Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the western (Atlantic) part of Europe. Megalithic structures

Megalithic temples of Malta Malta is famous throughout the world for the fact that the most ancient man-made buildings on Earth are located here. These are megalithic temples. Before every visitor leaving the building of the international airport in Malta, there appears a rather

§ 35. Ceremonial centers and megalithic structures

§ 35. Ceremonial centers and megalithic structures Some megalithic complexes, such as, for example, at Karnak or Ashdown, in Berkshire (800 megaliths on an area of ​​​​250 and 500 m, the arrangement of which resembles a parallelogram), were undoubtedly important

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Indo-China- On the Indochina Peninsula, starting from the Paleolithic, there was a continuous intensive process of development of human society. Until the 2nd millennium BC. e. the peninsula was inhabited almost exclusively by tribes of wandering hunters and gatherers who did not know... ...

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Chalcolithic in Western Europe- The tribes of Southern and Central Europe differed little from the Tripolians in terms of their level of development. Many of these tribes are characterized by significant production of copper products. In the mountains of Central Europe, especially in the Rudnye, already in the 3rd millennium BC. uh... The World History. Encyclopedia

One of the features of the Neolithic is that the people of that time, living in adobe-wattle and wattle houses, dugouts or even caves, created giant monuments and mausoleums for the dead, colossal architectural structures.

Megaliths (from the Greek “megas” - large and “lithos” - stone, i.e. large stones), structures made of large blocks of roughly processed stone. These include dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs, stone boxes, and covered galleries. Megaliths are distributed throughout the world except Australia, mainly in coastal areas. The purpose of megaliths cannot always be determined. For the most part they served for burials or were associated with the funeral cult. The mechanism of their construction has not yet been studied; for primitive technology, their construction was a very difficult task and required the unification of large masses of people.

Huge stone buildings erected by primitive man are found in Syria, Palestine, North Africa, Spain, southern Scandinavia Denmark, on the coast of France and England, Iran, India, and Southeast Asia. We find them in the Caucasus, Crimea, and Siberia. Megaliths are diverse. Some of them are individual vertical stone pillars, long and narrow, sometimes roughly processed. These are menhirs. The largest menhir is located in Lochmarian in Brittany. It is truly enormous - about 21 m long, weighing close to 300 tons. Menhirs, as a rule, are associated with necropolises; they apparently played a large role in the cult of the dead.

Menhirs are found not only in the form of individual monuments, sometimes they are collected in groups. The most famous row of stones is at Carnac in Brittany. It stretches for 3900 m and consists of 2813 menhirs.

Some megaliths form circular stone fences, on top of which lie huge slabs (cromlechs). Another group of megaliths are burial houses made of stone slabs with a flat roof (dolmens). According to their purpose, dolmens were monumental tombs of the prehistoric era. They usually contain several burials.

Stonehenge, one of the largest megalithic structures, is located on a spacious plain in the outskirts of Salisbury, three kilometers west of Amesbury.

Stonehenge is so ancient that its history was forgotten already in ancient times. Neither Greek nor Roman authors write anything about him. Probably, the Romans were not impressed by these stones at all, because they saw the ancient Egyptian pyramids, and they themselves built majestic temples. Today it is no longer possible to establish who was the first biographer of Stonehenge. By the 12th century, all information about its origin had disappeared into myth.

Fig No. 1. Stonehenge

The meaning and purpose of Stonehenge remains a mystery to this day. Many hypotheses have been put forward on this score, from the most primitive to the completely incredible, to support which a variety of, often unimaginably abstruse, arguments were used.

Inigo Jones, an English architect of the 17th century, compared this structure with examples of ancient architecture and argued that it was a Roman temple. And these days, the idea has been expressed more than once that aliens had a hand in these stones, who once created a landing pad here for their earthly expeditions.

English scientists Hawkens and White proved that Stonehenge can be used as an astronomical observatory, which makes it possible to determine with amazing accuracy the azimuths of all the most important positions of the Sun and Moon and predict the dates of eclipses. The arrangement of stones made it possible in the distant past to predict the ebb and flow of tides, and the location of individual elements of the complex corresponded to the rising and setting points of the ten main stars 12 thousand years ago. Finally, all the proportions of Stonehenge fit into the ratio of the numbers 9, 11 and 60, two of which are already known from the phenomenon of Indian “flying” stones... What does the number 60 add? It turns out that it makes it possible to obtain two series of numbers that reflect the distribution of planets in the solar system! And, if you believe the complex, there should be more of them than is known to modern science: not 10, but 12. One is at a distance of 50 astronomical units from the Sun with a diameter of 1800 km, the second is about 60 with a diameter of 1700 km.

The original meaning and purpose of Stonehenge remains the subject of fierce debate to this day. There is something inexplicable and attractive about the whole atmosphere of Stonehenge. The likelihood of ever unraveling the mystery is negligible, but for those who are once and for all enchanted by the beauty of this historical monument and the amazing atmosphere of the surrounding landscape, this no longer matters.

Who built the megaliths? The ancient manuscript "Book of Conquests" mentions three waves of early newcomers - the Fomorians, the sons of Portolan and the Nemedians. The first were “gloomy sea giants”, and they also built towers. Maybe they are? The Fomorians acquired their building skills in Africa. Two other peoples came from Europe and brought with them the art of politics." After them, the "fir bolg" people appeared - hardworking, skilled farmers. "Fir bolg" translates as "leather bags" - they sailed to Ireland on them. also the Tuatha de Danani, the Milesians, the Dravidians from India... This is all that could be extracted from the ancient legends that survived despite the attempts of the Romans to impose their ideas about the past on the local tribes.

In the past of Stonehenge, several stages of construction are clearly distinguishable, some separated from each other by a distance of more than one millennium. At the earliest stage, which dates back to about 3100 BC, a ditch and an internal rampart arose in the shape of a circle with a diameter of 97.5 m. Outside this circle was the so-called Heel Stone.

“Friar's Heelstone” - “the heel of a running monk”, and inside there are holes located in a circle at an equal distance from each other with traces of corpse burning. Later, in the space inside the ditch, the so-called blue stones (hewn blocks of greenish dolerite) were installed in two concentric circles -blue tint). But then they were rearranged again, and around 1800 BC Stonehenge acquired the appearance familiar to us today: a majestic stone ring arose, formed by huge hewn blocks of gray sandstone up to 8.5 m high, covered with slabs on top made of stone. Inside this ring there was another horseshoe-shaped structure, made up of larger blocks, grouped in pairs and covered with a third - the so-called trilithons. It seems that the blue stones during the existence of Stonehenge were more than once rearranged by different generations of builders from place to place. Now some of them form, as it were, a small independent horseshoe inside a large horseshoe of gray sandstone blocks, while others are located in a circle inside a large stone ring.

A legitimate question arises: how did our prehistoric ancestors manage to drag heavy boulders over such a huge distance, and, in fact, why? There are a great many answers. Or rather, not even answers, but rather assumptions.

According to an ancient Celtic legend, Stonehenge was created by the wizard Merlin. It was he, the great magician, who personally transported bulky blocks of stone from Ireland and the extreme south of England to the town of Stonehenge, north of the town of Salisbury, in the county of Wiltshire, and erected there a sanctuary that has survived centuries - the most famous in the British Isles, and throughout the world , megalith.

Stonehenge, let us remind you, is a double circular fence made of large stones installed vertically. Archaeologists call this fence a cromlech. And it was built, in their opinion, between the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC - in five long stages.

Back in 1136, the English chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth testified that “these stones were brought from afar.” You and I, relying on the data of modern geology, can completely agree with him on one thing: part of the blocks for the construction of the megalith were indeed somehow delivered from the west, but not from the quarries closest to Stonehenge. In addition, 80 tons of menhirs, or processed stone blocks, which were then installed in a vertical position, were brought from the southern regions of Wales, located in the western part of England (in particular, from Pembrokeshire). And this was already at the second stage of construction, that is, in the second half of the 3rd millennium. From the Prezelian quarries, in southwest Wales, the so-called blue stones were transported to Stonehenge by water - at least, this is what the famous English archaeologist, Professor Richard Atkinson suggests. And more precisely - along the sea and rivers into the interior of the country. And finally - the final section of the route, which several centuries later, in 1265, received a name that has survived to this day, albeit with a slightly different meaning: “avenue”. And here it’s really time to admire the strength and long-suffering of the ancients.

The skill of the stonemasons is no less admirable. After all, most of the roofing slabs of the famous dolmen, as megalithic structures such as Stonehenge are also called, weigh several tons, and the weight of many supports is about several centners. But it was still necessary to find suitable blocks, transport them to the site of future construction and install them in a strictly defined order. In short, the construction of Stonehenge, in modern terms, was tantamount to a feat of labor.

During the construction of Stonehenge, two types of stones were used: strong boulders - the so-called aeolian pillars - from Avebury sandstone, from which trilithes were made - the same dolmens, or vertical stone blocks with transverse stone slabs on top, forming the outer circle of the entire structure; and softer dolerites that are part of ore and coal beds. Dolerite is a basalt-like igneous rock with a bluish-gray hue. Hence its other name - blue stone. Two-meter-high dolerites form the inner circle of the megalithic structure. Although the blue stones of Stonehenge are not very high, archaeologists believe that they contain the secret meaning of the entire structure.

The first thing that archaeologists unanimously agreed on was the geological origin of dolerites: their homeland is the Preselian Mountains. But as to why the ancient ancestors of the Celts needed to move dolerite boulders, scientists have differing opinions. The main controversy was caused by this question: did people from the New Stone Age actually drag the blocks with their own hands to the site of the megalith construction, or did the stones mix on their own - as the glaciers shifted in the Quaternary period, that is, long before the appearance of man? The controversy was only recently put to an end. At an international conference, glaciologists announced the results of their many years of research, which boiled down to the fact that there had never been any major glacial movements in the Stonehenge area.

So archaeologists could already conduct excavations in full confidence that the movement of megalithic blocks was a consequence of enormous human activity. But many other questions related to “how” and “why” have not yet been answered.

From the Prezelian Mountains to Stonehenge in a straight line - two hundred and twenty kilometers. But, as you know, the direct path is not always the shortest. So in our case: taking into account the exorbitant weight of the “cargo,” we had to choose not the shortest, but the most convenient path.

In addition, it was necessary to build appropriate vehicles. It is known that in the new Stone Age people knew how to hollow out canoes from tree trunks; they were the main means of transport. Indeed, recently archaeologists discovered the remains of an ancient trimaran, which consisted of three seven-meter-long dugout canoes, fastened with crossbars. Such a trimaran could easily be controlled by six people using poles. As for the four-ton stone blocks, the same six oarsmen were able to load them onto the trimaran using levers. The sea route along the gentle coast of Wales was the most convenient, and there were plenty of secluded bays in case of bad weather.

However, part of the journey had to be covered overland. And here hundreds of pairs of hands were required. The first step was to transfer the “load” onto a sled and pull it along tree trunks cleared of branches, laid across the path, like rollers. Each block was dragged by at least two dozen people.

And one more important detail: in order to avoid autumn and spring storms, the stones were transported from the beginning of May to the end of August. This required not only a huge number of workers, but also skill, since the only tools in those distant times were wooden poles, stone axes and levers, not counting wooden rollers and canoes. In addition, belts - leather, linen or hemp - served as an indispensable aid. The wheel was not yet known. People also have not yet learned to tame horses. This means that there were no carts - they appeared much later, in the Bronze Age. Meanwhile, people of the New Stone Age already widely used bulls as draft power. And the people themselves were united into a well-organized community.

The people who went to mine stone were certainly guided by some great impulse: the stone miners knew that if they returned not empty-handed, then honor and glory awaited them, since they too were making their contribution to the construction of the sanctuary. And this, in turn, meant that they were fulfilling a sacred mission. For young men, for example, such a trip was a kind of test preceding their initiation into men.

It is not difficult to guess that the path of the stone miners was long and difficult. And it was no coincidence that some of them died along the way. The waterway was especially dangerous - mainly due to storms, headwinds and currents. Moreover, the canoes moved forward very slowly: after all, they were controlled, as we remember, with the help of poles or primitive rows. However, the land route also required enormous effort. This is understandable: moving multi-ton blocks of stone on land is much more difficult than on water.

In the fall, the blue stones were finally delivered along the river to a place located three kilometers from Stonehenge, and the stone miners returned home. And the “cargo” remained on the shore until the next summer: the stones were installed invariably on the day of the summer solstice. It was then, in fact, that the long “sacred path” ended.

On the day of the ceremony, before sunrise, the last stage was completed: a solemn procession headed towards Stonehenge along a special threshold - the “Avenue”. This road, fourteen meters wide, was bordered on both sides by ditches and embankments. It stretched upward in an arc, making it easier to climb the sacred hill, and led strictly to the east - to where the sun rises.

Some stones at Stonehenge form straight rows pointing towards the rising and setting of the sun and moon. This was probably of vital importance for the ancients: they had to know exactly the days when they should worship the spirits of their departed ancestors.

As we already know, dolerites transported to Stonehenge were used in the construction of the first fence - it was erected around 2500 BC. By that time, Stonehenge was already considered an ancient monument. Five centuries earlier, the sanctuary was surrounded by a moat, fencing it on the outside with an earthen rampart about a hundred meters wide.

During the third phase of construction - around 2000 BC. - Huge trilithons were installed at Stonehenge. At the same time, 30-ton aeolian pillars were delivered to the construction site - they had to be dragged thirty kilometers from Stonehenge.

The most ambitious stage of construction began with the delivery of blue menhirs. By that time, the dolerite belt, never completed, had been destroyed, probably to make way for a much more magnificent structure, the construction of which required much more effort.

So, in just four hundred years, the blue stones disappeared completely. However, around 2000 BC. they ended up in the same place. And today it is precisely by these that we can judge what Stonehenge was like in its original form.

However, not all archaeologists believe that dolerites, as a building material, disappeared for four hundred years. Their traces were found in other monumental structures of the time: for example, on Mount Silbury, the highest artificial hill of the New Stone Age, rising 40 kilometers north of Stonehenge. At its top, a fragment of dolerite was discovered, which, apparently, was once part of a cromlech.

Although we do not have complete knowledge of that distant era, we nevertheless have every reason to assume that the cromlechs are, among other things, cultural monuments of the Left Stone Age, when man had just begun to engage in productive activities. It was during that period that man had his first experience in agriculture and animal husbandry. At the same time, people began to get used to a sedentary lifestyle and build settlements.

So, whatever the true reasons that prompted the Stone Age people to build the Stonehenge cromlech, in our minds it will forever remain the most remarkable megalithic monument.

The design principles by which Stonehenge was created cannot be called either primitive or random, for the arrangement of the stones clearly reveals an understanding of the laws of perspective. From any angle, in any lighting, these stone pillars stand out clearly against the sky. In this regard, the idea has been repeatedly expressed that the builders of Stonehenge had extraordinary knowledge of mathematics

Nowadays, Stonehenge turns into an object of mass pilgrimage for tourists at the time of the summer solstice, since the main axis of the entire structure points to the northeast, exactly where the sun rises on the longest days, and this fact seems to strengthen speculation about the mystical significance of the monument.

The term is not exhaustive, so a rather vague group of buildings falls under the definition of megaliths and megalithic structures. In particular, large-sized hewn stones, including those not used for the construction of burials and monuments, are called megaliths.

A separate group is represented by megalithic structures, that is, objects largely consisting of megaliths. They are distributed all over the world. In Europe, for example, this is Stonehenge, structures Cretan-Mycenaean culture or Egypt. In South America - Machu Picchu, Puma Punku, Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Sacsayhuaman, Tiwanaku.

Their common characteristic feature is stone blocks weighing sometimes more than a hundred tons, often delivered from quarries located tens of kilometers away, sometimes with a large difference in height relative to the construction site. In this case, the stones are processed in such a way that it cannot enter the joint between the blocks. razor blade .

As a rule, megalithic structures did not serve as housing, and from the period of construction to the present day no records have survived about the technologies and purpose of construction. The lack of reliable written sources and the fact that all these structures have suffered significantly under the influence of time make the task of exhaustive research almost impossible, which, in turn, leaves a vast field for various guesses.

The purpose of megaliths cannot always be determined. For the most part, according to some scientists, they served for burials or were associated with the funeral cult. There are other opinions. Apparently, megaliths are communal buildings (the function is socializing). Their construction represented a most difficult task for primitive technology and required the unification of large masses of people.

Some megalithic structures, such as complex of more than 3000 stones in French Brittany), were important ceremonial centers associated with the cult of the dead. Other megalith complexes have been used to determine the timing of astronomical events such as solstices and equinoxes.

Megalithic structures are subject to a specific architectural design. Based on their appearance, researchers divide them into three groups: menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs. These words themselves came to us from ancient Breton language. It was the language of the people of Brittany, a peninsula in Northwestern France.

MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS IN BRITTANY

Brittany is, of course, a country of megaliths. It was from the words of the Breton language, at the end of the 17th century, that the names of the main types of megalithic buildings were compiled (dolmen: daol - table, men - stone; menhir: men - stone, hir - long; cromlech: cromm - rounded, lec'h - place). In Brittany, the era of megalithic construction began around 5000 BC. and ended around 2500 BC. The builders of the megaliths were not the autochthonous population of Armorica. They came from the shores of the Mediterranean, gradually moving northwest from the southern and western shores of the Iberian Peninsula, densely populating first the coast of Morbihan, between the rivers Vilaine and Ethel, and then other lands of what is now Brittany, rising deep into the peninsula along the rivers and moving along the coast...

DOLMENS

Dolmens are usually “boxes” made up of stone slabs, sometimes joined by long or short galleries. They were collective burial chambers, as evidenced by bone remains and votive treasures (ceramics, jewelry, polished stone axes). Dolmens could be either free-standing structures or part of more complex structures. Let's look at some of them.

Cairn

A cairn is an ensemble of galleries and chambers covered with earth on top, that is, in this case, dolmens formed their skeleton. Relatively many cairns have survived in Brittany, but I would like to dwell on two of them, which are masterpieces of megalithic architecture of the West.

Built around 4,700 BC, this prehistoric necropolis could have been destroyed in our time: it was deliberately turned into a stone quarry for the construction of a tourist road in l955 and only the intervention of one of the most famous Breton archaeologists, Professor Pierre-Roland Giot ) stopped this technocratic barbarism.
To be precise, the monument at Barnenez is a structure of two cairns. It has a total of 72 meters in length and from 20 to 25 meters in width and includes eleven dolmens (in this case representing separate chambers) from each of which a gallery stretches from 7 to 12 meters in length towards the exit. The first cairn (A) was built around 4,350 BC, and the second (B) around 4,100 BC.

The necropolis at Barnenez is one of the most ancient architectural structures on Earth. Older than Stonehenge, New Grange, Egyptian pyramids...

Karin on the island of Gavrinis

This monument of megalithic art, built around 4,000 BC, is remarkable for its interior design. The cairn itself is not complicated: a thirteen-meter corridor leads to the burial chamber. However, its walls are painted with amazing drawings, more abstract than concrete, carved on stone. Among the elements of the fancy ornament there are spiral, cross-shaped and other elements.

Covered alley

There is a type of dolmens called covered alleys. A covered alley is a series of dolmens that make up a gallery, which can end in a chamber not exceeding the width of the gallery, or at a blind end. It looks like this:

Dolmen with gallery

In contrast to a covered alley, a dolmen with a gallery, such as the famous Table de Marchands at Lokmarieker (pictured), is a round or square burial chamber, to which a long corridor leads, which is, so to speak, a passage from the world of the living to the world of the dead (and back probably :)). The plan of this type of dolmen can be supplemented by side rooms (the dolmen at Keriaval, near Pluarnel).

So, nothing is as different from a dolmen as another dolmen. Moreover, not all types of such structures are described here. There are also knee dolmens, transept dolmens (cruciform) and some others. Frankly speaking, some names had to be invented in the process of working on the article, since they simply do not exist in Russian, and literal translations from other languages ​​usually do not reflect the essence of the objects described here.

As we already know, dolmens are both crypts and funerary monuments, as evidenced by the bones and votive warehouses (jewelry, polished axes, ceramics, etc.) found there. We are talking about traces of burials, mostly collective, small or colossal, initially covered with stones (cairns) or earth (mounds), and undoubtedly equipped with additional wooden structures. Breton variations of dolmens are very numerous, and their architecture has changed over time. The most ancient ones were large in size, but the burial chambers in them were reduced; this suggests that they were intended for some of the most important figures of the tribe. Over time, the volume of dolmens decreased, while the size of the burial chambers increased, and they became real collective graves. In the town of Chaussée-Tirancourt, in the Paris Basin, during the study of a similar burial, archaeologists discovered about 250 skeletons. Unfortunately, in Brittany, the acidity of the soil often leads to the destruction of bones. In the Bronze Age, burials again became individual. Later, during Roman rule, some dolmens were adapted to satisfy the religious needs of the conquerors, as evidenced by the numerous terracotta figurines of Roman deities found in them.

How were dolmens built? If you compare the heaviness and bulkiness of these stone structures with the technical arsenal of their creators, then you can only take off your hat to their tenacity and resourcefulness. It was something like this...

Step 1	Step 2
Step 3	Step 4
Step 5	Step 6

Bottom line

Thus, we already know something about one of the types of megalithic architecture. It's time to move on to the next, no less interesting.

MENHIRS

A menhir is a stone pillar dug vertically into the ground. Their height varies from 0.80 meters to 20. Free-standing menhirs are usually the tallest. The “record holder” was Men-er-Hroech (Fairy Stone), from Lokmariaker (Morbihan), which was destroyed around 1727. Its largest fragment was 12 m, and in its entirety it reached 20 m in height, with an approximate weight of 350 tons. Currently, all the largest menhirs in France are located in Brittany:

- menhir in Kerloas (Finistère) - 12 m.

- menhir in Kaelonan (Cote-d'Armor) - 11.20 m.

- menhir in Pergal (Côtes d'Armor) - 10.30 m.

There are also menhirs lined up (let's call them rows of stones), sometimes in several parallel rows. The most grandiose ensemble of this kind is located in Karnak, and has about 3,000 (!) menhirs

Carnac (Morbihan department)

CARNAC is, of course, the most famous megalithic ensemble in Brittany and one of only two (along with Stonehenge) in the world. Brittany, and even France, would not be surprised by menhirs, but Carnac amazes the imagination with the unimaginable concentration of these monuments in a relatively small area. Initially, there were about 10,000 (!) monuments of various sizes in the Karnak complex. In our time, there are approximately 3,000 of them left. This complex of megaliths (mainly cromlechs and menhirs) from the late Neolithic - early Bronze Age (late third - second millennium BC) includes 3 megalithic systems:

Menek is the western part of the Karnak complex. It includes 1,099 menhirs in eleven lines, approximately 1,200 meters long.

Kermario - about 1,000 menhirs in ten lines 1 km long. In the southwestern part, the ensemble is complemented by a dolmen.

Kerleskan - 555 menhirs in thirteen lines, the length of which is 280 meters. In the west these lines are preceded by a cromlech of 39 stones. The highest height of the largest menhir in Kerleskan is 6.5 meters.

By 5000 BC, sites located on the island of Hoedic in Morbihan show the existence of small human groups living mainly by hunting, fishing and collecting shellfish. These human groups buried their dead, in some cases using a special ritual. The deceased was supplied for the journey not only with items made of stone and bone, and jewelry made from shells, but was also crowned with something like a “crown” made of deer antlers. During this era, called the Mesolithic, sea levels were approximately 20 meters lower than today. Starting around 4,500 BC, the first megaliths appear in Carnac (which was also observed in other areas of what is now Brittany by that time).

Let's try to reconstruct the method of erecting menhirs:

	Step 1
	Step 2
	Step 3
	Step 4

The purpose of menhirs, which are not funerary monuments, remains a mystery. Due to the lack of instructions for use left by the builders for future generations, archaeologists are carefully juggling several hypotheses. These hypotheses, which are not mutually exclusive, vary from case to case and depend on a variety of factors: whether the menhirs are isolated or not; rows of stones are composed of one row or several, more or less parallel; menhirs oriented in a readable way, etc. Some could mark territory, indicate graves, or refer to the cult of waters.

But the hypothesis most often expressed relates to several large rows of stones oriented between east and west. There is an assumption that these are attributes of the solar-lunar cult, coupled with agricultural methods and astronomical observations, and large crowds of people gathered near them, for example, during the winter and summer solstices. “The direction of certain blocks according to privileged directions is amenable to analysis,” emphasizes Michel Le Goffi, a Breton archaeologist, and when cases are repeated, sometimes according to a clearly traceable system, one can rightfully think that this is not accidental. This is almost certain in many cases, as at Saint-Just and Carnac. But doubts will always exist due to the lack of direct evidence. Archaeological finds among the rows of stones are indeed very vague, some pottery and processed flints have been found, but the remains of ritual fires, dating from the same time as the construction of the megaliths, suggest that they were located outside the habitation zone.

CROMLECHI

An example of a cromlech is such a well-known building as Stonehenge.

Cromlechs are called ensembles of menhirs standing, most often, in a circle or semicircle and connected by stone slabs lying on top, however, there are menhirs collected in a rectangle (as in Crucuno, Morbihan). On the small island of Er Lannic, in the Gulf of Morbihan, there is a “double cromlech” (in the shape of two touching circles).
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Comparative table of the number of megalithic structures in France and Brittany.