"DRUID STONES" OF BRITTANY 133 



Human interments often occurred at the isolated menhirs and asso- 

 ciated with these are found only simple pottery and instruments formed 

 solely of stone and bone. Not a trace of bronze or iron, except where 

 it was clearly of a later and intrusive character. Arrow and spear 

 points, ceremonial stones, etc., closely resembling those of our American 

 Indians, would point far back in the history of western Europe. Yet 

 this is not conclusive, for these objects occur only in connection with 

 human interments and one must make allowance for the well-known 

 conservatism of the priestly class. Among other peoples the objects 

 buried with the dead retained the primitive character long after the race 

 had developed other forms in its daily life. So it may have been here. 

 The fact that these burials were accompanied only by objects of the 

 stone age is not conclusive proof that the people were ignorant of bronze 

 or even of iron. 



It is an interesting fact that the passages leading to the chambers 

 of the dolmens are invariably so placed that the openings lie between 

 the points of the rising and the setting of the sun at the summer solstice, 

 possibly indicating that the builders were to a certain extent sun wor- 

 shippers. From certain- considerations of orientation the English 

 astronomer, Lockyer, has figured out the date of the building of Stone- 

 henge as about 1680 B.C., with a limit of probable error of two centuries 

 either way. If his arguments be valid, there is a probability that the 

 monuments of Carnac and Locmariaquer are at least as old. 



With such a throwing back of the age of these monuments there is 

 more and more uncertainty as to who built them. The " Druids," who 

 just appear on the pages of written history, were Keltish, but what 

 evidence have we that Kelts dwelt in Brittany or Great Britain a thou- 

 sand or fifteen hundred years before Christ ? We know that other races 

 dwelt in these regions before the immigrant Kelt. Did the Kelt erect 

 these stones or did he find them where they still stand when he came ? 

 and did he simply adapt his religious rites to them? Who can say? 



We are on a little more certain ground when we come to the pur- 

 poses of the standing stones, or at least of some of them. As implied 

 above, the isolated menhirs, usually placed on some spot a little above 

 the surrounding country, have, in many cases, been found to stand near 

 some burial, and hence it is probable that they are funeral monuments. 

 Some may also have been boundary stones. The dolmens are also mor- 

 tuary in character. Apparently every dolmen and allee couverte was 

 formerly buried with earth or rocks, the whole forming a large mound 

 — a tumulus or galgal. With the ages the earth in many cases has been 

 removed, either by man or by the elements, leaving the strange " tables " 

 as we see them. In other cases the tumulus still persists and many of 

 these have been explored by modern archeologists, all revealing, in the 

 interior, either a dolmen, an allee couverte, or smaller cairns of stones, 



