendrick 1928), Guernsey, and Structure 2, Herm
(Kendrick op. cit.). There are a number of other megalithic cists in the
Channel Islands, many of them set within small stone circles (Kendrick
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SEALING THE TOMBS
1928, Hawkes 1937), but some of these have produced earlier material
(see chapter 6), whilst others have produced no datable material at all.
The megalithic cist known as The Ossuary’ (figure 7.7), at Les Blanches
Banques, Jersey, produced two ‘Jersey Bowls’ (a local style, contemporary
with Bell Beakers), associated with disarticulated human bones
representing 10–20 individuals (Darrell Hill 1924, Patton in press). The
cist is set between two menhirs (Hawkes 1937) and is directly associated
with a Chalcolithic settlement, excavated between 1978 and 1980
(Finlaison and Patton in press). Recent excavations (Patton 1991c) have
revealed a further ritual site on La Tête des Quennevais (pl. 6.2, p. 148),
the plateau immediately overlooking The Ossuary’. The first phase of
activity on this site involved the deposition of a series of Jersey Bowls’,
associated with an area of burning around a natural shale outcrop: this
deposition was then covered by a small tumulus, which was itself
surrounded by an earth platform, associated with two small cists. The
Ossuary’, together with the menhirs, the Blanches Banques settlement
and the site of La Tête des Quennevais, make up a complex landscape
(figure 7.8) in which several small ritual sites seem to be associated with a
Chalcolithic settlement.
The cist-in-circle of La Platte Mare, Guernsey (Kendrick 1928) forms
part of a similar landscape. The megalithic cist itself, associated with the
remains of a surrounding circle, was excavated in the nineteenth century,
and produced a decorated Bell Beaker, two polished stone axes and a
barbed and tanged flint arrowhead. Recent excavations at Les
Fouaillages (Kinnes 1982, Kinnes and Grant 1983) revealed evidence for a
Chalcolithic settlement in close proximity to La Platte Mare and
immediately adjacent to the Early Neolithic long mound (see chapter 3).
On top of the earlier long mound was a further, enigmatic ritual site,
consisting of a platform of alternating layers of packed beach pebbles,
earth and boulders: on top of the platform was a circle of recumbent
boulders, with two semicircular enclaves, enclosing a ‘long mortuary
zone’ defined by two massive posts. Within the ‘mortuary zone’ was
found a deposition of eight barbed and tanged arrowheads. The structure
was covered by an oval mound of turf, and charcoal from the base of this
mound gave a radiocarbon date (BM-1891R) of 4020±100 BP (= 2865–2460
cal. BC).
The Blanches Banques sites in Jersey and the Lancresse Common sites
(Les Fouaillages and La Platte Mare) in Guernsey are particularly
important in terms of the information they provide for changing ritual
landscapes at the end of the Neolithic. The pattern here seems to be one
of small settlements, each associated with one or more small ritual sites,
in contrast to the Middle Neolithic and Late Neolithic configurations (see
chapters 4–6), in which larger ritual sites must have served several
settlements, reflecting larger social groupings. These sites, therefore,
175
STATEMENTS IN STONE
Figure 7.7 Megalithic cist known as The Ossuary’ (Jersey)
provide further evidence for the disintegration and collapse of these
tribal groupings, and for the decentralisation of ritual practice which
seems to have occurred as a result.
There is some evidence for the appearance of open-air ceremonial sites
at the beginning of the third millennium cal. BC. The Late Neolithic/
Chalcolithic strata at the site of Le Pinacle, Jersey, were interpreted by the
excavators (Godfray and Burdo 1949, 1950) as evidence for domestic
occupation, but this interpretation has recently been challenged (Patton
1987a, Finlaison and Patton in press). The site consists of a natural
amphitheatre, with a platform constructed at the foot of a massive natural
pinnacle of granite. There are no traces of dwellings, no midden remains
or domestic rubbish, but the assemblage from the platform includes
blades and arrowheads of Grand Pressigny flint, a flat axe and bead of
176
SEALING THE TOMBS
copper, polished stone axes, decorated Beaker sherds and pottery of
Quessoy affinities. Chronologically, the assemblage seems to span the
transition between the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. The
location of the site, the nature of the site itself and the assemblage, all
suggest an open air ceremonial site rather than a settlement. The site of Er
Yoh (Houat, Morbihan) is in some respects comparable. Like Le Pinacle, Er
Yoh has been interpreted (Le Rouzic 1930b) as a settlement and, in this
case, there is a significant quantity of animal bone and domestic rubbish,
suggesting that the site was occupied. Other aspects of the site, however,
are suggestive of ritual activity: there is a series of platforms, built around
a natural outcrop, as at Le Pinacle, and two natural niches in the rock had
been walled up, one containing an intact pottery vessel, the other
containing human remains. The assemblage from Er Yoh includes
Conguel and Kerugou pottery, but Bell Beakers are absent, suggesting that
the site is earlier than Le Pinacle. The evidence from Er Yoh may simply
represent a ritual component to domestic occupation (as on many
Neolithic sites in Europe) or alternatively it could suggest a ritual site,
periodically occupied by groups of people temporarily secluded in the
context of extended rituals such as, for example, initiation ceremonies. The
evidence from Le Pinacle is less ambiguous, but in both cases the evidence
Figure 7.8 Chalcolithic ritual landscape of Les Blanches Banques (Jersey): 1 Broken
Menhir; 2 The Ossuary’; 3 Little Menhir; 4 Great Menhir; 5 La Tête des
Quennevais. Stippling shows area of settlement
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
suggests a continued diversification of ritual practice, as seen in the
previous chapter.
In general terms, the evidence for the third millennium cal. BC suggests
a continuation of the processes and trends that emerged in the second half
of the fourth millennium. The abandonment of large monuments suggests
the final collapse of earlier religious traditions, whilst the continued
proliferation of smaller monuments, in some cases associated with
individual settlements, marks a continued trend towards the
decentralisation of ritual practice. The exchange of stone axes appears to
have ceased and new exchange systems developed. Like the exchange of
Grand Pressigny flint (which ceased early in the fourth millennium), these
exchange networks involve relatively rare items (principally of copper
and gold), suggesting a more competitive and individualistic system than
that involved in axe exchange (see chapter 2). In terms of the model
developed at the end of chapter 6, this evidence suggests the final collapse
of Neolithic tribal organisation and the continued rise of ‘Big Men’.
Comparison of the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic evidence, however,
shows a marked expansion of these competitive exchange systems at the
beginning of the third millennium cal. BC, both in terms of their
geographical extent and in terms of the range of items involved. Many of
the items involved in these exchange systems can be seen as ‘symbols of
power’, and the proliferation of such items suggests increasing social
differentiation, probably linked to intensifying competition between ‘Big
Men’. As the traditional power structures collapsed, the ability of ‘Big
Men’ to requisition a surplus would have increased significantly, leading
to an escalation of competition between them. A successful ‘Big Man’
would acquire more clients than his rivals and could thus command a
larger surplus which, in turn, would enable him to acquire more clients,
often ‘poaching’ them from his rivals. Such processes would lead to
increasing social differentiation, expressed through possession of prestige
items such as copper objects and gold jewellery. In such a system, the son
of an established ‘Big Man’ would have an inherent advantage, since he
would stand to inherit both his father’s prestige goods and, potentially, his
clients. The system would lead, therefore, to increasing concentration of
wealth, power and prestige, a process that may ultimately have given rise
to the emergence of chiefdoms in the Armorican Early Bronze Age.
178
8
CONCLUSION:
RITUAL LANDSCAPES AND
SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN THE
ARMORICAN NEOLITHIC
The monumental traditions discussed in this book cover a period of over
2000 years, and one of the most interesting aspects of the data is the
evidence for change through time. In many areas of Europe, it is difficult to
compare the evidence for one phase with that for another, since these
phases are often marked by different categories of evidence (e.g.
megalithic tombs from one phase, large settlements from another) which
give information on different aspects of prehistoric life. This poses serious
problems for any attempt to establish a diachronic synthesis. The
archaeological record is always incomplete and, for the Armorican
Neolithic, it is principally settlement evidence that is lacking. This will, of
course, bias our understanding of Armorican Neolithic societies: Man may
not live by bread alone, but people have nevertheless to eat, reproduce and
raise children as well as worshipping their gods and burying their dead.
We have a considerable amount of information on the religion and burial
practices of Armorican Neolithic communities, but we can say very little
about their economy and daily life, and we can only hope that future
excavations will rectify this imbalance.
In one sense, however, the consistent bias towards religious and funerary
evidence gives us an advantage. Because all phases of the Armorican
Neolithic are represented by the same type of evidence (principally
megalithic monuments) it is easier to make comparisons between phases
and to arrive at an understanding of how Neolithic religion changed and
developed through time. Throughout this book, the emphasis has been on
the relationships between changing monumental traditions and changing
social structure, and the aim of this chapter will be to develop a synthesis
of the social and cultural transformations discussed in the book, placing
these developments in the context of a more general theoretical discussion,
in an attempt to understand the underlying processes of cultural change.
Placing these developments in chronological context, four phases can
be identified.
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
1 Early Neolithic (4850–4250 cal. BC)
This phase saw the introduction of farming and animal husbandry in
Brittany, and the appearance of the earliest megalithic monuments: long
mounds and complexes of decorated menhirs in Southern Brittany,
early passage graves in North-western Brittany (see chapter 3). The
period is also marked by the development of extensive interaction
networks, involving the exchange of stone axes (see chapter 2). In
chapter 3 it was suggested that the developments of this phase
represent the emergence of a tribal social formation, in which social
power was held by elders and based on control of religion and control
over the circulation of socially valued objects: following Meillassoux
(1967), it was argued that the adoption of an agricultural economy
favoured the development of a hierarchy between elders and younger
men. The symbols carved on the decorated menhirs include
representations of stone axes and domestic animals and, as Bradley
(1989) has stressed, are ‘peculiarly appropriate to the new mode of
production’. In chapter 2 it was argued that the axe was a particularly
important symbol, linking agricultural production to human
reproduction and axe exchange to megalithic ritual.
Many of the monuments of this phase, like the long mounds of
Southern Brittany, are relatively small, and could have been built by
individual domestic groups of around a hundred people. Some
monuments, however, such as the complex of decorated menhirs at
Locmariaquer and the larger passage grave cairns in North-western
Brittany, are considerably larger and would have required the cooperation of many such communities, hinting at the development of
larger social groupings in some areas. In chapter 3, this was explained in
relation to Friedman and Rowlands’ (1977) model of social dynamics, in
which competition between social groups leads to the emergence of
dominant groups with special status in relation to ritual practice, and thus
to centralisation, especially in the religious sphere. The landscape of this
phase is summarised by figure 8.1, showing the relationships between
monuments and individual domestic groups on the basis of the size and
distribution of the monuments themselves.
2 Middle Neolithic (4250–3250 cal. BC)
The Middle Neolithic is marked by the proliferation of passage graves
along the Armorican littoral. The decorated menhirs of Locmariaquer
appear to have been deliberately pulled down at this stage, and the
fragments re-used in the construction of the passage graves. The
structure of the passage graves, and the nature of the carved motifs found
within them, suggest that access to ritual sites and sacred knowledge
180
CONCLUSION
Figure 8.1 Model of Early Neolithic landscape and social structure: D: domestic
site; R: ritual site; broken lines show territorial boundaries
became increasingly restricted. The symbols which had been visibly
carved on massive standing stones were taken into relatively small, dark
chambers, covered by mounds and separated from the outside world by
long, narrow passages. Only a small number of people could have
participated in the ceremonies conducted within the monuments, and
their structure would have prevented people outside from seeing or
comprehending the activities inside. The symbols themselves became
increasingly stylised, and comprehensible only to the initiated, and the
existence of ‘entoptic’ motifs suggests that trance-like states (probably
attainable only by ritual specialists) played an increasingly important
role in Neolithic religion. In chapter 4, these developments were
interpreted as evidence for a consolidation of elders’ control over ritual
practice and sacred knowledge. The Middle Neolithic period is also
marked by increasing evidence for centralisation. The construction of
most passage graves would have required working teams of 100–150
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
people, corresponding to communities of 300–600 (see chapters 1 and 4).
Monuments such as Gavrinis and Petit Mont, in Southern Brittany, and
La Hougue Bie in Jersey are very much larger than other contemporary
monuments and must represent higher order centres, probably
associated with the development of larger social groups (figure 8.2). In
chapter 4, it was suggested that this process of coalescence and
centralisation resulted from escalating competition between social
groups. Following Friedman and Rowlands’ (1977) model, it was argued
that competition, mediated through competitive feasting, and perhaps
also through the construction of monuments themselves, led to the
emergence of dominant lineages or groups. Since the success of such
groups is likely to have been attributed to supernatural patronage, these
groups may have acquired a special status in relation to the control of
rituals. If high status groups were able to demand higher bride-prices,
this would enable them to accumulate bridewealth valuables, and to use
these to acquire more women in the context of polygynous marriages.
This in turn would increase the labour pool in the dominant group,
enabling them to produce a larger surplus and thus to sponsor even more
lavish feasts or build even larger monuments. The process is therefore
one of continual escalation and intensification, leading to increasing
social differentiation and demanding increasing surplus production, to
support the construction of larger and larger monuments. Dramatic
evidence for the emergence of high status social groups is provided by
the Grand Tumulus monuments of Southern Brittany (see chapter 5),
where massive mounds cover burial chambers with lavish grave-goods.
The Carnac alignments are likely to be contemporary with these
monuments (see chapter 5), suggesting that the dominant group
associated with the Grand Tumulus monuments may also have controlled
communal rituals on a massive scale.
3 Late Neolithic (3250–2850 cal. BC)
By the end of the fourth millennium cal. BC, the construction of passage
graves had ceased, and the powerful elite groups of Southern Brittany
had apparently collapsed. Some of the larger passage graves were sealed
up and abandoned, though many passage graves continued in use. The
period also saw the proliferation of gallery graves and lateral entrance
graves (see chapter 6), and a study of these monuments suggests a
widening of access to ritual knowledge and a progressive
decentralisation of ritual practice, probably linked to the disintegration of
larger social groupings. The organisation of space in these monuments is
less complex than in the passage graves, and does not embody the same
restrictions of access. The carved motifs found within the chambers are
more visible, less stylised and more explicitly representational, and
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CONCLUSION
‘entoptic’ motifs are absent. Other monument types, such as the angled
graves and T-shaped graves, suggest the emergence of distinct regional
traditions, and a localised survival of some aspects of the passage grave
tradition (see chapter 6). There are apparently no higher order
monuments in this phase: no monuments stand out from the others in
terms of their size and monumental construction, in the way that some
passage graves clearly do. All of the monuments of this phase could have
been built by communities of a few hundred people. The period also sees
the appearance of smaller megalithic cists, which could have been built
by individual domestic groups of around a hundred people. The Late
Neolithic evidence, therefore, suggests a reversal of earlier trends, with
the disintegration of larger social groupings (figure 8.3), linked to a
widening of access to sacred space and knowledge. At the intracommunal level, however, the social formation seems to have changed
little: control of megalithic ritual (albeit on a less restricted basis) and
control of axe exchange networks (which continued and even expanded)
Figure 8.2 Model of Middle Neolithic landscape and social structure. D: domestic
site; R: ritual site
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
remained fundamental. New exchange systems, however, developed
alongside the established axe exchange networks, and these suggest a
more competitive, individualistic mode of exchange (see chapter 6). This
was interpreted as evidence for the development of a new political
system, based on competition between ‘Big Men’. ‘Big Men’ (cf. Sahlins
1963) compete for status through a system of patronage, usually by
producing a surplus and using this to offer assistance to others (often in
putting together payments for initiation ceremonies or bridewealth
transactions). This creates a situation of indebtedness which enables the
‘Big Man’ to make demands on his clients’ labour at a later date, thus
enabling him to produce a larger surplus which can be used to acquire
more clients, or to obtain prestige items through competitive exchange.
The rise of ‘Big Men’ may have been facilitated by pressure on both the
social formation and the natural environment, caused by the escalating
demands for surplus production which characterised the Middle
Neolithic social formation (see chapters 4 and 5). Once established, ‘Big
Men’ would have challenged the power of the traditional elites by
offering younger men an alternative route to economic independence
(see chapter 6). This would have limited the ability of the traditional
elites to requisition surplus production (an increasing amount of which
would go, instead, to the ‘Big Men’), causing the cycle of escalating
surplus production and monument construction to wind down.
4 Chalcolithic (2850–2250 cal. BC)
The third millennium cal. BC saw the abandonment of the Armorican
gallery graves and remaining passage graves, and the collapse of the
Neolithic stone axe exchange networks. The collapse of axe exchange was
not caused by the replacement of stone by copper (which remained a rare
commodity), and should probably be attributed to social factors
(particularly since stone axes continued to be made and used, but not
exchanged). In some areas, the period was also marked by the
proliferation of small megaliths, associated with individual settlements
(as at Les Blanches Banques, Jersey and L’Ancresse, Guernsey: see chapter
7). In most respects these developments can be seen as a continuation of
the trends identified in the Late Neolithic evidence. A further
decentralisation (figure 8.4) marks the final collapse of the Neolithic social
formation, with the abandonment of megaliths, the end of axe exchange
and the apparent disintegration of social units above the level of the
individual domestic group. The period is also marked, as one might
expect, by the development of rapidly expanding new exchange
networks. Most of the items involved in this exchange are relatively rare
(copper axes and daggers, gold jewellery, schist wristguards) and many
are ornamental or symbolic rather than functional. Many of these objects
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CONCLUSION
Figure 8.3 Model of Late Neolithic landscape and social structure. D: domestic site;
R: ritual site; broken lines show territorial boundaries
are items of personal adornment, which are likely to have served as
symbols of prestige and social power. In chapter 7 it was argued that the
development of these exchange systems corresponds to an intensification
of competition between ‘Big Men’, following the collapse of the Neolithic
social formation. In a competitive system, obviously some were more
successful than others: since a successful ‘Big Man’ would attract more
clients than his rivals, he could requisition a larger surplus, enabling him
to gain further clients and also to obtain prestige goods, which would
enhance his status. Like the Neolithic social formation which preceded it,
therefore, the system which emerged during the Chalcolithic had an inbuilt tendency towards increasing surplus production and increasing
concentration of wealth and status.
These developments can perhaps be followed into the Armorican
Early Bronze Age (c. 2250–1500 cal. BC). This period is marked (Briard
1984) by the appearance of a series of tumuli, covering individual burials.
The burials are in wooden or dry stone chambers, or in wooden coffins,
covered by circular mounds, and are in most cases accompanied by
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
grave-goods, including bronze daggers and rapiers (in some cases with
handles inlaid with gold studs), bronze axes, gold and amber jewellery,
and elaborately worked flint arrowheads. The grave-goods show marked
evidence for social differentiation: almost all sites have flint arrowheads
and bronze daggers, but of the thirty-one sites listed by Briard (1984),
only nine contain gold objects and only two contain amber. The numbers
of objects are also variable: the tumulus of Kerodou (Beuzac-Cap-Sizun,
Finistère) produced only three arrowheads, one dagger and one bronze
axe, whilst the tumulus of Kernonen (Plouvorn, Finistère) contained sixty
arrowheads, four daggers (inlaid with gold studs) and four axes, as well
as an amber pendant and beads. The sizes of the mounds themselves
vary considerably (diameters vary from 5 metres to 60 metres, whilst
heights vary from 1 metre to 6 metres), and there is a general correlation
Figure 8.4 Model of Chalcolithic landscape and social structure. D: domestic site;
R: ritual site; broken lines show territorial boundaries
186
CONCLUSION
between the size of the mounds and the character and quantity of the
grave-goods. Of the six largest sites (the tumuli of Kerhué-Bras,
Tanwedou, Tossen-Rugouel, Tossen-Kergourognon, Kernonen and StFiacre), four have gold, two have amber, all have at least four daggers
and three have more than forty-five arrowheads (the average number of
arrowheads for the Armorican tumuli taken as a whole is twenty-three).
Of the six smallest sites (the tumuli of Tossen Maharit, Cazin, Kerlivit,
Kerodou, Cosmaner and Kervini Sud), none has gold or amber, only one
has more than two bronze daggers, none has more than thirty-three
arrowheads and only two have more than twenty-three). There is a
second series of tumuli, of similar construction but with very different
grave-goods (Briard 1984). Pottery, which is never found in tumuli of the
first series, is the most common item in the mounds of the second series.
A number of the second series mounds contain bronze daggers (never
more than two), and one (Pont de la Planche at L’Hermitage, Côtes
d’Armor) contained amber, but flint arrowheads, bronze rapiers and axes
and gold are completely absent. Radiocarbon dates (Briard 1984) suggest
that the two series are broadly contemporary, and their spatial
distributions also overlap, although the second series sites are more
widespread (figure 8.5).
Comparison of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age evidence
suggests a marked increase in social differentiation, with a wider range of
prestige items (some of which appear to have been more valuable than
others) and the development of a burial tradition which emphasises
social status. The Early Bronze Age evidence is consistent with a ‘Prestige
Goods System’ as defined by Friedman and Rowlands (1977). According
to Friedman and Rowlands’ model, competition between local elites
leads to the emergence of powerful chiefdoms, whose power is expressed
through the possession of prestige goods. As chiefs compete for control
over the circulation of prestige goods, the more successful rulers emerge
as ‘Paramount Chiefs’ who, not surprisingly, keep the most valuable
items as expressions of their own power and status. Lesser prestige
goods, however, are handed down to local chiefs, who in turn give
tribute to the Paramount, often in the form of agricultural produce. This
system of patronage enables the Paramount to requisition a larger
surplus (since he may have a number of lesser chiefs as clients), which
can be used to secure prestige goods through exchange. This system,
however, is unstable, since there may be several competing Paramounts
in a given area, and the lesser chiefs may change their allegiances from
one to another. A successful Paramount will gain more clients than his
rivals, enabling him to requisition a greater surplus and to acquire more
prestige goods, which in turn will enable him to attract more clients. The
tendency within this system, therefore, is towards increasing
concentration of wealth and power which, in the Friedman and
187
Figure 8.5 Distribution of Armorican tumuli: Series A (a) and B (b)
CONCLUSION
Rowlands’ (1977) model, may lead ultimately to the emergence of the
state. Archaeologically, we would expect a Prestige Goods System to be
marked by the appearance of a range of prestige items, some of which
would be much rarer than others. We would also expect to see evidence
for expanding networks of competitive exchange, and for increasing
concentration of wealth and power. This, in fact, is precisely what we do
see at the beginning of the Armorican Bronze Age.
BEYOND SOCIAL EVOLUTION: APPROACHES TO
CULTURAL CHANGE
Since the nineteenth century, most general models of social and cultural
change have been based on an evolutionary perspective. This involves an
assumption that change is directional: societies evolve from ‘simple’ to
‘complex’, from ‘bands’ to ‘chiefdoms’, from ‘savagery’ to ‘civilisation’.
All too often, this conception of the past has served to reinforce the
political ideologies of the present. Nineteenth-century authors, such as
Lubbock (1865), saw in evolutionism a justification for British
imperialism: they traced an evolutionary sequence in European prehistory
from Stone Age savagery to Bronze Age barbarism and classical
civilisation, and slotted modern ‘primitive’ peoples into this scheme,
showing them to be inferior to enlightened western man. For Marx (1965)
and Engels (1972), on the other hand, the same evolutionary sequence
showed that capitalism would eventually give way to communism (at
which point, they believed, the sequence would end). The continued faith
in evolutionary models may also be largely ideological in character. Since
the nineteenth century, Western cultures have invariably seen themselves
as representing the pinnacle of human technological and cultural
achievement. History has been taught largely as a series of ‘landmarks’ in
an evolutionary progression: the first use of fire, the first agriculture, the
first writing, the first men on the moon. Human cultural evolution follows
neatly on from the biological evolution which produced the human
species itself. The basic notion of cultural evolution is rarely questioned or
even reflected on.
Recent approaches to social and cultural change, though
fundamentally different from the perspectives of Pitt-Rivers or Engels, still
rely in most cases upon an evolutionary framework, and this applies
equally to ‘Processual’ and ‘Neo-Marxist’ approaches. Renfrew (1979), in
looking at the Neolithic of Orkney, identifies an ongoing process of
centralisation with the emergence of clans and tribes and, ultimately, the
development of chiefdoms. Society becomes progressively more complex,
more hierarchical and more centralised, and each stage in this process is
seen as a logical outcome of the previous stage. Friedman and Rowlands
(1977) have attempted to develop a Neo-Marxist approach to social
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
change in tribal societies, and their model has formed the basis for much of
the discussion in this book. According to Friedman and Rowlands,
competition between lineages in a tribal society leads to the emergence of
dominant groups, who may acquire special roles in relation to the control
of religion and initiation ceremonies. The status of such groups may
enable them to demand higher bride-prices, allowing them to accumulate
bridewealth valuables and thus to acquire more women from other
groups in the context of polygynous marriages. This increases the labour
pool within the dominant lineage, enabling them to produce an even
bigger surplus and thus leading to increased concentration of status and
wealth. Eventually, a dominant group may develop into a chiefly dynasty,
whose power and status are expressed through possession of prestige
goods, and this, in turn, may lead to the development of a Prestige Goods
System as outlined above. As rival Paramount chiefs compete for status
and power, some are more successful, leading to further concentration of
power and wealth and, ultimately, to the emergence of the state. In both of
these models, social change is seen as a continuous evolutionary
progression, occurring through the consolidation and expansion of
existing power structures: it is the dominant lineage that becomes the
tribal elite, and it is the most powerful tribal elite that becomes the chiefly
dynasty. Each stage builds upon the secure foundations established in the
previous phase.
Briard and L’Helgouach (1957) attempted to develop a similar model to
explain the cultural transformations of the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic
periods in Armorica. They argued for a Chalcolithic date for the Grand
Tumulus monuments of Southern Brittany (see chapter 5), and suggested
that these massive cairns, with lavish grave-goods, were precursors of the
rich tumulus burials of the Armorican Early Bronze Age. Again, we see
cultural change conceived as an evolutionary progression, with society
becoming increasingly hierarchical and centralised. Briard and
L’Helgouach’s (1957) model, however, can no longer be supported.
Excavations over the past three decades have caused the chronology of
Armorican monuments to be revised, and it now seems clear that the
Grand Tumulus monuments date to the Middle Neolithic, over a thousand
years before the Early Bronze Age mounds.
It would be difficult to fit the evidence outlined in this book to the kind
of evolutionary model presented by Renfrew (1979) or Friedman and
Rowlands (1977). The Armorican evidence does not suggest a continuous
progression from simple to complex, but rather a cyclical development.
The Early and Middle Neolithic periods are indeed marked by evidence
for centralisation and for increasing concentration of status, power and
wealth, but this seems to collapse in the Late Neolithic. The Chalcolithic
and Early Bronze Age are again marked by evidence for centralisation and
concentration of power, but in the context of a fundamentally different
190
CONCLUSION
social formation. The tribal elites of the Middle Neolithic, therefore, seem
not to have become the chiefly dynasties of the Early Bronze Age: on the
contrary, these dynasties seem to have developed following the collapse of
the Middle Neolithic system. Friedman and Rowlands (1977) recognise
that the evolutionary sequence may be halted, particularly if the natural
environment will not support increasing surplus production, but such a
collapse is seen as an evolutionary dead-end, leading either to stagnation
or to regression. In the Armorican evidence, however, it is the collapse of
the Neolithic social formation, rather than its development and
expansion, that seems to lead to the emergence of the Early Bronze Age
chiefdoms.
A DIALECTICAL APPROACH TO SOCIAL CHANGE
The evolutionary approaches outlined above cannot adequately account
for the sequence identified from the archaeological record. A dialectical
approach (cf. Patton 1987b, 1991d), however, may offer some insight into
the social and cultural processes associated with this sequence. The
concept of the dialectic originates in the philosophical writings of Aristotle
and Plato, and was later elaborated by Hegel. Marx (cf. 1959), in
elaborating the concept of ‘dialectical materialism’, introduced the
dialectic to social studies. Essentially, the idea of the dialectic is of a logical
development of thought or reality through ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’ to a
‘synthesis’ of these opposites. In the historical dialectic of Marx, social
change is considered to occur through the resolution of contradictions.
Rapid technological change, for example, can set up contradictions
between the ‘forces of production’ (technology) and the ‘relations of
production’ (the social system through which production is organised):
this creates pressure which may lead either to the rejection of new
technology or to fundamental social change to accommodate it (e.g. the
emergence of capitalism following the development of industrial
production). Alternatively, contradictions may occur within the social
system itself, between the interests of particular groups or classes, leading
to conflict and, potentially, to social change (as with the French
Revolution). Central to this dialectical conception of history is the notion
that social change does not necessarily occur through the expansion and
consolidation of existing power structures, but may occur through crisis
and conflict. In this case, the collapse of a social formation, far from
leading to stagnation or regression, may lead to rapid and fundamental
social change.
Dialectical approaches to historical and social studies have been
criticised (cf. Popper 1940) on the grounds that they are unduly
deterministic, reducing human agency to a passive status, responding to
external forces. This criticism applies particularly to approaches (cf.
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
Godelier 1966) which emphasise the significance of ‘inter-systemic’
contradictions (between the ‘forces’ and ‘relations’ of production) as
causes of social change, regarding ‘intra-systemic’ contradictions (conflict
within the social system) as epi-phenomenal. Ultimately, such
approaches almost invariably rely on technological determinism. The
deterministic view of dialectical process has its origins in the writings of
Engels (1934) and in some of Marx’s works (cf. 1970). Engels (1934)
attempted to identify a ‘Dialectic of Nature’, and to define the historical
dialectic as an extension of natural law. There is, however, an alternative
view of dialectical process, originating in the earlier works of Marx (1898,
1959) and elaborated by Sartre (1976). Sartre’s approach takes human
agency as its starting-point, insisting that The entire historical dialectic
rests upon individual praxis insofar as it is already dialectical’ (Sartre
1976, p. 80; praxis refers to human agency or action). Human action,
according to Sartre, is always dialectical, since it involves the
transcendence of an existing reality (the ‘thesis’ of the dialectic) towards
an intended future reality (the ‘antithesis’) and has a concrete result (the
‘synthesis’) which may be different from that intended. In Sartre’s model
of social change, praxis is always situated in a given socio-historical field,
which is itself defined (and is continually redefined) through praxis. This
socio-historical field is what Sartre defines as the practico-inert: it is the
inert structure created by praxis in the past, which constrains praxis in the
present. Social change involves the transcendence of practico-inert
structures through praxis, and results ultimately in the development of
new practico-inert structures. In practical terms, this means that social
change occurs when, in response to pressures or conflict within society,
people act to change the social system. This action leads to the
establishment of a new social formation, which embodies its own
internal pressures and conflicts.
Each of the social formations outlined at the beginning of this chapter
embodies structural tendencies towards expansion, intensifying
competition and increasing concentration of wealth. These trends, as
Friedman and Rowlands (1977) stress, require the production and
appropriation of increasingly large surpluses, and this is likely to put
pressure both on the natural environment and on the social formation.
This pressure produces crisis within the social formation, which may lead
ultimately to its collapse. In the model outlined at the beginning of this
chapter, the collapse of the Neolithic tribal formation was caused by the
emergence of a rival political system (based on competition between ‘Big
Men’), which undermined it and eventually became dominant. The rise of
this new system, however, involved the same trends towards expansion
and intensification which had characterised the previous social formation.
Like the ‘epi-genetic’ evolutionary model of Friedman and Rowlands
(1977), the model presented here seeks to explain the development of a
192
CONCLUSION
Figure 8.6 An evolutionary model of social change
social system by reference to structural features of the social formation
which historically precedes it. Unlike evolutionary models, however, it
does not assume that social change is necessarily uni-directional (i.e. from
‘simple’ to ‘complex’, or that social change necessarily occurs through the
expansion and consolidation of existing power structures. The collapse of
social formations, far from being an evolutionary ‘dead-end’ leading to
stagnation or regression, is seen as a dynamic process which can lead to
the development of entirely new systems.
An evolutionary model of social change can be conceived as a staircase
(figure 8.6). Each phase of change is seen as a step on an evolutionary
progression, with society becoming increasingly hierarchical and
increasingly centralised. This process requires increasing surplus
production, and this demand is met by colonising new land, and by
technological innovation. A dialectical model, by contrast, can be
conceived as a cycle or wave (figure 8.7). The cycle begins with the
development of a given social formation, a phase of increasing social
differentiation and centralisation, requiring increasing surplus
production. Surplus production and appropriation, however, are
constrained by environmental, technological and social factors and, at a
193
STATEMENTS IN STONE
given point (the top of the wave), these constraints produce a crisis in the
social formation. This may lead to its collapse, and to the development of a
new social formation, at which point the cycle begins again. A dialectical
approach does not rule out evolutionary developments, rather it places
them in a broader context, situating them on the upswing of the cycle
rather than seeing them as part of a continuous trajectory leading
inevitably to modern civilisation. For more than a decade, archaeologists
have shown much interest in the possibility of cyclical change (cf. Bintliff
ed. 1990, Kristiansen 1978), but this approach has not so far been applied
to the Armorican Neolithic.
SOCIAL AND IDEOLOGICAL CYCLES IN PREHISTORY
Most of the discussion in this chapter has focused on changing social
formations in prehistory. Archaeologists, however, do not dig up social
systems: when we are dealing with the religious and burial practices of
past societies, we are looking, in effect, at ideological representations of
past social formations. If we are to understand the development of
prehistoric societies, therefore, it is necessary to have some conception of
the relationship between changing social structure and changing ideology.
In looking at the archaeological evidence presented in this book, we can
identify a sequence of ideological changes which corresponds closely to
the cycle of social change outlined above.
The first phase in this sequence can be characterised as a consolidation
phase. The Early Neolithic period, for example, sees the emergence of an
Figure 8.7 A dialectical model of social change: 1 expansion phase; 2 crisis phase; 3
collapse
194
CONCLUSION
ideology which stresses inter-generational bonds and obligations in
relation to the past and the ancestors (see chapters 2 and 3). There are a
number of key symbols in this ideology (notably the axe), and these
continue into the Middle Neolithic period. The context of these symbols,
however, changes significantly during the fourth millennium cal. BC,
suggesting increasing control of the ideology by an elite (see chapter 4).
Certain categories of monument provide evidence for marked social
differentiation (see chapter 5), expressed through manipulation of the
same symbolism (e.g. the large numbers of elaborate stone axes found in
monuments of the Grand Tumulus series). The consolidation phase
corresponds to the up-swing of the cycle shown on figure 8.7, and is
marked by continuity in terms of symbolism. The context of the
symbolism changes, however, and the symbols themselves may become
more stylised and less explicit, suggesting increasing control of religion
and ideology.
The second phase can be characterised as adaptation in crisis. In the
Late Neolithic period, we see a reversal of many of the earlier trends,
with less emphasis on social differentiation in ritual and less evidence
for restriction of access to sacred space and knowledge (see chapter 6).
The symbolism itself changes, becoming less stylised and more explicit,
but some of the symbols (notably the axe) continue, and the basis of
ritual practice remains, in many respects, unchanged. The reversal of
earlier trends, combined with evidence for the disintegration of
Neolithic tribal groupings (see chapter 6) suggests that we are dealing
with a period of crisis. This phase corresponds to the top of the wave
shown on figure 8.7, and involves a change in ideological strategy on
the part of the elite. This change in strategy can be seen as an adaptation
to crisis conditions, de-emphasising social differentiation in an attempt
to minimise the crisis.
The third phase, corresponding to the down-swing of the wave on
figure 8.7, marks the replacement of one elite by another. This is marked by
fundamental changes in ritual practice (the abandonment of megaliths),
and by a complete break in terms of symbolism. The axe, for example,
seems to lose its symbolic importance, and decorated pottery, items of
personal adornment and weapons become powerful symbols of the new
elite. The third phase is also marked by the apparent collapse of social
groupings above the level of the individual domestic group, but this is
immediately followed by a new phase of centralisation and increasing
social differentiation as the Early Bronze Age marks the beginning of a
new cycle.
The cycles of social and ideological change identified above offer a
coherent explanation of the archaeological evidence outlined in this book.
This, however, is simply one among many possible interpretations of this
evidence. No amount of evidence could ever constitute ‘proof of a general
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STATEMENTS IN STONE
model such as this, and the whole concept of ‘scientific proof is largely
discredited (cf. Popper 1959, Feyerabend 1975), but there ought still to be
some means of evaluating models against one another. For Popper (1959)
models are evaluated on the criterion of ‘potential falsifiability’: whilst it
may not be possible to prove a hypothesis true, it should be possible to
prove it untrue by testing it against independent data. A model which
could not potentially be falsified is of little value, since there is no way of
assessing it in relation to the data. In practice, however, it is difficult to
define any data as truly ‘independent’, since all ‘facts’ are constructed
within a theoretical context (cf. Wylie 1982). Attempts to evaluate models
on methodological rather than substantive criteria also tend to privilege
particular types of model (because they are more easily testable), despite
the fact that these are no more likely to be ‘true’. Wylie’s (1982) Realist
alternative is a process of:
Trying out different…ways of conceptualising the data…to see if,
when the data are conceived as the outcome of one type of
mechanism rather than another, they are better integrated or take on
more intelligible form. (1982, p. 42)
This, in general, is the approach that has been adopted in this book.
Whilst it may not be possible to falsify a general model in any formal
sense, we might still expect it to have predictive value. The cycle shown
on figure 8.7 was explained by reference to structural features of the
social formations concerned, so we might expect to recognise similar
cycles in data relating to similar social systems elsewhere or at different
times, and this may be a fruitful avenue for future research. This model,
however, can only be expected to predict general trends in social and
cultural change, and is in no sense deterministic. Social change, as we
have seen, occurs as a result of human action, and is not in itself
determined by any external process or law. People act, however, in
response to material situations, and it is possible to predict the
development of these situations. The nature of the response will depend
upon the particular circumstances of time, place and culture. Whilst we
might expect to find evidence for similar cycles of social change in other
contexts, therefore, we cannot predict from a general model the type of
social systems that will develop as a result of it.
196
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205
INDEX
alignments: de Kerlescan 117–18, 121,
123; de Kermario 117–18, 120, 123;
du Menec 117–19, 121, 123, 125; du
Moulin 114–15
amber 186–7
Ammerman, A. 35–6
Ancresse, L’ 184
angled graves 147–53, 173
Arc-boutée monuments 135, 138
art 87–91, 142–3, 147
axe factories 18–27
Barnenez 39, 71, 75, 79, 81, 83, 85–6,
94–6, 100–2, 124, 169
Beauport 174
Beg-an-Dorchenn 133
Bell Beakers 162–4, 165, 168, 170–7
Bender, B. 14, 64
Biards, Les 106
‘Big Men’ 159–60, 178, 184–5
Bilgroix 52, 54–5
Binford, L. 6
Blanches Banques, Les 163, 174–5,
177, 184
Bois de la Plesse, Le 137
Bradley, R. 25, 58, 87–8, 100, 180
Bretteville-le-Rabet 21
Briard, J. 110–11, 164, 190
Bridewealth 28–9, 64–5, 125, 182
Carn, Ile 71, 85, 167–9, 170, 174
Carn pottery 39, 41, 72
Cartésières, Les 144
Castellic, Le 50, 53–5
Castellic pottery 40–4
Cavalli-Sforza, L. 35–6
Cazin 187
Cerny pottery 38, 40
Champ de la Croix, Le 121
Champ-Grosset 145–7, 173
Chateau-Bu 116
Childe, V.G. 5, 34–5
Clos-ès-Pierres, Le 137
Coat-Menez-Guen 134, 136–7
Coet-Correc 144
Cogné, J. 19–21
Conguel, Le 91, 94–5, 132, 149
Conguel pottery 130, 131–2, 155, 177
consolidation 194
Constantin, C. 37
Cosmaner 187
Couperon, Le 137
Crec’h-Quillé 130, 145–7, 172–4
Creux-ès-Faies, Le 84, 170
Croix-Madame, Le 51, 116
Croix-St-Pierre, Le 51–4, 116
Crucuno 77, 121
Crucuny 106
Déhus, Le 59, 79, 82, 84, 87–8, 94–5,
98, 100, 132–3, 168–9, 171
Demoiselles de Coujoux, Les 116
Dennell, R. 64
dialectic 191–4
Dissignac 81, 84–5
Dolerite A 19–22
Dolerite P 21
druidism 4
Eclogite 19
Elliot-Smith, G. 5
Engels, F. 189, 192
entoptic images 13, 88, 100, 151–2,
181
epidiorite 21
epi-genesis 192–3
206
INDEX
Er Grah 56, 106, 109, 113
Er Lannic 18, 23–5, 121–3
Er Yoh 177
Ezer 154
Faldouet 76, 79, 94–5
fibrolite 19, 24, 28, 55, 110, 122
flint 20–1
Fouaillages, Les 40, 46, 52–4, 75, 163,
175
Friedman, J. 28, 103, 124–5, 180, 182,
187–90
functionalism 7, 37
gallery graves 134–43
Gargantillas 165–6
Gavrinis 31, 33, 56–7, 59, 85, 91, 96,
110, 133–4, 167–8, 174, 182
Giddens, A. 12
Giot, P-R. 19–21
Goërem 148–9, 151, 173
gold 165–6, 170, 186
Golfe du Morbihan 67–8
Grah-Nioul 121
Grand Menhir Brisé 46, 56, 57, 62,
65–6, 118–19
Grand Pressigny flint 132, 138, 141,
147, 149, 151, 159, 176, 178
Grand Rohu 121
Grantez 79, 82, 94–5, 98, 168
Guennoc, Ile 39, 71, 85
Guidel 111
Guernsey 29, 97
Haye-St-Gravé, La 77
Herm 94, 154–5, 174
Hodder, I. 12, 55–6
Hoëdic 37–9, 64, 68
Hotié-Viviane, L’ 153–4, 174
Hougue Bie, La 79, 81, 94–7, 99–102,
124, 133, 148, 168, 182
Hougue Boëte, La 106
Hougue des Géonnais, La 76, 78, 81,
84, 168
Hougue Mauger, La 155–6
Huelgoat 166
Impressed pottery 34–5
Jadeite 19, 28
Jardin-aux-Moines, Le 51, 55
Jersey 29, 96, 101–2
Jersey Bowls 168, 175
Kerallant 142
Kerandrèze 172
Kerantrec’h 85
Kerbannalec 139, 141
Kerbourgnec 121
Kercado 71, 73, 76, 84, 110
Kercadoret 166
Kerdonnars 142
Kerfily 136
Kergavat 79
Kergonan 121
Kerguntuil 147
Kerhué-Bras 187
Keriven 153–4
Kerivoa 165–6
Kerlagad 110, 170
Kerlearec 144
Kerlescan 50, 53–4, 144–5, 147, 173,
see also alignments
Kerleven 76, 83, 85, 96
Kerlivit 187
Kerlud 106
Kermaric 76
Kermario see alignments
Kermarquer 58, 66, 79, 82
Kermené 142, 144, 155–6
Kernic 134–5, 137, 142
Kernonen 186–7
Kerodou 186–7
Kerroyal 79
Kerugou 153–4
Kerugou pottery 130–1, 132, 147, 149,
151, 153, 155, 177
Kervini 187
Kerzerho 117
Kinnes, I. 30, 36, 59
Kourégan 174
labour calculations 9, 10–11, 22–3, 63,
102
Larcuste see Min-Goh-Ru
lateral entrance graves 143–7
Leroi-Gourhan, A. 13, 16
Le Roux, C-T. 19, 22–3, 33, 56
Le Rouzic, Z. 24, 121–3
Lesconil 135, 138
Lévi-Strauss, C. 11–12
L’Helgouach, J. 56, 77–9, 81, 87, 96,
110–11, 132, 139, 147, 190
Linear pottery 34–5
207
INDEX
Liscuis 134–7, 139, 142
Longue, Ile 75, 90
Loqueltas 79, 82
Lost-er-Lenn 153–4, 174
Lubbock, J. 189
Lucette, La 166
Luffang 151–2
Lukis, F.C. 69, 169
Lunulae 165–6
Mané-Bihan 148, 151
Mané-Bras 79, 85
Mané-er-Hroëk 31, 56, 106, 111–12
Mané-Lud 56, 90, 106–8, 109, 113, 170
Mané-Pochat 50, 53–4
Mané-Rutual 56, 58, 62, 79
Mané-Ty-Ec 49, 53–4
Mané-Ven-Guen 95
Manio, Le 49, 53–5, 120, 123
Marx, K. 189, 191–2
Marxism see Neo-Marxism
Meillassoux, C. 13, 27–8, 32, 64–5, 99,
180
Mein-Goarec 136, 142, 171
Mèlus, Le 147
Men-ar-Romped 172
Menec, Le see alignments
Men-Meur 134
Mesolithic 37–9
Min-Goh-Ru 95–6
Mogau-Bihan 30, 129, 134, 142, 144
Montagne du Roule, La 166
Mont de la Ville, Le 76, 79, 81, 102
Mont-Ubé, Le 81, 83, 102
Moulin-Peret, Le 151
Mourant, A. 101–2
Moustoir, Le 106–8, 109–10, 113
Nelhouët 77
Neo-Marxism 13–14
New Guinea 19, 26–7
Notério 84, 86
Notre-Dame-de-Lorette 52, 54
‘Ossuary, The’ (Jersey) 154, 174–6
Palmella points 166
Pannecé 110
Paramount Chiefs 187–8, 190
Passy-sur-Yonne 55
Penker 172
Petit Menec, Le 117
Petit-Mont, Le 34, 52–3, 56, 70, 85,
87, 98, 100–2, 124, 182
Pierres Droites, Les 114
Pierres Plates, Les 148–9, 150, 152
Pinacle, Le 21, 24–6, 75, 176
Pinacle/Fouaillages pottery 41–2, 43
Pitt-Rivers, A. 189
Platons, Les 153–5
Platte-Mare, La 174–5
Pleyben 155–6
Plussulien 19–22, 159, 163
Popper, K. 196
Port-Blanc 91, 94–5, 168
Port-Maria 153
Poststructuralism 10–13
Poulguen 153
Practico-Inert 192
Prajou-Menhir 142, 145, 171, 174
praxis 192
Prestige Goods System 187–8, 190
Processual Archaeology 7–10
Quelarn 76, 85
Quessoy 130, 131, 177
Quiberon 111
Quilio, Le 52
Realism 15
Renfrew, C. 7, 9, 36–7, 189
replacement 195
re-use (of stones) 33, 46, 56, 113, 155
Robert’s Cross 94
Roche-Camio, La 145
Rocher, Le 151
Rondossec 79, 165
Rosmeur 168
Rousay 7–8
Rowlands, M. 28, 103, 124–5, 180,
182, 187–90
Ste-Barbe 117
St-Fiacre 187
St-Just 45, 114–17, 123
St-Nicholas-du-Pelem 163
St Pierre-Montlimart 166
St-Sampson-sur-Rance 59
Sartre, J.-P. 192
segmentary societies 102–3
Seine-Oise-Marne pottery 130–1,
138–9, 141–2, 151, 153–6
Sergenté, La 76
Shanks, M. 12–13
208
INDEX
Shee-Twohig, E. 57, 87
‘T’-shaped graves 153
Table des Marchand 33, 40–1, 56, 59,
62, 70, 74, 98, 113
Tanwedou 187
tertres tumulaires 48–56
Tête des Quennevais, La 175
Téviec 37–9, 64, 68
Thiessen Polygons 7–8
Thom, A. 118–20
Thomsen, C.J. 34, 69
Tilley, C. 12–13
Torche, La 37–9
Tossen-Keler 155–6
Tossen-Kergourognan 187
Tossen-Maharit 187
Tossen-Rugouel 187
Toul-an-Urz 134
Trédion 154
Tressé 142, 145
Trévoux 142, 144
Tumiac 106, 110
Tumulus-St-Michel 106–7, 109–10, 113,
125
Ty-Floc’h 71, 94–6, 100, 167–8, 174
Varde, La 79, 84
variscite 110, 151, 154
vase-supports 74, 96, 110, 122
Vierville 94–5, 100
Ville-és-Nouaux 136–7, 172
Ville-Pichard 85
wristguards 163, 172
Wylie, A. 15, 196
209