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22. On Some Prehistoric Antiquities in the Departments of the Vienne and the Charente, France Author(s): A. L. Lewis Source: Man, Vol. 14 (1914), pp. 40-42 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2788949 Accessed: 27-06-2016 15:25 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Wiley, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Man This content downloaded from 134.117.10.200 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 15:25:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms No. 22.J MAN. [1914. Archaeology: France. Lewis. On Some Prehistoric Antiquities in the Departments of the qq Vienne and the Oharente, France. By A. L. Lewis, Offcier dAcademie. The following particulars were collected by me while a4ttending the meeting of the Congres Prehistorique de France, held at Angouleme in August 1912, at which I had the honour of representing the Royal Anthropological Institute by request of tlle Council. lThere is a fine dolmen very near to Poitiers ; it is called the "Pierre Levee." and tramears run from the Holtel de Ville past the prison, at the back of which the dolmen stands in a garden at the corner of two roads. The capstone is about 15 feet in extreme leigth and breadth, and a further lenigth of 4 feet, apparently broken off, lies on the ground at its north-east end. The bearings are nearly north- east and south-west; there are the remains of seven supporters, forming originally a chamber, 10 feet wide from north-west to south-east, and 7 feet or 8 feet frorn north-east to south-west. Of these supporters, two at the south-west end are from 5 feet to 6 feet high, but those at the north-east have fallen and let that end of the capstone down to the ground, so that without excavation it is not possible to say whether another chamber existed there or not. The capstone is nearly 3 feet thick, and on the top of it, near the north corner, are a rather remarkable boss and ridge. In the Foret de Boixe, near Vervant, there is a remarkable monument called le Gros Doignon. It consists of a tumulus witlh a large capstone supported by other stones. On getting down under this stone through a narrow opening, one side of the space beneath is found to consist of a wall with a large carefully-squared openinog through it communicating with another rectanigular chamber which is completely covered by the tumulus. Whether this is a later addition, and if so wlhen it was constructed I do not know; but when Richard wrote his France Monumentale sixty or seventy years ago its existenice was apparently unknown, and only the capstone was to be seenl. About 6 kiloinetres north from this monument there were formerly five dolmens, of which only two remain ; these are called the Great and Little Perrottes, and stand about 165 feet apart iu a line 25 degrees east of niorth. Trhe Great Perrotte, which is at the south, consists of a very regular and niearly rectangular chamber 101 feet internally from north-west to south-east, 9 feet from north-east to south- west, and 6 feet high. Three of the sides have three supporters each, and the fourth (south-west) has four; one on the north-east side has been forced inward, and the gap thus made forms the present entrance ; one next to it, at the north corner, has sculptured upon it the represerntations of two stone axes. The capstone is nearly 18 feet long by 131- feet wide, and from 6 feet to 8 feet thick. There are other stones, two of whieh are of great size, and also remains of a tumulus surrounding the chamber. The Little Perrotte is small only by comparison, the capstone being about 14 feet long by 81 feet wide and 4 feet thick. It has, however, remains of only five supporting stones, but there are what seem to be two smaller capstones covering an entrance passage, or it may be another chamber, on the south-east side. The longest axis of the dolmen itself is 25 degrees east of north and west of south. Several stones are scattered about near the two Perrottes, whiclh are no doubt remains of other monuments. The material was said to be coralline limestone with terebratula, &c., brought from Chateau-Renaud, 3 kilometres distant. Richlard (France Monumnentale) describes three other dolmens in this neighbour- hood, which I suppose were those mentioned to the Congress as having beer destroyed. These were at Luxe; one of them, four or five hundred metres south fromi the Perrottes, was very similar to the smaller Perrotte; another, two or three [ 40 ] This content downloaded from 134.117.10.200 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 15:25:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1914.J MAN. [No. 22. hundred metres faurther south, had a rather circular capstone about 12 feet in diameter and 3 feet thick, and was at the east end of a mound or " eminence," perhaps natural, 56 metres long from east to west, 16 to 18 metres wide, and 3 feet or 4 feet high. These two monuments were about in the same line as the two Perrottes; a third was a little to the east of that line, but was too much destroyed in Richard's time to be intelligibly described. Richard also mentions another dolmen, a menhir, and a number of detached stones, fragments of other monuments, as existing in his time in the same arrondissement (Ruffec), but these were not brought to the notice of the Congress, and may possibly have been destroyed. One kilometre north-east from Cognac, by the side of the road to St. Brice, are some remains called the dolmen de Sechebec after the neighbouring hamlet. I had only time to take a snapshot view of it without any attempt to measure it, but Richard (France Monumentale, p. 679) says that the capstone, originally in one piece, 5 metres long, 3 metres broad, and nearly 1 metre thick, was supported by other stones, but that, some of these having sunk down, the capstone broke in two pieces by its own weight, one piece remainin, horizontal and the other inclining to the north-east; he adds that this dolmen is so slightly raised above the ground that it cannot be regarded as a cell for people to retire into.* The programme of the Congress included a visit to the dolmen of St. Brice, 4 kilometres from Cognac, but want of time prevented it. Richard, however, describes this dolmen as consisting of two large flat stones of very irregular shape placed on five others, four of which support the larger capstone; this is 3 metres long and 3 metrea wide, the longest diagonal from corner to corner being 6 metres. The smaller capstone is nearly square and is little more than half the length and width of the other. The last dolmen visited by the Congress on this occasion was that of Segonzac, or St. Mesme, 13 kilometres south-east from Cognac. It was a chamber about 15 feet long and 4 feet or 5 feet wide inside, covered by two or three stones, or, perhaps, as Richard says, by one large one which has broken in halves. Only one piece inow remains, partly fallen into the chamber, but the other half or another stone would appear to have still been there in Richard's time. The axis of the chamber is 65 degrees west of North and east of South. The material is limestone. Richard describes another dolmen at St. Fort, 14 kilometres south from Cognac, as consisting of a capstone 71 metres and 64 metres in its respective diagonal measurements anid about half a metre thick, supported on three upright stones 12 metre high, there being also remains of others which completed the walls of the chamber. This dolmen was, however, at some distance outside the route of the Congress, and as the excursion started from Angouleme at 5.30 a.m. and did not get back till 7.30 p.m. it could not be extended to include all the objects of interest in the vicinity. The oldest church in Poitiers, the Baptistere St. Jean, has been converted into a museum for large stone objects. One of these is a double sarcophagus of the Merovingian period. There are also some lids of the same age, one of which has carved upon it a number of objects very like the axes which are occasionally found upon the stones of the dolmens as, for instance, at the Grande Perrotte already described. The Merovingian dynasty existed from 481 to 752 A.D., and I do not suggest that there was any direct connection between the people for whom these sarcophagi were made and those who carved representations of stone axes on the dolmens, but I think it not unlikely that this lid may have been made by a Gallic * A very full account of this dolmen and of some others near Cognac, with plans and views by M.

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