Gallery grave (allée couverte)
Allée couverte du Parc-Kerdic
Also known asAllee couverte du Parc-Kerdic
DatedEst. 4500–3300 BCE
Photo Sixteam · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The allée couverte du Parc-Kerdic, also called Roche-Gouarandem, is a partly ruined gallery grave at Saint-Connan, in the department of Côtes-d'Armor, France. It is 12 m long, including a rectangular chamber 7 m long.
It has been a classified historical monument since 4 November 1963. Excavations in 1848 recovered several bronze objects.
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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 Parc-Kerdic
DescriptionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The gallery is partly ruined. It is bounded by seven orthostates and measures 12 m in length, including a rectangular chamber 7 m long by 1.70 m wide. The access gallery (1.90 m wide), which lay to the north-east, is completely ruined; only two dry-stone walls remain of it.
One capstone (2.50 m long, 2 m wide and 0.80 m thick) has remained in place, and a second has been overturned.
Excavations carried out in 1848 recovered several bronze objects, including a socketed spearhead with wings.
ExcavationsSources for this section
Sources for this section
Excavations carried out in 1848 recovered several bronze objects, including a socketed spearhead with wings.
ConservationSources for this section
Sources for this section
The monument has been classified as a historical monument since 4 November 1963.
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
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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°25′07″ N, 3°02′06″ WFor a GPS or map app: 48.41851, -3.03502
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.
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)trois tumulus de Keranhouët5000–3000 BCE
Menhir de Kernanouët2800–1800 BCE
Menhir de Botudo2800–1800 BCE
Menhir de Pasquiou2800–1800 BCE
Dolmen de Pasquiou4000–3000 BCE
Menhir de Porzic2800–1800 BCE
Croix de Pasquiou2800–1800 BCE
Menhir de Crec'h Ogel2800–1800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2838893wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Allée couverte du Parc-Kerdic" (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