Gallery grave (allée couverte)
Allée couverte de la Couette à Ploufragan
DatedEst. 4500–3300 BCE
Photo Crepi22 · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The allée couverte de la Couette is a gallery grave at Ploufragan, in the department of Côtes-d'Armor, France. It opens to the south-east and measures 16 m in length. The catalogue gives it a typological date of between 4500 and 3300 BCE.
It has been a classified historical monument since 18 April 1914.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Allée couverte de la Couette à Ploufragan
It is bounded by twenty-eight orthostates and an end slab at the north-west, and is covered by thirteen capstones.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
The gallery measures 16 m in length, with an interior width of 1.20 m and a height of 1.10 m. It is bounded by twenty-eight orthostates and an end slab at the north-west, and is covered by thirteen capstones. All the slabs are of dolerite.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
Excavations in 1854 recovered a cinerary urn containing burnt bones, polished axes, beads of bone and of opaque stones, a fragment of a bronze spearhead and various flint tools including harpoons. The monument was reused in the Gallo-Roman period.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument has been classified as a historical monument since 18 April 1914. Prosper Mérimée visited the site in 1836.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Allée couverte de la CouetteCC BY-SA 4.0
A gallery grave is a megalithic tomb built mainly in the Neolithic in which the main gallery is entered directly, with no antechamber or passage in front. The French term is allée couverte, 'covered alley'. Such tombs may be covered with an earthen mound or a cairn.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Gallery graves (allées couvertes)
A gallery grave is a megalithic tomb built mainly in the Neolithic in which the main gallery is entered directly, with no antechamber or passage in front. The French term is allée couverte, "covered alley". There are at least four major types: complex, transepted, segmented and wedge-shaped, and they may be covered with an earthen mound or a cairn.
According to the archaeologist T. Douglas Price, the gallery grave was a form of community burial site. Those placed in it were most likely members of the same family or hamlet, and the burial probably served to reinforce community. Gallery graves are found at sites in the Loire valley of France, in south-west Great Britain and in Ireland, and it is thought that the builders had cultural links with one another.
In Germany the Wartberg culture of northern Hesse, southern Lower Saxony and western Thuringia, which lasted from about 3600 to 2800 BCE, built stone gallery graves. In Britain and Ireland the same idea appears in the Irish wedge tombs and the Severn-Cotswold tombs of Wales and south-west England.
Along with the dolmen and passage grave, the gallery grave is the most common megalithic tomb in western Europe. Most were built in the Neolithic, but some date to the Middle and Late Bronze Age. Dating is difficult, since a tomb built in the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age may have been reopened and used for burials until the Late Bronze Age.
When visiting, look for the long rectangular chamber and its capstones.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Gallery grave, Wikipedia: Allée couverte, Wikipedia: Wartberg culture · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1854
Les fouilles de 1854 ont permis d'y recueillir «une urne cinéraire contenant des ossements brûlés, des haches polies, des perles en os et en pierres opaques, un fragment de lance en bronze et divers outils en silex dont des harpons».
Source - 1914
Le monument fait l’objet d’un classement au titre des monuments historiques depuis le 18 avril 1914. Prosper Mérimée visita le site en 1836.
Source - 2005
Loïc Langouët, Les mégalithes de l'arrondissement de Saint-Brieuc, Institut Culturel de Bretagne, 2005, 89 p.
Source
Photographs
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
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Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 4500–3300 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for gallery graves in France; this site has not been dated itself. The gallery graves (allees couvertes) of north-west France belong to the tradition of the Carnac stones which date from 4500-3300 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
France
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 48°28′38″ N, 2°47′22″ WFor a GPS or map app: 48.47718, -2.78938
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Allée couverte du Grand Argantel4500–3300 BCE
lit de Margot2800–1800 BCE
Menhir Le Sabot2800–1800 BCE
Allée couverte du Grimolet4500–3300 BCE
Allée couverte du Petit-Chêne4000–3000 BCE
La Roche Camio gallery grave4500–3300 BCE
Menhir de la Roche-Longue à Saint-Julien2800–1800 BCE
Fuseau de Margot à Plédran2800–1800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2838883wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Allée couverte du Grand Argantel<0.1 km N
- lit de Margot0.1 km NW
- Menhir Le Sabot0.6 km NW
- Allée couverte du Grimolet1.2 km N
- Allée couverte du Petit-Chêne3.5 km E
- La Roche Camio gallery grave3.9 km E
- Menhir de la Roche-Longue à Saint-Julien4.4 km SW
- Fuseau de Margot à Plédran6.2 km SE
- Menhir dit le Fuseau7.0 km SW
- Menhir du Petit Vauridel8.7 km S
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Allée couverte de la Couette" (French), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors