those 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 age as similar monuments in Scandinavia and Ireland, they must be of comparatively modern date. There are also some monu-
- ↑ 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.
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.
