Megalithic Monuments of Brittany. 581 
A opens to the east. 
B and C to the south-west. 
D to the north. 
E and F in ruins. 
It is believed that the interments were made continuously in the 
same sepulture (as is done partially in our own vaults), a practice 
which prevails to a certain extent in the country to the present day. 
When the dolmen (or tomb) became full, the skeletons could have 
been taken out and deposited in an ossuary. We found evidence 
of this at the dolmen of Port Blanc. It has been contended with 
great probability that the bodies were buried elsewhere at first and 
then after they had become dessicated or the flesh had been 
removed from the skeletons, that the bones were placed within the 
dolmen. M. Cartailhac has elaborated this theory with much 
ability. A fete day, like All Saint’s, was perhaps selected for the 
purpose, and the dolmen may have been opened and all bones 
deposited therein with due ceremony. In support of this view it 
is argued that the skeletons have been found in unnatural and 
impossible positions in the dolmens; that they have been found 
colored or painted, which could only have been done after the 
denudation of the flesh, and that sometimes the entrance to the 
dolmen is by means of a hole cut in the stone door, so small, from 
sixteen to twenty inches round or oval, that the entry of a corpse 
would be difficult, if not impossible. 
Fre. 6.—Cireular hole being the entrance to a dolmen, from the department 
Sune-et-Oise, now removed to and exhibited at the Musee St. Germain, Paris, 
The round cover being in the foreground, 
Excavations and searches were conducted by myself in company 
with the local archeologists, M M. Gaillard, Fornier, Cappe, Rialan 
and the Abbe Luco. I subjoin a list of some of the larger stones in 
the more important dolmens, with sizes and weights. 
