1 873.] The Amor pholithic Monuments of Brittany, 243 



and dignified by the circle of stones erected upon it. A 

 century or so afterwards, when stone had become more re- 

 cognised as a building material, the circular mound may 

 have been disused, and then the stone circle would alone 

 remain. Fergusson also figures a woodcut, taken from 

 Haxthausen's work of the uncovered base of a kurgan or 

 tumulus at. Nikolajew, in the government of Cherson, 

 which he suggests may give us a hint as to the genesis of 

 circles. The tumulus was cleared away, and its base was 

 found to be composed of three or four concentric circles of 

 upright stones surrounding what appears to be a kist of five 

 stones in the centre. Similar arrangements have been 

 found in Algerian tumuli, and it looks as if the first kist of 

 the sepulchral circle may have arisen from such an arrange- 

 ment having become familiar before being covered over, just as 

 Fergusson supposes the free-standing dolmen to have arisen 

 from the uncovered cist having excited such admiration as to 

 make its framers unwilling to hide it. In fact, just as the 

 free-standingdolmen and cromlech may be looked upon as the 

 skeletons of original chambered tumuli after the flesh of the 

 sepulchral mound, which gave meaning to the structure, had 

 disappeared, so we may look upon the circle as the repre- 

 sentative of the revetting peristalith which formerly encircled 

 the tumulus, but which tumulus was ultimately never filled 

 in; and similarly, we shall not be far wrong in looking 

 upon the avenues which lead fo circles as a development of 

 the funnel-shaped narrow entrances to these same cham- 

 bered tumuli. That they were intended for permanence is 

 evident, and the people who erected them must have had 

 similar associations of ideas regarding life and death as 

 had both the Egyptians and Buddhists ; the former, accord- 

 ing to Diodorus Siculus, called the dwellings of the living 

 mere " lodging-houses ;" their tombs, on the contrary, they 

 looked forward to as their " eternal homes" 



Anyhow, whether there were actually tumuli or not within 

 these circular enclosures, the sepulchral theory seems the 

 most fitting conclusion to arrive at ; and if this be so, then 

 the avenues may be looked upon as approaches of a cere- 

 monial character connected with funeral rites, not neces- 

 sarily only those which preceded interment, but for subsequent 

 visitations, as shown by the permanent construction of these 

 monuments, which were evidently intended to last through 

 future ages. 



As to this day in China the clans and families annually 

 revisit the tombs of their ancestors for the purpose of wor- 

 ship and sacrifice, repairing and cleaning the graves, and 



