Another detail from the carved coridor of Gavrinis - an early Neolithic passage tomb on an island towards the entrance to the Gulf of Morbihan of Brittany.

I have seen it asserted that at the time of construction, the island of Gavrinis was attached to the land, so part of the claw-like entrance to the Morbihan bay. It has been argued that the bay of Morbihan was then closer to two sprawling rivers than a vast natural harbour or ria cluster. Here sea levels are said to have since risen by 10 metres from the early Neolithic (Harbison 2017). I had thought rises had been less dramatic at around 5m (Alexandre Guyot et al 2019). Did the Gavrinis 'knoll' escape seasonal flooding, ie was it indubitably connected to dry land? There are many texts that talk of moving stones over water to the island - even sliding on deep winter ice - and I had taken this slant in the past and currently remain open minded.

Two axeheads are here pictured as a lone icon pair, elsewhere repeated, always blade up and without haft. The blades are surrounded by a pattern of parallel 'ripples'. Carving in granite such consistent and deep furrows from an age before even a hint of metal, and one must suspect ready supplies of the then precious obsidian, coupled with perfect eye to hand coordination and a patient and motivated rhythm.

The sharp points to the 'tails'/counter weights of the un-hafted axe heads seem to suggest that this is a representation of jadeite axe heads. Jadeite stone was sourced in the Italien Alps around 2400m on the Massif du Mont Viso. Green and flesh-like polished jadeite axes show far fewer marks of usage than many other models, and a symbolic role has been mused: 'symbols of power' and so on. In past posts I suggest the idea that groups within the clan mosaic of the Neolithic protected the hyperbolic axe, resulting in organic between-group ties to resolve problems of banditry, in effect, a focal point for an early function of stability, 'policing' and greater 'society'. A symbol of far reaching stability rather than a symbol of individual power.

At this point, by seeing the space between the axes as a path to a rolling destination of hills or waves, we can see a symbol that solidifies a sense of alliance, the two lower points being an example of a path diminishing to a point of far off perspective. A precious axe that is then stolen or under threat becomes a threat to the idea of the axe, and so all relevantly local axeholders unite to tackel the antisocial and thus protect the symbol. A similar function for the Langdales over the channel. An animal stolen might be seen as a potential future threat to the symbolic axe and initiate talks for a reaction.

Banditry, threat, impulsive theft and greed are regularly sold by commentators as heartbeats of the Neolithic prehistory. I would argue that they became the heartbeat of the civilised way. I will also qualify an opinion that dealing with judgements by 'collectivity' would not have been a Rousseauian utopic, rather an effective working system of values prone for vigilante specialists and harsh and fast judgements.

Good day-to-day local axes for hacking trees came from quarries of 'métadolérite à grain fin' - known as 'Les haches de Quelfennec' or 'Plussulien': a quarry which was a 19 hour walk due north from the Gavrinis zone, so obviously more practical than Mont Viso which is a 200 hour continuous walk. Dates of exploitation from 6200 ybp would place this within the optic of Gavrinis, but the shape of Plussulien axes tend to be known as "hache à bouton de Bretagne" Gardez 1932. Rather than an elegant tail point that seems to point to a perspective in a far distance, the "hache à bouton's" tail curves as a local mirror to the curve of the blade, again not the axe of the above Neolithic illustration. As with jadeite axes, examples of Quefennec axes turn up far and wide; in the Alps, British Isles and so on, so a measure of the Neolithic trade routes aside the new sedentary.

It seems that a clear chain of production for Neolithic axes of different mineral aspect and silhouette needs to be asserted, as the place of quarrying can differ from a zone of 'rough out', which can also be different from the place of final polishing.

When the jadeite was transported, was it closer to rough shaped 'ingots' before being polished in Brittany into a standard form for the Alpine sourced stone, or were fully finished Italien axe heads transported far and wide? The same problematic can be issued to the Quefennec axes.

A recent article published in 2021 by Oscar Lantes-Suárez et al talks about a jadeite axe fountd in north eastern Spain: "This artefact - as other “Tumiac type” axes (long polished blades, generally butt-perforated) - would have been produced in Brittany during the Neolithic (5th millenniumBCE) using jadeitite as raw material, a green-coloured rock for which there are sources in the western Italian Alps."

For contrast, this quote is from the 'Museum of Scotland' and describes one example of over 100 Jadeite axes found in the UK : "(jadeite axes) were made over 6,000 years ago, high in the Italian Alps".

As with issues of sea level, there seem to be differences of opinion. I report the differences even if they do not impact upon my unfolding hypothesis.

Transporting the raw stone was perhaps safer than transporting rough cut stone, which was in turn safer than transporting finished large, svelte Jadeite axes, where safety might be measured as the impact of a slip and fall; an accident crossing rivers, a night fire and contact with bandits and compulsive individuals.

The greater Quiberon bay area of Carnac and the Morbihan has sands liberated by time and sea - sharp from granite and refined metamorphics such as mica. Waters of every possible salinity were everywhere. The coastline was concertinaed and greatly tidal - perfect for beachcomber foraging. Surface freshwater was appreciated by fowl and gibier, and new neolithic boat technology helped access deeper water fish.

The region has a history of specialist production with small oil lamps known to have been produced on a specific island (knoll) with the production apt for visiting persons. These lamps are on display in the Vannes archeological museum and the exact reference will be added when my notes surface. Visiting to see and exchange for finest tools and widest selections?

If axes were polished into final form using the waters and sands of this food fertile zone, then the distribution of raw materials and finished goods might justify a series of identifiable and considerable late period 'transport dragons' (a hypothesis I have developed over recent years). Here whilst the climate and the predator base may no longer justify 'Transport Dragons' as a way for all clans to move their diverse members and habitat elements, cultural inertia would keeps vivid and divers 'Transport Dragons' alive. Gods, traders and saltambenques; vigilantes, eccentrics and worshipers all being possible sub cultures that maintained a tradition that now took the time and needed designated spaces to stop.

AJM 23.03.23

Tags:   Goat's island Gavrinis Passage grave passage timb megalith Neolithic Brittany Gulf of Morbhian

© All Rights Reserved

Understanding that earthwork mounds of collected rocks (cairns) or soil and rock mixes (barrows and tumuli) date back to the 'Tells' or 'Tepe' of the fertile crescent, and the pre pottery Neolithic/epipaleolithic hinterland before reaching out through time to carry past the first examples of western Europe (for example the above long barrow/Tumulus allongé) and then through the ages of protohistory and into the early Medieval period with, for example Anglo Saxon tumuli of the 7th century AD. Was there a faint continuity as memory walked in ever longer circles from 9,000 ybp east to 5,000 ybp west, or should we look with an optic of a 'parallel evolution' of approximative form between the initial Tells and an ignition of the local area passage graves and giant cairns along the European Atlantic coast?

There are myriad ways to date artificial mounds as they shifted their 'footprint', silhouette and armatures over region and time. For this extended case study I will employ the term Artificial Pedestal landmark, looking at what went in, and what went on.

Strong Dolmens, tunnel like Allée couverte (passage tombs), wooden boxes, cists, basin stones (for cremated ash) and urn fields can all be found inside earthwork mounds at one point of time or other, as can 'unchambered long barrows' or artificial mounds without internal detailing. Today, there are clear example of dolmens without covering tumuli and I used to be among those who argued that the tumuli was optional. Understanding the ease of decommissioning a pagan site by removing its pedestal has tipped me to think that tumuli were the finished state.

At first glance, the interior dolmenic forms might seem to atrophie with time, which is almost true, were it not for certain grandiose allee couverte, and regional differences including megalithic-boat forms armatures and late initiation megalitism.

"The earliest long barrows/Tumulus allongé date to around 6800 ybp (Barnenez). The early passage graves generally date to between 4000 and 3000 bc, followed by evolved passage graves between 3000-2500 bc. In the later part of the Neolithic, allées couvertes and simple dolmens became the predominant type of burial monument. Some passage graves are decorated with incised lines, of which Gavrinis is probably the best known example." (Wiki)

Regarding the above Er Grah tumuli, it seems that for around 500 years, from 6500 years ago, the loci of this great tumulus stuttered and grew with modesty untill a burst into the current form that can be known as a passage grave or long barrow or tumulus allongé. Whilst the final length is said to reach 140m metres, much of the length seems to be an extended platform so potentially an atypical addition to envelope and qualify gathered onlookers whilst decorating the landscape with visual meaning: onlookers gathered to participate in culture (from religion to festivity and from ceremony to remembrance) with the sumit of the tumuli being the pedastle for the visual and acoustic elements and the secure chamber being the watertight hold for rare items of carve, weave, colour and peoples past.

Once landed onto its frame, a 'Transport Dragon' lowers its carriers to a crouch.

Protected by Heritage law in 1935, the site was an overgrown carpark by the 1960s: 'Simca Arondes' parked over the tumuli with picnic crums and 'Pouss Pouss' sticks. The site had also been used as a source for stone so its silhouete may never be known as removing stones in a systematic might exagerate and formalise the modest steps that report today.

If these early long tumuli are to be hypothesised as pedastles then a long feature that might benefit from being lifted into prominance needs to be qualified and this will be covered in future posts.

The tumulus of Er Grah is from an unthreaded cluster of rare megalithic giants. The Tumulus d'Er Grah (pictured above) watches the adjacent Table de Marchand (linked below), a giant megalith and yet just 100 metres away: which in turn sits aside the almighty broken-blocks that remain from the super giant menhir of Er Grah. Looking one kilometer away in the opposite northern direction, and the Tumulus du Mané-Lud hides its equally rare corridor and rooms. Four kilometres east and the Island of Gavrinis lifts its charming ramped tumuli and hidden corridor of sheer and preserved petroglyphic treasure; and a jog to the Quiberon bay and the 'Les Pierres Plates' hides its extraordinary double corridor behind a polite menhir topped by gull. The element that links this diverse cluster of giant cairns is Neolithic petroglyphic rock art, and the artwork is both themed and very divergent between these sites.

Elsewhere in Europe there are the famouse Neolithic Irish carvings of Newgrange circa 5200 ybp, and the plethora of rock art, often known as 'cup and ring', and found in regions of Spain, England, Portugal, Italy, France... For this schematic work, the upper date range warms into the Iron age and the lower range is often quoted as late Neolithic to Bronze age. These erratic carved outcrops are so difficult to date that one might suspect that some examples dive deeper into the Neolithic and even surprise with dates closer to the Locmariaquer cluster (or the Brú na Bóinne cluster) - but confirmation of an early surprise is waiting and as yet there are no stones I know of from near to the the date range of this cluster.

Stepping back, megaliths can show occasional and at times elaborate cup and ring style ornament and even carvings of tools, elaborate statue menhirs or schematic painted surface, but as a rule, despite these exceptions, the stone surfaces of dolmens, menhirs, curb stones and row stones are either raw or finished and nothing more. To have a cluster of megaliths with a range of carved inscription in a single local area is not the norm - a further indication that the greater area; between styles of bay, vigorous stream and endless sea, was a special place.

It can also be registered that the other cluster of Western European rock art from the early Neolithic, that of Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth) was tidal in the Neolithic and the river Matock was vigorous enclosing the site with manifestations of the subject of water. The Irish sea was down river and the wider coastal mouth provided curb ornament of quartz and galle granite from a coastal length of around 130km.

AJM 11.03.23
19.03.23

Tags:   Bretagne Tumulus d'Er Grah ificial Pedestal Landmarks Er Vinglé

© All Rights Reserved

The axe heads are not represented attached to a haft and seem to be outlined as essential form rather than actual function. Grouping each axe head with a second mirror example creates a new icon once further removed from practical use. This Gavrinis axe cluster display, from between 7 and 6000 years ago, is set within the animation that ripples from within the parallel and unbounded lines.

AJM

Tags:   Gavrinis Neolithic Brittany Axe petroglyph Bretagne

© All Rights Reserved

"Oriented north-south, the monument is approximately 12 m long, the corridor 7 m long with a height at the entrance of 1.4 m ; the polygonal chamber has a height of 2.5 m ." Wiki

The Table des Marchand is a massive passage tomb with carved surface details that is situated around 2 hours walk east from the Neolithic stone rows of the Carnac megasite and 3km from the decorated corridor of the Gavrinis Neolithic cairn.

The Table des Marchand cairn's interior megalithic 'dolmen' is well known from ancient postcards. A massive slab 'floating' on three orthostats. It was covered with the above cairn around 1991.

Much of the cairn's drystone work is 'crossed' and there are no 'stacks of plates' - an effect in some Neolithic walls where flat stones are stacked as adjacent 'towers'. Patches of uncrossed stones can be seen into the iron age.

The vestiges of the cairn's curb-stone perimeter will have been analysed during excavations in 1883, 1937, 1985 and 1991, so the dimensions of the outer cairn will have been based on observation.

The infill stones that make the cairn's dome are 'sharp' as if quarried with modern machine rather than collected rounded granite softened by time and elements - so common in these shores. Today the cairn's top surface is uniformly accidented and not made for social use - a simple silhouette without possible function beyond that of covering the megalith: a uniform texture for form alone. Here, persons running to the top might sprain ankles or trip. A drizzle of immediately available beach gravel, selected vegetation and even powders or 'tere battue' sands would have issued the mound's summet a gravitas and sense of arresting loci: a meaningful and decided place just above those below.

Alas, the sands of time can take small stones away.

After my 2022 posts analysing the Neolithic earthworks known as Causewayed Enclosures (titled: 'Pedestal circles' for gathered late period 'Transport Dragons' 3700-3625 BC), I will continue to argue that the artificial pinacle was an important theme in the Neolithic, and that the cairn was another example of a structure that offered a pedestal for living iconographies. The subject of what went on each pedestal, and why, will be addressed in associated posts.

A secure chamber under a pinacle would be for storage for the clan network responsible for the construction. Food does not benefit from being on a domed pedestal or from being inside such heavily symbolic megaliths, and the storage would here be for culturally important items.

A pinacle with multiple storage (Barnenez, Petit Mont and to an extent Les Pierres Plates and West Kennet) would work for a pedestal earthwork that was dedicated to groups of clans. Pedastles made for winners of games from an array of clan groups, or for the worshiping general seasonal Gods, generalizable life moments and events would not benefit from the appropreation issues that megalithic storage 'tunnels' issued, and might therefore appear as an artificial hill alone to a horizon. Here Marlborough Mound (19m heigh) and Silbury Hill (30m heigh) are vivid examples aside many long-barrows of the category "unchambered" barrows". Further afield, Mastabas are later but show similar functional combinations, even if the locked storage is more focussed on the symbolic idea of individuals.

With my hypothesis of 'storage under pedestal', it might be said that in retrospect the act of concentrating on the megalith took the mind from the dynamic function of the spaces between and above.

Saying that the interior megalith was simply 'covered' was like saying that a pedastle for a statue is just a cover for a square on the floor.

A 'cairn' is today a waypoint, a marker: a stage is a 'pedastle' for the actors who climb into their theatre. The stage does not function as a 'waypoint' to tell the audience that they are in a theatre, the stage is there for specific and organised effect.

With this hypothesis of man-made combined storage and pinnacle, an authority from 'history' who was interested in the centralisation of rural areas might have quietly and easily removed the 'power' from the vestiges from deep history and tradition by taking down the pedastle and exposing the inevitable gaps and openings between the megaliths, thus with one gest flattening the gravitas of the loci and diminish the idea of permanent and even illusive secure storage. The landscape of largely skeletal megaliths may help explain why cairns and tumuli are amiss from many sites.

With modesty, I renamed the Neolithic earthworks known as 'Causwayed Enclosures' to 'Pinacle circles' to switch the emphasis from the 'Causeway' gaps to the circle of long pedastles, and for the wide range of Neolithic and at times bronze age tumuli, barrows, cairns and arificial hills, I will use the group term 'Artificial Pedastle landmarks' - an admittedly dull term, but one that leaves a place for 'natural pedastle landmarks'.

As the dead bodies of households were regularly (but not exclusively) burried under floors of Neolithic houses, with time, persons implicated in the articicial pedestal landmark might be burried/stored/remembered within the megalithic storage under the pedastle or within the earthwork. Obviously with time, the burrial theme might at times take over the deffinition of the storage tunnel.

The village of Carnac sits at the head of the protected Quiberon bay with its tidal dimensions breathing 10km average tangents. The Table des Marchand is found between many other megalithic giants aside the village of Locmariaquer towards the entrance to Carnac's bay. Locmariaquer is from a wizzoned head strong isimut between the breezy iodine of the Quiberon bay and the brackish corrugated currents of the bay of Morbian. In land from the coast, surface-water holds above the granitic landscape, giving the smallest streams winter significance, and this world was a wide vista dedicated to the rise and fall of water.

The Table des Marchand was constructed between 3900 and 3800 BC. The Carnac alignments (around 9km north west) are thought to date between 3300 BC and 4500 BC, so this great dolmen was perhaps made 500 years after the start and perhaps 700 years before the end of main alignment activity.

One detail remains central to the 'Table des Marchand' and it resolves around a massive 15m long megalith that had been carved with petroglyphs and then broke in three. More likely a recumbant entrance stone than the oft muted menhir. With an act that communicates Neolithic seafaring, Neolithic skills of coordination and Neolithic transportation prowess, portions of the once unified and carved many-multi-tonne megalith were distributed between three giant dolmens (Allée couverte). Two parts on the south west of the opening between the bay of Morbihan and the Quiberon Atlantic, with the last broken third covering the decorated corridor of the cairn on the island of Gavrinis (pictured in an adjacent post). Gavrinis is five kilometres away over water, detouring the Ile Longue.

"It is a part of a broken tabular block, of which another part was transported by sea over the Gavrinis cairn, about 5 kilometers away (the horns and backbone of the bovine are found on the covering slab), and another one, in the Er Grah burial mound, located a few meters from the Table des Marchands; the decorative motifs complement each other perfectly." Wiki

How did the massive carved stone break so that the carving of the Ox became distributed between three key sites? Impossible to say, but around 4700BC, aside Locmaraquier, was built a super massive standing stone: 330 tonnes and over 20m high. This fell with some force around 4000 BC or earlier: did it break an adjacent carved stone as it fell? Alternatively, was there a mood to move the carved stone which went wrong causing it to slide and crash and break? Once broken, did the participants each take a part to share responsibility and assure cohesion?

AJM 22.01.23.
AJM 10.03.23

Tags:   An Daol Varchant Morbhian Brittany le Groh dolmen tumulus Neolithic Er Groh vihan golfe du Morbihan Bretagne

© All Rights Reserved

As with Wiltshire in the UK, Kilmartin Glen in Scotland, and Almendres in Portugal, the small fishing village of Carnac in Brittany's sheltered Bay of Quiberon is a worldwide reference for when people and place gathered in an uncomfortably empty term - 'Prehistory': here active and present between 7000 and 6000 years ago.

There are a number of questions that are carried along the procession of greater Carnac and Morbihan sites like banners of demands:

What were the alignments for, and why were they put here in this specific geography - over 3000 standing stones in around a square kilometre.

Why so many giant cairns (long barrows), and what was their function in their history and culture? The local examples of Saint Michel (125m x 50 x 10m), Gavrinis (pictured in this section) 50m diameter and 7m high, and 'du Ruyk' (across the water from Gavrinis) and 100m x 60 x 15m. And on the second claw to the entrance into the Morbihan bay the 50m diameter Cairn Petit Mont.

Why are there so many long dolmens (allée couverte) and what was their relation to the giant cairns?

Why such similarity, and why the great variety between specific examples?

And, what were the pertroglyphs of Gavrinis representing and communicating? - pictured in this post.

Whilst this short section of posts looks at the smallest glimpse of the greater 'Carnac' area, I will try to answer the questions from the point of view of my research, so issues of 'Transport Dragons' and 'havans' will shock the new and nod the weary. Rushing to 'hold all' explanations that employ causal vague concept simplicities like 'religion', 'burial', 'shaman', and 'violence' will be avoided, even if the infuence of each word does have a measure. All of these markers split page after page of texts on prehistory and the reader is welcome to compare and contrast.

Whilst I have been lucky enough to spend time visiting sites in the UK and other regions of France, most of my research work circles me around the Pyrenees mountains, and most of my ideas come from these regular field trips. Many of my memories of Carnac are from repeat summer weeks as a child in Kerlescan pulling on school plimsoles and playing between the alignment stones with other children from adresses like 'here' and 'there'. These years certainly made me greatly relaxed around megaliths, even if todays dedicated research came from another source.

The reader will judge for themselves, and I hope that the beauty of the original and manicured Neolithic works will stand alone from my modest photography.

AJ

Tags:   Gavrinis petroglyph neolithic prehistoric Morbian golfe du Morbihan cairn couloir Takumar 35mm Pentax K3 Bretagne

© All Rights Reserved