18 The Dolmen-Mounds of Brittany. (January, 
may probably have been the ‘ offerings to the dead,’ the eating 
of which was accounted so great a sin to the Israelites.”* 
Until within the last few years the only dolmens known 
were confined exclusively to that area of country inhabited 
by the Celtic race, and hence all megalithic structures were, 
with good reason, relegated to an origin wholly Celtic. 
More lately, however, since the discovery of megalithic 
tombs in other parts of the world, there has arisen consi- 
derable doubt as to the race affinities of the dolmen-builders ; 
and certainly the Celts possess no traditions of the sepulchral 
character of these monuments, which, according to their 
folk-lore, were the abodes of witches and fairies, and were, 
according to the Bretons, the handiwork of the Korils and 
Teuz (elves and fays). 
There are many theories as to the original home of these 
dolmen-building people, who have been variously named as 
Proto-Scythians or Proto-Celts, and as to the direction from 
whence they penetrated Western France and our own 
islands. 
There seems but little doubt that their ancient seat was 
in Central Asia, and that they were, as M. Bertrand affirms, 
a conservative and exclusive race, who, resisting absorption 
by a superior people, were expelled from their aboriginal 
home, from whence they spread westward; and it is an 
indubitable fact that the most easterly point in Europe 
where their sepulchres are found is the Crimean peninsula, 
and that the megalithic tombs here are the most ancient of 
their kind known. 
Thence, according to M. de Bonstetten, one branch of 
migration spread towards Greece, Syria, Italy, and Corsica ; 
and another, skirting the borders of the great Hercynian 
forest (via Silesia, where at Oppeln and Liegnitz are found 
the next megalithic remains), took their route towards the 
shores of the Baltic, where the cromlechs are considered 
second only in antiquity to those of the Crimea. 
Here there is some difference of opinion as to their line 
of march. According to M. Bertrand they remained for a 
lengthened period in Denmark, whence, again expelled, they 
crossed the water, and reached the Shetland and Orkney 
Isles, whence they can be traced on either side of the Irish 
Channel to Brittany, and finally re-crossed the Channel 
to Brittany. On the other hand, M. de Bonstetten 
is of opinion that from the Baltic the tide of migration 
overran Germany,—Friesland, Dreuthe, Schleswig-Holstein, 
* Vide Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, New Series, No. 1, 
January, 1871. 
