country, though there is no reason to suppose they had then at least attempted to exterminate them. It must thus be either that the Celts were the builders of the dolmens, which appears most improbable, or that there existed in these provinces a prehistoric people to whom they must be ascribed.
Without at all wishing, at present at least, to insist upon it, I may here state that the impression on my mind is every day growing stronger that the dolmen-builders in France are the lineal descendants of the Cave men whose remains have recently been detected in such quantities on the banks of the Dordogne and other rivers in the south of France.[1] These remains are found in quantities in the Ardèche[2] and in Poitou.[3] If they have not been found in Brittany, it may be that they have not been looked for, or that the soil is unfavourable to their preservation; but they have been found in Picardy, though possibly not exactly of the same class. It is, of course, dangerous to found any argument on such local coincidence, as new discoveries may be made in the east of France or elsewhere; but in the present state of our knowledge the Cave men and the dolmens seem not only conterminous but their frequency seems generally to be coincident.
As we know next to nothing of the languages spoken in the south-west of France before the introduction of the Romance forms of speech, philology will hardly assist us in our enquiry. There is, however, one particle, ac, which I cannot help thinking may prove of importance, when its origin is ascertained. In the table at the end of this chapter, I have placed the number of the names of the cities having this termination in each department[4] next to M. Bertrand's number of dolmens. The coincidence is certainly remarkable, more especially as it is easy to
- ↑ Lartet, Christy, and 'Reliquæ Aquitanicæ.' London, 1865 et seqq.
- ↑ 'Monuments mégalithiques du Vivarais,' p. Oll. de Marchand; Montpellier, 1870.
- ↑ 'Époques antéhistoriques du Poitou,' P. A. Brouillet; Poitiers, 1865.
- ↑ This list must be taken as only tentative. All I have done was to take the Atlas Joanne, and count the number of names as well as I could. I feel far from confident that I have counted all; and, besides, the scale of the maps is too small to feel sure that all, or nearly all, are there. It is, however, sufficient for present purposes of comparison. If it is thought worth while to pursue the investigation farther, it must be done on the 80,000 scale map of France, which would be work of great labour.
