Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and UsesFergusson, James
History
Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses
Fergusson, James
Megalithic monuments
Without at all wishing, at present at least, to insist upon it, I may
here state that the impression on my mind is every day growing stronger
that the dolmen-builders in France are the lineal descendants of the
Cave men whose remains have recently been detected in such quantities
on the banks of the Dordogne and other rivers in the south of
France.[387] These remains are found in quantities in the Ardèche[388]
and in Poitou.[389] If they have not been found in Brittany, it may be
that they have not been looked for, or that the soil is unfavourable
to their preservation; but they have been found in Picardy, though
possibly not exactly of the same class. It is, of course, dangerous to
found any argument on such local coincidence, as new discoveries may be
made in the east of France or elsewhere; but in the present state of
our knowledge the Cave men and the dolmens seem not only conterminous
but their frequency seems generally to be coincident.
As we know next to nothing of the languages spoken in the south-west
of France before the introduction of the Romance forms of speech,
philology will hardly assist us in our enquiry. There is, however, one
particle, _ac_, which I cannot help thinking may prove of importance,
when its origin is ascertained. In the table at the end of this
chapter, I have placed the number of the names of the cities having
this termination in each department[390] next to M. Bertrand's number
of dolmens. The coincidence is certainly remarkable, more especially as
it is easy to account for the comparative paucity of names with this
termination in Brittany by taking into account the enormous reflex wave
of Celtic population from England that overwhelmed that country in the
fourth and fifth centuries, and changed the nomenclature of half the
places in the district: still, Carnac and Tumiac, Missilac, and others,
as names of monuments, and Yffignac, as the name attached to the port
which I believe was the place of embarkation for England, with many
others that remain, are sufficient to attest that more previously may
have existed.
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