This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
360
FRANCE.
Chap. VIII.

the presence of Roman pottery, or other evidence of that people, in the long barrows in Gloucestershire, at Kennet, and at Carnac, are too frequent to be accidental. In so far as proving that the monument is not prehistoric, the presence of a single fragment of Roman pottery is as conclusive as a hoard of coins would be, provided it is found so placed that it could not have been inserted there after the mound was complete; and this I fancy is the case in all the instances mentioned above.

Locmariaker.

It is rather to be regretted that no good survey exists of this cemetery. Not that much depends on the juxtaposition of the monuments, but that, as the French are continually changing their names, and most of them have two, it is not always easy to feel sure which monument is being spoken of at any particular time. Those on the mainland are situated in a zone about a mile in length, running north and south, between Mané Lud, the most northern, and Mané er H'roëk, the most southern. The first-named is a long barrow, 260 feet by about 165, but not, as in England, of one age or containing only one, but, like Moustoir-Carnac, several sepulchres, which may either be of the same age or erected at different though hardly distant periods, and joined together by being buried under one great mound. Of the three which Mané Lud contains, the most interesting is the partially covered dolmen at the west end. It consists of a chamber of somewhat irregular form, but measuring 12 feet by 10 feet, and covered by one enormous block of stone, measuring 29 feet by 15 feet, and with a passage leading to it, making the whole length from the entrance to the central block of the chamber 20 feet. According to Mr. Ferguson,[1] five of the blocks of this dolmen are sculptured; according to M. René Galles,[2] nine are so ornamented. The stone, however, is so rough and the place so dark that it is difficult at times to distinguish them and always so to draw them. The principal objects represented seem to be intended for boats


  1. 'Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy,' vol. viii. 1864, p. 298 et seqq.
  2. 'Revue archéologique,' vol. x. 1864, pl. iv.