Chap. VIII. AGE OF DOLMENS. 335those of the north; and it is probable that any one who was familiar
with all could point out a gradation of style which would aid materially in determining their age. Whatever that may turn out eventually to be, no one will, I presume, contend that all are of one age or even of one century. It is far more probable that they extend over a considerable lapse of time, probably a thousand years, and if this is so, there must have been changes of fashion even among Cave races as their blood got more and more mixed; and it would be interesting to know where and — relatively at least — when this took place. My present impression is that the southern are the most modern, for this among other reasons. — I look on the sequence of a cist in a barrow to a dolmen or chamber in a tumulus as very nearly certain, and from that the sequence to the exposed free-standing dolmen, and from that to the dolmen on the tumulus, as nearly, if not quite as, probable. The latter form, so far as I know, never occurs in Brittany, while on the other hand it is common in the south of France.[1] If they are of the same
122. Dolmen at Sauclières.
age as similar monuments in Scandinavia and Ireland, they must be of comparatively modern date. There are also some monu-
this intent; but the war rendered the position of an exploring and sketching foreigner so undesirable that I was forced to desist. Had this book been a "statisque" of the subject, as it was originally intended, I should have been obliged to defer its publication till I had accomplished this journey, or till the monuments had been illustrated. As, however, it has now assumed more the form of an "argument," this is of comparatively little consequence.
1 In a paper on the 'Monuments mégalithiques de l'Auvergne,' by M. Cartheilhac, in the Norwich volume of the Prehistoric Congress, he gives drawings of ten as types. Five of these, or one-half, are dolmens on tumuli, which is, however, probably more than a fair proportion. One has already been given, woodcut No. 8.
- ↑ 1