Gallery grave (allée couverte)
allée couverte du Grand Village
Also known asallee couverte du Grand Village
DatedEst. 4500–3300 BCE
Photo Stéphane Batigne · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The allée couverte du Grand Village is a gallery grave at Caro, in the department of Morbihan, France. It is 25 m long and is one of the longest in the department.
It has been listed in the general inventory of cultural heritage since 1986. The catalogue gives it a typological date of between 4500 and 3300 BCE.
Read on Wikipedia1 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 du Grand Village
The monument has the particular feature of a lateral entrance facing south, roughly halfway along its length, which distinguishes it from most galleries, whose entrance is axial.
DescriptionSources for this section
Sources for this section
This very narrow gallery, 1.20 m wide on average and 25 m long, is oriented north-west/south-east. The site retains eight capstones and 26 supports, seven of which are still upright. The gallery is closed at both ends by a slab set on edge.
The monument has the particular feature of a lateral entrance facing south, roughly halfway along its length, which distinguishes it from most galleries, whose entrance is axial. The blocks of which it is made are of quartz.
A second gallery, to the west on the other side of the departmental road D168, was already very ruined and was finally destroyed in 1988 by the owner of the land.
ConservationSources for this section
Sources for this section
The site has been listed in the general inventory of cultural heritage since 1986.
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
Photographs
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
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
- 47°50′58″ N, 2°20′14″ WFor a GPS or map app: 47.84944, -2.33722
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.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2838890wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Allee Couverte Caro.jpgStéphane BatigneCC BY-SA 3.0
- Caro grand-village 07.jpgLiberligerCC BY-SA 4.0
- Caro grand-village 03.jpgLiberligerCC BY-SA 4.0
- Caro grand-village 05.jpgLiberligerCC BY-SA 4.0
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Allée couverte du Grand Village" (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