STATUE-MENHIRS. 



187 



on the other hand, it may have come to us through intercourse 

 with the valley of the Seine. 



It is difficult to determine the date of our statue-menhirs. 

 All we can say is, that that of the Catel resembles in type 

 most nearly the sculptures of the grottoes of the Marne and 

 of the tumulus of Collorgues, Gard, and it may presumably 

 have been erected about the same period. As these sculp- 

 tures of the Marne and Gard are assigned by Dechelette and 

 other French savants to the late Neolithic period, namely, 

 sometime before B.C. 2500, we may not be very far wrong 

 in presuming that ours of the Catel may possibly be of about 

 that date. On this point, however, it is necessary to state 

 that all these dates are only approximate, and further, it is 

 quite possible that this cult may have only reached our remote 

 island long after it was first established on the mainland. 

 Whether the kindred statue-menhirs of the Aveyron, Tarn 

 and Herault are of the same period or of the early Bronze 

 Age (i.e., B.C. 2500 to 1900) is at present undetermined. 

 Reinach assigns them to the latter, while on the other 

 hand Dechelette inclines to an earlier date. One point is 

 however certain, that is, the cult of which they were the 

 symbol was evidently of comparatively short duration in 

 Gaul, not a trace of it is to be found in the later Bronze 

 Age, or in the Hallstatt, or the La Tene periods of the Iron 

 Age. It vanishes from sight and is replaced by the symbols 

 of the religious beliefs of the Gauls known to us more fully 

 through Latin writers. The only places where this cult seems 

 to have lingered on were among the Ligurians in North Italy, 

 where it seems to have lasted down to the early Iron Age, 

 and possibly in our own island, for it is impossible to suppose 

 other than a much later date than that of the Catel for our 

 other statue-menhir of St. Martin's. Probably an interval 

 of many centuries separated them. The skill necessary to 

 sculpture hard granite, even in the comparatively rude manner 

 in which it is carved, could only have developed slowly in 

 such a remote spot as our island. It would have required 

 better tools and greater knowledge than was possessed by 

 the makers of the rude statue-menhirs of South-Eastern 

 France. The links in the chain are missing, as we possess no 

 Gaulish sculptures by which to trace its development. Still 

 though we may consider the St. Martin's statue the latest 

 representative of these figures, its affinity to the statue-menhirs 

 of South-Eastern France is indisputable as it shows all the 

 characteristic details of the earlier type. 



