The Transepted Gallery Graves of Western France

G. E. Daniel

doi:10.1017/S0079497X00020727

The Transepted Gallery Graves of Western France

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2014

G. E. Daniel

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G. E. Daniel: Affiliation:
Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge

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In a recent number of these Proceedings, the present writer defined a type of megalithic burial chamber which was there called the transepted gallery grave, and discussed the distribution of this type in southern Britain. The transepted gallery grave (sometimes called the cruciform gallery grave, or the cruciform allée couverte) consists, as was pointed out, of a central gallery grave or allée couverte with one or two pairs of small rectangular side-chambers: in plan this type of monument resembles either a Latin or a Lorraine cross. Sometimes the gallery extends beyond the last pair of side-chambers, at others it stops flush with them. It will be remembered that we listed eight tombs of this type in England and Wales: Pare le Breos Cwm and Penmaen Burrows in Glamorgan, Nempnett Thrubwell and Stoney Littleton in Somerset, Wayland's Smithy in Berkshire, and three Gloucestershire sites—Uley, Nympsfield, and Notgrove. From the distribution of these chambers it was suggested that some of them formed the primary settlement on the shores of the Bristol Channel of a culture which subsequently spread over south-east Wales, the south-west Midlands, Wiltshire and Somerset, and which we called the Severn-Cotswold culture.

It was, moreover, suggested that the origin of the transepted gallery grave in Britain, and therefore of the Cotswold-Severn culture, must be sought for outside the British Isles, and we agreed with Fleure, Forde, and Le Rouzic in deriving these early settlers on the shores of the Bristol Channel from Brittany. In 1936, when the article was written, I knew of only about half-a-dozen transepted gallery graves in France: but in the following year I discovered among the Lukis MSS. at St. Peter Port a number of plans of other transepted gallery graves in western France.

Type: Research Article
Information: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , July 1939 , pp. 143 - 165

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00020727 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1939

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^{page 143 note 1} ‘The Chambered Barrow in Parc le Breos Cwm, S. Wales,’ Proc. Preh. Soc., 1937, 71 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 143 note 2} Not to be confused with the cruciform passage grave such as New Grange, Lochcrew H and T, or Carrow-keel K. The transepted gallery grave is called a ‘multi-chambered passage tomb’ by Forde, and a ‘dolmen à galerie et à chambres laterales’ by Le Rouzic.

^{page 143 note 3} I know of only two sites with more than two pairs of side-chambers: Stoney Littleton has three pairs and Nempnett Thrubwell had at least three pairs and probably one or two more.

^{page 143 note 4} Of these eight sites, seven were placed terminally in ovate long barrows, and the eighth—Penmaen Burrows —was probably originally similarly situated. Recently Mr W. F. Grimes has discovered at Ty Isaf in Brecknockshire a curious chamber of this type placed laterally in a long barrow. For a detailed account see pp. 119 ff. of the present Proceedings.

^{page 143 note 5} Since my 1937 paper was written, Mrs E. M. Clifford has excavated the Nympsfield site. Her results are published in these Proceedings (1938, 188 ff.)Google Scholar, and are of great interest (vide p. 163 infra.).

^{page 143 note 6} A grant from the Worts Fund in the University of Cambridge helped to defray the cost of this fieldwork, and I am grateful to the Managers of the Fund for this assistance.

^{page 144 note 1} Most of the sites mentioned in this survey were visited by me in the company of Mr T. G. E. Powell whose assistance I gratefully acknowledge. My thanks are due to M. Zacharie le Rouzic, Dr Marcel Baudouin, M. Louis Balsan, Miss V. C. Collum, Professor C. Daryll Forde, and Mr C. F. C. Hawkes for their assistance in the preparation of this paper. I am especially indebted to M. le Rouzic for allowing me to publish here the plans of the Morbihan transepted gallery graves, and to Miss Collum for permitting me to make use of her Corpus of Megalithic Monuments in the Southern Morbihan prior to its publication.

^{page 145 note 1} The Morbihan sites are all carefully marked by Le Rouzic on the map in his little guide, Les Monuments Mégalithiques de Carnac et de Locmariaquer.

^{page 145 note 2} Vide p. 155 infra.

^{page 146 note 1} It is suggested that these signs might be generally adopted for plans of megaliths.—The Editor.

^{paeg 146 note 2} B. IX, 4, in the Corpus.

^{page 146 note 3} BSPM, 1899, 10.

^{page 146 note 4} Information from Le Rouzic and Miss Collum.

^{page 146 note 5} The site is B VI, 10 in the Corpus. According to Miss Collum, the site was excavated in 1877 by Chape-lain-Duparc but the results are unknown.

^{page 147 note 1} CB, vol. I, plan VIII, p. 8.

^{paeg 147 note 2} MS. notes on the Lukis plan, CB, 1, p. 8.

^{page 147 note 3} British Museum Cat. of Lukis Collection nos. 291, 807–9, 421–27; and Accessions Cat., 1894, 10–13, nos. 10–16 (Home collection ex Lukis Collection).

^{page 147 note 4} In 1877—9 according to Miss Collum.

^{page 147 note 5} Information from Le Rouzic. The site is B VII, 21, in the Corpus.

^{page 147 note 6} CB, vol. I, p. S7, no. lxvi.

^{page 147 note 7} MS. notes to his plan.

^{page 149 note 1} Lukis accession catalogue no. 810.

^{page 149 note 2} According to Gaillard, , BSPM, 1883, 225Google Scholar.

^{page 149 note 3} Gaillard, Felix, ‘Les Deux Cistes du Mané Groh et de Bovelane a Erdeven,’ BSPM, 1883, 225–6Google Scholar. The site, which is B VII, 26 in the Corpus has been restored by the Beaux Arts.

^{page 149 note 4} BSPM, 1866, 93.

^{page 149 note 5} BSPM, 1866, plate 11, no. 3, opp. p. 94.

^{page 149 note 6} CB, II, p. 1, plan 10.

^{page 150 note 1} Lukis, W. C., Guide to the Chambered Barrows in the Morbihan (Ripon, 1875), 25Google Scholar.

^{page 150 note 2} B. M. Lukis Collection Cat. 491–508, and 1894 Accessions 10–13, no. 4 (quartz flake, Home collection ex Lukis collection).

^{page 150 note 3} BSPM, 1883, opp. p. 39.

^{page 150 note 4} Vannes Catalogue (BSPM, 1920), p. 17, nos. 183–188.

^{paeg 150 note 5} BSPM, 1883, p. 41.

^{page 150 note 6} The site is F XIX, 85 in the Corpus.

^{page 150 note 7} MS. notes on the Lukis-Dryden plan cited infra.

^{page 150 note 8} BSPM, 1866, 95.

^{page 150 note 9} MS. note on the Lukis-Dryden plan.

^{page 150 note 10} CB, II, p. 3, plan IV.

^{page 150 note 11} BSPM, 1883, 32.

^{page 150 note 12} Ibid., 33.

^{page 150 note 13} Ib.

^{page 150 note 14} Vannes Museum Catalogue, p. 20, nos. 229–44.

^{page 151 note 1} The Er Ro'h beads are of the same type as the Klud-er-Yer bead.

^{page 151 note 2} B.M. accession catalogue of the Lukis collection nos. 570–89. Er Ro'h, Keriaval is F XIX, 80 in the Corpus.

^{page 151 note 3} DALI, s.v. ‘Herbignac’

^{page 151 note 4} CB, n, p. 16, plan no. XIX.

^{page 151 note 5} I could find in 1938 no traces of the ‘unexplored cist’ which Lukis marked to the north-east of the chamber. De Lisle du Dreneuc has described his excavations in DALI, pp. 296–300; and in an article, ‘Fouilles des Dolmens du Grand-Carreau-Vert, St. Michel-Chef-Chef (Loire Inférieure),’ in Mat, 1886, pp. 277 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 151 note 7} The pottery is illustrated in Mat, 1886, p. 280, fig. 105, and p. 283, figs 106–9.

^{page 151 note 8} Forde (Amer. Antkrop., 1930, 83Google Scholar) would class this tomb with those of the Kervadel-Kervinion type in Finistère (see p. 157 infra).

^{page 152 note 1} Bulletin de la Societé Archéologique de Nantes et du Département de la Loire Inférieure, vol. 15, 1876, pp. 199–271Google Scholar.

^{page 153 note 1} For a general plan of the site see op. cit., plate I, or Baudouin, Marcel, La Préhistoire par les Étoiles, p. 57, fig. 28Google Scholar.

^{page 153 note 2} Vide de Lisle du Dreneuc, Notice sur les fouilles du Tumulus de la Motte Sainte, –Marie, , Bulletin archéologique, 1891, 38Google Scholar; idem, Catalogue du Musée archéologique de Nantes, 1903, p. 7. Déchelette, (Manuel d'Archeologie, I, 621)Google Scholar and Marsille (BSPM, 1932, 12) point out that this is the only find of callais in north-western France outside the classic area of the southern Morbihan.

^{page 153 note 3} Op. cit., p. 260.

^{page 153 note 4} DALI, 282. He adds, ‘ceci est tout soit peu conjectural.’

^{page 153 note 5} As, for instance, by du Dreneuc, , DALI, 244Google Scholar.

^{page 153 note 6} Op. cit. supra.

^{page 155 note 1} DALI, 247.

^{page 155 note 2} DALI, 247. The finds are in the Archaeological Museum at Nantes.

^{page 155 note 3} The plan is from a survey made by Mr T. G. E. Powell and myself in June, 1938. It differs in many respects from the published plan of Dr. Baudouin (see, for example, La Préhistoire par les Etoiles, p. 238).

^{page 155 note 4} Ann. de la Société d'Emulation de le Vendée, 1884.

^{page 155 note 5} See Baudouin's papers: Description de 1'Allée couverte … de La Planche-à-Puare, 9th Congrès Préhistorique de France, Lons-le-Saunier, 1913, Comp. Ren., Paris, 1914, pp. 372–409Google Scholar; Le Mobilier Funéraire du Mégalithe vierge de la Planche-à-Puare, L'Assoc. française pour l'Avancement des Sciences, Havre, 1914, Comp. rendus; and a number of papers on the skeletal material viz., Bull, et Mém. Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris, 1914, pp. 98–123Google Scholar; Revue Anthrop., 1915, pp. 150–64Google Scholar; Presse Dentaire, 1914.

^{page 155 note 6} See p.161 infra, and the plan, fig. 8a.

^{page 155 note 7} See p. 145 supra: the site was destroyed in 1720, as mentioned above, and we have no evidence as to the original form of the chamber or chambers.

^{page 155 note 8} Noirmoutier is the large island off the coast of the Pays de Retz and to the north of the Île d'Yeu.

^{page 155 note 9} This is from Vol II of Lukis's notebooks in the Lukis and Island Museum, St. Peter Port, Guernsey: it is allegedly a reference quoted from Bull, archéol. de l'Assoc. Bretonne, vol. IV, p. 56Google Scholar, but this reference is incorrect.

^{page 155 note 10} See Baudouin, , ‘Découverte, fouille, et restoration d'un mégalithe sous tumulus: La Guette, Île d'Yeu,’ Comp. Rend. Congres Prehist. de France: Nimes, 1911, pp. 440–522Google Scholar.

^{page 156 note 1} On these Finistère tombs see, a number of articles in Mat.; du Chatellier, , Les Epoques Préhistoriques et Gauloises dans le Finistère, 1907Google Scholar; Forde, C. Daryll, ‘The Megalithic Monuments of Southern Finistère,’ Ant. J., 1927, 6 ff.Google Scholar; Pontois, Bénard le, Le Finistère Préhistorique, 1929, chapter IVGoogle Scholar.

^{page 156 note 2} See the plan here, fig. 8b. For a description of the tomb see du Chatellier in Mém. Soc. d'Emul. des Côtes du Nord, 1877 (extracted in Mat., 1878, 167 ff.). Forde also gives a plan, op. cit., fig. 1, no. 5.

^{page 157 note 1} They may possibly have been corbelled but this seems unlikely: the unroofed chamber (du Chatellier's ‘chambres à del ouvertes’) is very common in Finistère.

^{page 157 note 2} Forde (op. cit., 7) says that a similar monument exists at Souc'h (Plouhinec). In CB, 1, p. 3, no. iii, is a plan of a site ‘near St. Guénolé, south of La Torche de Penmarc'h,’ which looks like a transepted gallery grave: this plan is repeated in Journal Brit. Arch. Assoc., 1866, fig. 12, pl. 17. These are really plans of the large chamber in the large tumulus known as Rosmeur and du Chatellier's plan (which is reproduced by Forde, Ant. J., 1927, pl. II, no. 1, opp. p. 7) shows how unlike the Lukis plan the site really was. Little reliance can be placed on the Lukis plan: it is dated 21–8–1864, but in a note added, Lukis says that the barrow was ‘explored and thereby ruinated in 1862’.

^{page 157 note 3} Planned in Mat., 1881, pl. VII, fig. 1. See du Chatellier's article, ib., 265 ff.

^{page 157 note 4} See du Chatellier, op. cit., and the plan, ib., pl. VI, fig. 1.

^{page 157 note 5} Forde has published a plan of this site in Ant. J., 1927, p. 9Google Scholar, fig. 1, no. 5.

^{page 157 note 6} See du Chatellier's plan, Les Epoques, p. 280.

^{page 157 note 7} According to Forde, (Amer. Anth., 1930, 81)Google Scholar who cites Lanildut, Guiligny, described more fully by du Chatellier, op. cit., p. 148.

^{page 157 note 8} See BSPM, 1916, 5 ff.Google Scholar; ibid, 1924, 8–9. As we have mentioned above (p. 151) Forde would class St. Michel-Chef-Chef with the Kervadel-Kervinion monuments.

^{page 157 note 9} Assoc. française pour l'advance, des sciences: Congrès de Clermont Ferrand, 1908. Comptes-rendus.

^{page 158 note 1} Always remembering, of course, the extension into Finistère and the northern Morbihan of the developed tombs we have mentioned.

^{page 158 note 2} But they also describe Les Mousseaux as being circular, and as we have shown above, there is some reason to doubt this (see pp. 151–2 supra).

^{page 159 note 1} Mat, 1886, pp. 284–5.

^{page 159 note 2} Arch. Camb., 1924, 249Google Scholar. He is using the term gallery-dolmen here to mean what we have been calling a passage grave.

^{page 159 note 3} The Way of the Sea, chaps, VII and IX.

^{page 159 note 4} L'Anthropologie, XLIII (1933), 241–2Google Scholar.

^{page 159 note 5} Amer. Anthr., 1930, 73Google Scholar; Comptes rendus, Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Studies (London, 1932), 115.

^{page 159 note 6} Comptes rendus cit., 115.

^{page 160 note 1} Not always as for example Rondossec.

^{page 160 note 2} For example Mané Kerioned. Mané Lud opens on to the long side of a rectangular barrow and though it is the only chamber at present there were probably once two or three others.

^{page 160 note 3} Lukis (CB, 1, p. 14, no. XIII) plans Penhap on Île aux Moines as a passage grave placed at the end of a long barrow, but a visit to the site in July, 1938 showed that the plan is false: Penhap is situate in a normal round barrow.

^{page 160 note 4} See Piggott, 's article, ‘The Long Barrow in Brittany,’ Antiquity, 1937, 441 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 161 note 1} See Daniel, , ‘On Two Long Barrows near Rodez, in the South of France,’ Ant. J., 1939, 157Google Scholar.

^{page 161 note 2} The tombe dei giganti with semi-circular forecourts and large horns are probably developments in Sardinia from tombs of this type.

^{page 161 note 3} But, as Hemp points out (Archaeologia, 76, 151Google Scholar) these side-chambers open out of the entrance to the tomb and not from the tomb itself.

^{page 161 note 4} The numbers are those given by Hemp in his paper in Archaeologia, 76.

^{page 162 note 1} See Grenot, Relation d'une fouille pratiquée au Souc'h, Bulletin de la Société academique de Brest: extracted in Mat, 1873, 374 ff.

^{page 162 note 2} On Pen-ar-Menez, see Mat, 1878, pp. 172, 174, and 175.

^{page 162 note 3} Structures such as Run Aour (Plomeur) and Poulguen (Penmarc'h) sometimes claimed to be variants of the Finistère gallery graves, as at others to be derivatives or prototypes of the Scandinavian T-passage graves might be claimed to have a place in this devolutionary series, but it seems to me more likely that they are to be connected with the angled passage graves of the Morbihan such as Les Pierres Plates and Le Rocher, Plougoumelen. Poulguen has an engraving (figured by Forde, , Ant. J., 1927, 19, fig. 5Google Scholar) presumably derived from the Morbihan school of megalithic art where it is confined in the main to passage graves.

^{page 162 note 4} Beakers, of course, occur in the English tombs but they are associated with the English A, B and C Beaker series and not with the Iberian bell beakers.

^{page 163 note 1} Figured in Proc. Preh. Soc., 1938, 192, fig. 3, rightGoogle Scholar; and ib., pl. XLIV, bottom.

^{page 163 note 2} Proc. Preh. Soc., 1938, p. 203–4Google Scholar.

^{page 163 note 3} Ib., p. 211.

^{page 163 note 4} Perhaps mention should be made here also of two pots from Kercado and La Pointe, St-Philibert, both in the Morbihan, and both figured by Le Rouzic in L'Anthropologie, 1934, p. 494, fig. 7Google Scholar, nos. 5 and 8.

^{page 163 note 5} Mention should be made here of the fact that in his recent excavations of Ty Isaf in Brecknockshire, a chambered long barrow of the Cotswold-Severn culture, Mr Grimes found a number of flat stone discs which may be compared with a similar disc from Er Ro'h, Keriaval (now in the British Museum) already mentioned. Similar stone discs have been found in other megalithic tombs in Brittany (e.g., Kerandrèze; Mein guen; Penmen on Île de Groix), in the Moylisha and Ballynamona sites in Ireland, in Pant y Saer in Anglesey, and in the Clettraval tomb on N. Uist. There is a stone disc of the same type in the Nantes Museum from one of the Pornic sites we have described.

^{page 163 note 6} For example by Crawford, Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, and Grimes, , ‘Long Cairns of the Brecknock-shire, Black Mountains,’ Arch. Camb., 1936, 259 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 165 note 1} Apart from the Balearics, north-west France, and southern Britain, I know of only one other (?) transepted gallery grave, Villes-es-Nouaux or the Mont Cochon site in Jersey (v. Bull. Soc. Jersiase, IX, 1884, p. 432 ffGoogle Scholar, and Hawkes, J., Archaeology of Jersey, 259–69Google Scholar), and I doubt whether the tomb is really of this type.

^{page 165 note 2} I have made no attempt in this diagram or in the paper to discuss the chronology of these movements and developments. For this, see my paper on ‘The Relative Chronology of the English long barrows,’ shortly to be published.

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