rtes_ are mostly of a
semi-subterranean type, i.e. they are cut in the ground and merely
roofed with slabs of stone. The most famous is that of the Grotte des
Fees near Arles (Fig. 12), in which a passage (_a_) with a staircase at
one end and two niches (_b b_) in its sides leads into a narrow
rectangular chamber (_c_). The total length is nearly 80 feet. Another
tomb of the same type, La Grotte du Castellet, contained over a hundred
skeletons, together with thirty-three flint arrow or spear-heads, one of
which was stuck fast in a human vertebra, a bell-shaped cup, axes of
polished stone, beads and pendants of various materials, 114 pieces of
_callais_, and a small plaque of gold.

On the plateau of Ger near the town of Dax are large numbers of mounds,
some of which contain cremated bodies in urns and others megalithic
tombs. Bertrand saw in this a cemetery of two different peoples living
side by side. But it has since been shown that the cremation mounds
belong to a much later period than those which contain megalithic
graves. In these last the skeletons were found seated around the walls
of the chamber accompanied by objects of flint and other stone, beads of
_callais_, and small gold ornaments.

[Illustration: FIG. 12. Plan and section of La Grotte des Fees, Arles,
France (_Materiaux pour l'histoire de l'homme_, 1873).]

[Illustration: FIG. 13. The so-called dolmen-deity, from the tombs of
the Petit Morin. (After de Baye.)]

France has also its rock-hewn tombs, for in the valley of the
Petit-Morin is a series of such graves. A trench leads down to the
entrance, which is closed by a slab. The chamber itself is completely
underground. In the shallower tombs were either two rows of bodies with
a passage between or separate layers parted by slabs or strata of sand.
In the deeper were seldom more than eight bodies, in the extended or
contracted position, with tools and weapons of flint, pots, and beads
of amber and of _callais_. On the walls were rough sculptures of human
figures (Fig. 13), to which we shall have to return later.

The Channel Islands possess megalithic monuments not unlike those of
Brittany. They are corridor-tombs covered with a mound and often
surrounded by a circle of stones. Within the chamber, which is usually
round, lies, under a layer of shells, a mass of mingled human and animal
bones. The bodies had been buried in the sitting position, and with them
lay objects