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Updated: May 18, 2025
In this work Bertrand upheld the thesis that "the dolmens and allées couvertes are sepulchres; and their origin seems up to the present to be northern." In 1865 appeared Bonstetten's famous Essai sur les dolmens, in which he maintained that the dolmens were constructed by one and the same people spreading over Europe from north to south.
Sometimes such avenues form communications between several dolmens, leading us to suppose that near the chief slept the members of his family or his favorite companions.
Some have thought that they were made to hold the blood of sacrifice which was poured over the slab, and from some such idea may have arisen some of the legends of human victims which still cling round the dolmens.
Sometimes the way in which these stones are balanced is perfectly marvellous. Although, as a general rule, megalithic monuments are without ornamentation, there are a good many exceptions in the case of dolmens made of very hard granite, on which numerous carvings and engravings have been made.
It has been said, moreover, that the mode of construction of the dolmens, and we hate ourselves made the same remark, is far from being the same everywhere. The dolmens of Brittany have sepulchral chambers with long passages leading to them; those of the neighborhood of Paris have wide covered avenues with a very short entrance lobby.
Beneath the dolmens of West Gothland have been found polished stone weapons and tools associated with the bones of domestic animals, in many cases bearing traces of the work of the hand of man. At Olleria, in the kingdom of Valencia, at Xeres de la Frontera, we find diorite hatchets, and in Algeria vases filled with the shells of land mollusca.
At Aurignac, in the cave of L'HOMME MORT, in the Trou du Frontal, broken bones and fragments of charcoal bear witness to the repast. Similar traces of feasts are met with beneath the dolmens and the tumuli.
They were huge stacks of stones in which you could distinguish the indistinct forms of palaces and temples, now arrayed in hosts of blossoming zoophytes, and over it all, not ivy but a heavy mantle of algae and fucus plants. But what part of the globe could this be, this land swallowed by cataclysms? Who had set up these rocks and stones like the dolmens of prehistoric times?
There is one group of dolmens at Ali Safat, in Palestine, in which the supports of the table are pierced with an opening. This is a very interesting fact, to which I have already alluded, and to which I shall have to refer again.
In 1887 his collection contained 167 crania or fragments of crania, all perforated, 115 of which were picked up in the caves of Lozere, which are probably of more recent date, beneath the dolmens of the DEVEZES, as those vast plains given lip to pasturage are called. These dolmens, which were doubtless reserved for the burial of chiefs, often contain many valuable objects.
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