Megaliths of Carnac: Introduction
The Carnac stones are an exceptionally dense collection of megalithic sites around the French village of Carnac, in Brittany, consisting of alignments, dolmens, tumuli and single menhirs. The more than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones were hewn from local rock and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany, and are the largest such collection in the world.
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Most of the stones are within the Breton village of Carnac, but some to the east are within La Trinité-sur-Mer. The stones were erected at some stage during the Neolithic period, probably around 3300 BC, but some may date to as old as 4500 BC. In recent centuries, many of the sites have been neglected, with reports of dolmens being used as sheep shelters, chicken sheds or even ovens. Even more commonly, stones have been removed to make way for roads, or as building materials. The continuing management of the sites remains a controversial topic. –wikipedia
With over 3,000 prehistoric standing stones, Carnac (in Brittany, France) is the largest megalithic site in the world. More pictures of this place in the photobank section. © Jean-Michel PRIMA 2010. |
Kermario (House of the Dead) alignment ( Source – wiki)
Ménec alignment
Megaliths of Carnac
The Alignments of Carnac: a Royal Mausoleum of the Megalith Builders?
by Manuel Vega
Who were the Megalith Builders? Archaeologists agree about the independent origin of European megalithism, but neither about the origin nor the kind of relationship, if any, existent among the various megalithic areas. The typical “diffusionist-inventionist” controversy is very present at this case. Diffusionists emphasize the role of diffusion, i.e. the spread of cultural elements from one area or group of people to others by contact, rather than independent invention or discovery. The discussion becomes very subtle in megalithism because it is not clear where the borderlines (and of what kind) lied among the European Neolithic inhabitants, and to which extent these people were able to travel and interact among each others.
Based on the interpretation of the physical archaeological remains, Euan Mackie proposes the existence of a consistent tradition carried across Neolithic Britain by a theocratic elite, whereas mainstream archaeologists prefer the idea of local not-well communicated chiefdoms.
My research aligns with MacKie’s side, and goes much further. In this article, I am going to deal with the largest and most spectacular among the megalithic monuments: the Alignments of Carnac. This extraordinary site of Brittany (peninsula of NW France) contains only itself more than 3,000 standing stones, huge granite menhirs aligned in several rows along approximately 4 km, divided into three main modules and a last one much smaller and degraded.
Many hypotheses have been raised, some really unusual, to explain the purpose of these alignments; for example, an antiquarian of the last century suggested that it could be the fossil of a large snake. Others suggested that it might be a Roman camp, or a way to temples disappeared, or even a prehistoric earthquake detector. A local legend says that they were Roman soldiers petrified by God while they were chasing St Cornelius, the local saint. Alexander Thom proposed, as he did with many other megalithic monuments, that they could have been an ancient astronomical observatory. However, the most accepted hypothesis is that they formed a huge necropolis; in fact, in the vicinity of the alignments there are several mounds with a more obvious funerary purpose, such as that of Saint-Michel, one of the oldest in the world.
A colossal monument such as the Alignments of Carnac necessarily require an equally colossal labor in its construction. Archaeology is faced with the dilemma of finding a megalithic society that complies with the grandeur of its monuments. What type of social organization would allow such a display? We should keep in mind that we are talking about the fourth millennia BC, i.e. the European Megaliths Builders preceded those considered as the earliest civilizations (Mesopotamia and Egypt).
Based on the mainstream hypothesis of Carnac being a necropolis, and in the fact that the employ of large amounts of manual labor is a typical characteristic of hierarchical societies, it can be speculated about the rocks having a representational function, each one representing one leader.
The sad incident of the disappearance of some of the stones impedes to be precise, though it could still be interesting to make a rough calculation with at least the three main modules. Le Ménec is the most western one, with 1,100 menhirs in 11 rows that would, therefore, represent 100 leaders of a confederation of 11 chiefdoms. Kermario has 982 menhirs in 10 rows, indicating again another 100 leaders of a confederation of 10 chiefdoms, and Kerlescan has about 550 menhirs in 13 rows, and would represent half the number than the two previous modules (50 leaders).
The height of the menhirs decreases from west to east in each of the modules, which could be explained assuming that the time direction moved also from west to east, because it seems more reasonable to expect that the previous leaders were more revered. If this is so, Le Ménec would be the representational mausoleum of the first 100 leaders, Kermario of the next 100, and Kerlescan of the last 50 (of each chiefdom). At this point in the history of the confederation, the mausoleum would be continued in a much more reduced scale until its complete cessation, corresponding this terminal phase to the module of Le Petit-Ménec. In conclusion, we could round all this calculation to a confederation of ten or so chiefdoms, that lasted along 250 successive leaders.
There is no a clear date of construction for this monument, which, given the huge amount of labor and corresponding extend of time that it had to require, is not surprising, though it is estimated that its main phase of construction took place along the final centuries of the 4th millennium BC. Therefore, we could propose that this was about the time its builders decided to immortalize in stone their records, a work that they would continue in the following centuries, at the same time that they added the successive leaders of their present epoch.
If we now consider the 3,000 years of megalithic phenomenon in Western Europe as the time span this confederation was effective, we would obtain that each leader would have ruled an average of 12 years (3,000/250). Obviously, if we were to choose a different time span, the result would be different; for instance, if we assume a longer time, stretching from 4800 to 1200 BC, as proposed by some authors, then we would obtain an average of 14.5 years per leader (3,600/250). The main point of this calculation is not to be precise, but to show that its outcome is reasonable.
In summary, here it is succinctly proposed a very simple and ground-breaking working hypothesis that presents the megalith builders as a culture politically organized in a confederation of about ten chiefdoms, who built the Alignments of Carnac as their “royal representational mausoleum,” each stone representing one of the leaders of their history.
Copyright by Manuel Vega
More information at: http://onemysteryless.wordpress.com
Correction. The A-frame in my blog magnifies the applied force by 3, not 4 or 5 as stated.
THE STANDING STONES OF CARNAC
Much has been written about the mystery of the patterns of standing stones in Carnac and elsewhere in Brittany, and why they were dug up and stood up in the first place. The several fanciful suggestions include an earthquake detector, memorial stones to honour ancestors, an astronomical observatory for foretelling the eclipses of the sun and the moon, and even the turning of a marching Roman legion into stone by the wizard Merlin!
The suggestion of a calendar for use by farmers has real merit. The pressing need for a calendar and timepiece underlies all civilisations, ancient and modern, something we unthinkingly take for granted, but could not do without. The ancient farmers and villagers desperately wanted to know when to plant their crops to be ready for harvesting in the summer and when to mate their breeding animals, such as cows, goats and sheep with different gestation periods, so the young would be born in the spring.
Finding the length of a year at about 365 days would have been easily done, based on lining up a few stones to the position of the sun at successive mid-summer risings and counting the days in between. Setting out daily markers for the benefit of the whole community is a different matter. A long string of 365 or 366 stones, for instance, would not work, nor would a circle of that huge size. But you can make a circle of 30 or 36 stones where 12 or 10 circuits respectively, would give you 360 days with 5 or 6 left over at the end of each year for holidays, celebrations and orgies. (Compare the ancient Egyptian practice.)
If 30 upright stones are set out in a ring, then a circuit of 30 days would be close to a moon month, or ‘moonth’. In any event, the village timekeeper would place a daily stone marker beside one of the uprights, and monthly markers at the head of the circle, thus completing a yearly calendar.
From what remains of the many stones at Carnac, there are still a few circles, but they would need to be closely looked at to see if the larger ones could have been used as calendars and perhaps the smaller ones as sheepfolds. From photos of the area, there seems to be at least one ring that could have had 30 or 36 stones. Well worth a check. Across the way at Stonehenge, it is clear that a ring of 30 upright stones, instead of 36, was wisely chosen and permanently locked together as a lasting calendar of months, days and seasons for the benefit of not only farmers, but the whole surrounding community with its ritual observances throughout the year. This ancient calendar kept days, months and seasons in line with the sun, unlike some more modern attempts that fell out of sync and had to be readjusted, time and again.
Apart from the few circles, there is no mystery to the so-called patterns of the thousands of standing stones of Carnac. They were dug up and erected in various arrangements for very good practical reasons over a very long time, possibly a thousand years, in the region of 3,500BC, more or less.
The stones of Carnac are a hard quartzite, a siliceous sandstone, often called silcrete or sarsen, the same as the stones used for Stonehenge and commonly occurring in the treeless Downs of Southern England.
At the time when the hunter-gatherers in that temperate part of the world were settling down into small villages and herding animals such as sheep, goats and cattle, any treeless areas growing grass in the middle of wooded lands would have been a godsend for ready-made grazing.
Those areas in and around Carnac, as in the English downs, were treeless because the sarsen sandstone had been deposited in widespread sheets up to half a metre or more thick, with good soil below, but little or none on top, certainly not enough to grow trees. In such a climate, shallow-rooted pasture grasses will just survive in the thin layer of accumulated soil on top, but flourish in the many large cracks that naturally form laterally and longitudinally in rock sheets. Not ideal pasture maybe, and not suitable for cultivation, but very welcome and a much more attractive alternative to clearing the surrounding timber with controlled burning and hand-held stone axes.
Because of many predators in the surrounding woodlands, all grazing animals would have required the constant presence of one or more shepherds or farmers. There is no doubt that the shepherds, with time on their hands, would have soon noticed that the poorly grassed rock sheeting was riven with many cracks and by widening the cracks and/or digging up some of the blocks, they could grow more grass. With an unlimited supply of wooden poles from the surrounding timber, the next step of levering up a few of the blocks would be a natural one. They might have noticed too that where they had had cooking fires, the rock below was already fractured into a number of pieces. Furthermore, if a rock has absorbed sufficient moisture and the camp-fire is hot enough, a violent explosion can occur, shattering the rock and scattering pots and pans, as we once found out to our ongoing concern.
Whether the early shepherds had in mind using the unearthed blocks, some of them columnar, for making a safe sheepfold at night, with or without interwoven branches between blocks, we know not, but the newly exposed soil and extra grass for grazing would have encouraged the digging-up of more and more blocks.
How then could they dispose of the unearthed stone blocks? The smaller ones could be carried away, perhaps for stonewalling or building, but many of the larger columnar ones would be too heavy to manhandle, and could not be readily dragged aside to allow for the removal of even more stones.
We encountered the same problem on the farm in the treeless, lava plains to the west of Melbourne in Victoria, when we decided to dig up the basalt slabs formed in the up-welling of non-volcanic lava flows from cracks in the crust during Recent geological times. A considerable amount of heavy work, involving picks and shovels, crowbars, plugs of gelignite, stump-grubbing Trewhella jacks and square-headed sledgehammers, was carried out in the off seasons over several years, with the deliberate aim of increasing the available acreage of both grazing and arable land. Our efforts were finally well rewarded with improved pasture, more cropping land, increased stocking rates and better land values.
How did we get rid of the stones? Unlike the farmers and shepherds of Carnac, we had a stable of draught horses, so we made a sizeable wooden sledge in the shape of a capital Y from the forked trunk of a large sugar-gum tree. With a few hewn planks across the two arms of the Y and a big augured hole for a strong chain through the stem and the nose chamfered upwards, a single horse was able to pull the laden sledge of broken stones of man-handleable size to piled-up stone-heaps in the corners of the paddocks.
Despite lots of surrounding wire-netting, these big stoneheaps became havens and breeding grounds for thousands of rabbits who ravaged the new-found grassland over a wide area from the stoneheaps. Years later, in a mutually beneficial deal, the local Council acquired all these basalt rocks, or bluestones as we called them, for crushing as ideal road-making material. With all the field evidence long gone from those paddocks now, theorists of the future will no doubt be guessing about what happened to those sheets of solidified lava flows, in the same way as they now make guesses about why the Stones of Carnac were dug up, stood on their ends, and placed in certain alignments.
To understand the increase of available land by a simple experiment, take four ordinary matchboxes, (or similar,) and lay them down flat, end to end. They cover an area of 3 wide x 20 long, equals 60 square centimetres. If you ‘bury’ one and stand the remaining three on end as a column, the footprint on the ground is now only 3 wide x 1 thick, square centimetres, that is one twentieth of the lay-down-flat position. So, by standing each Carnac stone on end, you could convert one unit of area of sparsely grassed rock into perhaps ten or twenty units of good soil capable of holding rainfall moisture and growing good grass all the year round. As more and more stones are upended, so the size of the flock and returns therefrom, can be increased. An obvious and very attractive proposition. A commonsense solution.
But how could they unearth and upend the stone columns with limited manpower, simple digging tools like antler picks and animal shoulder blades, notwithstanding an ample supply of wooden poles and ropes of twisted plant fibre and plaited greenhide? Digging around and under the edges would be no problem, just hard work and time, of which the shepherds would have had plenty. Erecting the smaller stones would simply be a matter of digging a hole and with ropes and wooden poles, slowly heaving the stones up in stages, as farmers putting in big corner-posts for fencing and for farm buildings, know only too well. Lifting of the larger stones would be done with wooden levers and the aid of the time-honoured and well-known A-frame which consists of two long poles tied together at the top, and a crosspiece to make the A about a third of the way up from the ground. They would have selected the poles to be straight, each with a strong outgrowth of a branch, (trimmed back), at the intended level of the crosspiece to support the heavy lifting load to be applied to it.
Having lifted the stone from its bed, a receiving hole would be dug at one end to a depth of about one quarter of the height of the stone, or less, depending on whether they had sheep, goats or cattle. For cattle, the columns would come to be used as rubbing posts and might need to be deeper. Because the A-frame is a rigid triangle with two legs, it can be walked from place to place. The cross-piece carries the load and magnifies the hauling force applied at the top by as much as four or five times. This allows a gang of men to easily raise one end of the stone in short lifts, chocking the elevated end with poles at the end of each lift. By walking the A-frame towards the centre of the stone, being nearer to the pre-dug hole with a sloped entry on that side, the final lifts will upright the stone into the hole. It is generally acknowledged that the much bigger vertical sarsens of Stonehenge were set in this manner.
And finally, what about the alignments that have intrigued so many people. Some arrangements are quite random, the stones being stood up where they lay, others are in irregular rows, some in wavy lines and the rest in long straight lines, as shown in the many pictures of the Carnac fields with an estimated 3,000 ancient stones still standing. There is no doubt that the very long straight lines suggest a much later development when farming moved on from grazing to tillage and cropping, with the invention of the wooden plough and domestication of animals such as goats and oxen to pull it. If the stones in the Carnac region were dug up and stood up over a period of a thousand years, say, as has been suggested in some literature, then three stones per year on average would be readily achievable. As the work proceeded with good results, a higher rate of clearance over a shorter period would seem much more likely.
With no limit to early man’s ingenuity and the ever-present urgency to survive, wooden ploughs of all sorts of designs were developed as a big leap from digging sticks for the tillage of arable land in many, (but not all), stone-age civilizations around the world. The most likely design for the Carnac area would have been a sturdy Y-shaped fork readily available from nearby woodland, the two arms of the Y being handles for the ploughman and the pointed end of the stem doing the digging. Initially, it would have been hauled by one or two men and/or women, soon to be replaced by goats, then oxen.
The key point to realise here is that once you yolk animals to a plough, you find yourself ploughing in fairly straight lines. The flexible traces from the animals are always taut in a straight line and you can’t easily depart from straight ahead. Curved deviations are possible to avoid obstacles, but take a look at the dead-straight lines of today’s ploughed paddocks and market gardens, even with mechanical equipment, and you’ll see that the long straight lines and gentle curves of the stones at Carnac were a natural development for ploughing and harrowing, once draught animals had been introduced. It is much better to cultivate in straight lines, especially when ploughs and harrows are fitted with several tines.
Surely, the ancients in Brittany were not the only ones to hit on the idea of digging up the partly buried stones and standing them up to increase the area for grazing and cropping? Of course not. Even today, there are thousands of ancient stones still standing in single lines and double rows right across the southern part of England, from the moors of Devon to the downs of Kent. If you travel the countryside of the Downs in between you will still see occasional green paddocks with a row of stones up the middle, parallel to the boundary fences. Note too that the fences are mostly stone walls, strongly suggesting that the intense cultivation of these farmlands in more recent times would have meant the breaking up and removal of any ancient standing stones that got in the way of the modern plough.
So there we have it. The sarsen stones of Carnac were dug up and erected by farmers and shepherds to dramatically increase the available pasture, initially for grazing their sheep, goats and cattle, and later on for the cropping of cereals such as wheat, rye, oats or barley, by as much as ten to twenty times. For a start, they dragged the stones not far from where they lay, erecting them there or into rough lines or patterns to suit the shepherds, and eventually, with the aid of oxen, into long straight lines to suit the ploughmen. We might have done the same thing on the farm if we had not had the wherewithal to break the big basalt slabs into manageable sizes and the horsepower to cart the pieces away. We already had post-and-wire fences and no need for the sort of solid stone walls built by other farmers in the region as they cleared their paddocks and used the stones to fence their paddocks.
In my understanding, there is no mystery surrounding the why and how of the Stones of Carnac. In keeping with those times, thousands of years ago, the arrangements of the many standing stones, setting aside the monumental menhirs and sepulchral dolmens, is what anyone with a farming background might have expected.
Whenever research scientists and archaeologists have no idea what the purpose of a discovery is, they will always fall back on the “ritual”, or “religious” explanation rather than admit they don’t have a clue. Whether these standing stones were built by an ancient advanced civilization that we know nothing about, extra-terrestrials who built them or taught us how to do it, angels, or earth fairies, the question is not resolved as to the meaning and purpose of the standing stones. Do I have any ideas on the subject? Not a one.
… and don’t forget “cultural”… It takes a scientist (i.e. someone qualified in other peoples’ opinions”) to make such profound statements. As you say, in place of “haven’t a clue.”
Interesting subject. Try, if you can; to look at the last photograph down as if you were viewing a piece of modern art depicting a crowd of people. Let’s say, something Picasso would have arranged using huge stones instead of the cubes/geometric shapes he is known for.
A crowd of people with upstretched arms to the heavens; and a pissed off few facing and walking away from them. It’s a lovely photograph. Ancient performance art using some readily available stone materials? Aliens probably make for a show with better ratings.
Has anyone ever checked to see if these type of formations are just ancient graveyards?
Right! But since the human skeleton dissolves in the natural dirt after enough time, unless buried with artifacts and belongings, it would be gone.
It appears to me that the stones are positioned in an alignment to mark off lots much like farmers do. I would bet that this location had many more stones but they were cannibalized over time by locals. I would also wager that these are in fact farming plots with larger stones being needed so that taller crops would not cover them up. It looks like organized farming methods.
But we can still believe Aliens did it!
Hello, for a completely new and compelling explanation of the Carnac alignments see BEFORE THE DELUSION by Wm Gleeson
Published in UK (Temple Publ) or listed on Amazon
RossMelb
Many speculations concerning the ancient world almost always seem to point the finger at religeous meanings,be it the Great Pyramid or a small stick found in the sand.In the Ancient Aliens series Erich V.Daniken said of the Carnac stones that the humans built them from instructions by the Aliens.Well,I´ll go one further.The Aliens(or somebody from another planet),built not only the Carnac,Stonehenge,The Giza Pyramid but also all the rest of these ancient monuments (with maybe a little help from us puny humans).Now,Im not putting humans down,sure they could build and make a lot of things,but unless they had superhuman strength(which I doubt) most of these ancient stones were just too heavy for them.And to cut Granite rocks with copper instruments while we need diamonds to do that is just ridiculous.
If I were to come to another planet with all our technology and found nothing but cavemen who weren’t that smart to start with,sure I could give them a little bit of DNA boosting,but to trust them with my advanced tecnological instruments,whether it was a levitation device to move the stones or something else,NO WAY.
I would of course use them for lesser things,things that they could handle but didn’t need to understand.I often wonder how all these so called ‘highly educated’ men,spending years or decades in schools to become Archeologists seem so utterly Brain-Dead.It doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to see that the EVIDENCE DOESN’T FIT THE CRIME!!!
Just a thought,hmmmmmmm
Plus this article didn’t mention the shapes the stones make like Pythagoreans yea I totally believe cavemen knew about that
mors cod
To an untrained eye like myself, the stones almost remind me of braille, or even what Morse Code would look like if written down.