ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



more circles were not always simple dolmens, 

 but often corridor-tombs of more or less com- 

 plicated types. Their excavation has not given 

 very definite results. In many cases human 

 bones have been found in considerable quantities, 

 sometimes in a calcined condition ; but there is 

 no real evidence to show that cremation was the 

 burial rite practised. The calcination of human 

 bones may well have been caused by the lighting 

 of fires in the tomb, either at some funeral cere- 

 mony, or in even later days, when the place was 

 used as a shelter for peasants. A few poor flints 

 were found and a little pottery, together with 

 many bones of animals and some pins and borers 

 of bone. The most important find made, how- 

 ever, was a small conical button made of bone 

 with two holes pierced in its flat side and meeting 

 in the middle. It is a type which occurs in Europe 

 only at the period of transition from the age of 

 stone to that of bronze, and usually in connection 

 with megalithic monuments. 



Fig. 6. Type-plan of the simple rectangular 

 corridor-tomb or altie couverte. 



We pass on now to consider the simplest form 



42 



