Vera Collum and the excavation of a `Roman' megalithic tomb.

Vera Collum and the excavation of a `Roman' megalithic tomb. In 1931 Vera Collum excavated the megalithic meg��a��lith?n.A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles, notably in western Europe during the second millennium b.c. tomb at Tresse inBrittany, claiming that it had been built during the Roman period andwas associated with the cult of the mother goddess. This article tracesthe course of her excavation and suggests a context for the reuse ofNeolithic monuments in that area. Key-words: megaliths, Brittany, mother goddess, monument re-use Devotees of the great goddess have yet to discover Vera Collum andher excavations in megalithic tombs. She is not a well-known figuretoday. Vera Christina Chute Collum is credited with 11 books, all ofthem published between 1924 and 1940. They include such titles as TheDance of Civa: life's unity and rhythm (Collum 1927), The music ofgrowth (Collum 1933a) and Manifold unity: the ancient world'sconception of the divine pattern of harmony and compassion (Collum1940). Her most ambitious work, published in German, considers Thecreative mother: goddess of the Celtic-speaking people, their materialculture, the mystical word and their beliefs and symbols (Collum 1939).Amongst her publications there are also two excavation reports (Collum1933b and 1935). The Tresse Iron Age megalithic monument megalithic monument(mĕgəlĭth`ĭk)[Gr.,=large stone], in archaeology, a construction involving one or several roughly hewn stone slabs of great size; it is usually of prehistoric antiquity. (Collum 1935)can still be found in antiquarian an��ti��quar��i��an?n.One who studies, collects, or deals in antiquities.adj.1. Of or relating to antiquarians or to the study or collecting of antiquities.2. Dealing in or having to do with old or rare books. bookshops, but it is rarely paid muchattention. That is surprising, as its full title is extraordinary: TheTresse Iron Age megalithic monument (Sir Robert Mond's excavation),its quadruple sculptured breasts and their relation to themother-goddess cosmic cult. The second page provides an even longer sub-title (or perhaps it isan abstract) printed in block capitals. In Collum's words this isthe report on `a hitherto unexcavated allee couverte of the Gallo-Romanperiod with realistic sculptures of two double pairs of human breastsand containing a crouched burial in situ In place. When something is "in situ," it is in its original location. , fragments of a one-edged ironshort sword, steatite steatite:see soapstone. beads and more than 60 pots ofArmorican-"dolmenic" and Armorican-Gaulish styles and ceramictechniques' (1935: v). The monument was near St Malo and the reportcomes `together with an exhaustive study of the cult responsible for thesymbolism of the twin pairs of human breasts' (1935: v). The bookis dated 1935 and was published by Oxford University Press. Three yearslater a shortened version appeared in French (Collum 1938). We can reconstruct some of the background to this project. SirRobert Mond Sir Robert Ludwig Mond (9 September 1867 — 22 October 1938) was a British chemist and archeaeologist. Early life and educationRobert Mond was born at Farnworth, Widnes, Lancashire, the elder son of Ludwig Mond, chemist and industrialist. was a wealthy chemist and industrialist with antiquarianleanings. He had excavated at Thebes and helped to fund DorothyGarrod's excavation on Mount Carmel. No doubt he paid for thepublication of this report. He was also a Francophile with a specialinterest in megaliths; his work in Brittany is summarised by Giot (1993:29-31). Vera Collum, whose career is largely undocumented, lived inWiltshire but she spent part of her time excavating at Camac withZacharie Le Rouzic. She conducted three excavations which were financedby Robert Mond. Two of these were at chambered tombs: Le Dehus onGuernsey (Collum 1933b) and Tress on the property of his friend, BaronRobert Surcouf Robert Surcouf (December 1773–8 July 1827) was a famous French corsair. During his legendary career, he captured 47 ships and was renowned for his gallantry and chivalry, earning the nickname of Roi des Corsaires ("King of Corsairs"). . The excavation of Tresse took place in 1931 but it wasonly part of a larger undertaking, for at the end of her monographCollum writes (1935: 115): I desire to place on record my great indebtedness to Sir RobertMond for having made it possible for me to devote the last five years toresearch, both in the archaeological field and in that of comparativereligion, without the anxiety of earning a living. What were the findings of that lavishly endowed project? Her textis often obscure, but at one point Collum summarizes her mainconclusions. This is a small sample (Collum 1935: 113-14): The allee couverte at Tresse had not been previously excavated....It was erected in the first century AD, probably in the reign ofDomitian.... It was a native Gaulish tomb that was at the same time afuneral grotto representing an Entrance to the Underworld whichsymbolised Return to the Womb of the Creatrix.... That goddess was theGreat Female Principle (comprehending a Male Principle) both in itsunmanifested aspect of Potential Creatrix, and its manifesting aspect asWoman the Lover-Bride and as the all-nourishing Mother, whose cult waswidespread in Asia Minor, Syria, Central Asia and NW India, Mesopotamia,Babylonia and Egypt ... Such esoteric teaching was probably firstintroduced by the poet-seers or `druids' and imparted only to theeducated classes.... This Cosmic cult can be demonstrated ... in thearchaeological remains of Gaul and Great Britain Great Britain,officially United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constitutional monarchy (2005 est. pop. 60,441,000), 94,226 sq mi (244,044 sq km), on the British Isles, off W Europe. The country is often referred to simply as Britain. , ... in the occultpoetry and religious epics of Ireland and Wales and in Gaelic hymnssurviving orally in the Western Isles Western Islesor Western Islands,Scotland: see Hebrides, the. of Scotland. That extract is typical of this passage as a whole. It readsstrangely like the contents of similar works today, but in one respectit is quite different, for it comes from an excavation report. How didCollum balance the discipline of field-work with these extravagantclaims? Did she find the first Roman megalith megalithHuge, often undressed stone used in various types of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments. The most ancient form of megalithic construction is probably the dolmen, a type of burial chamber consisting of several upright supports and a flat roofing slab. in France? And how wouldwe interpret that monument today? The site itself was certainly an allee couverte or gallery grave A Gallery grave is a form of Megalithic tomb where there is no size difference between the burial chamber itself and the entrance passage. Two parallel walls of stone slabs were erected to form a corridor and covered with a line of capstones. .It was set within an oval mound and had probably been closed by adeposit of rubble. The tomb was originally defined by 10 pairs oforthostats, spanned by horizontal capstones. A large slab in theterminal cell was carved in relief and depicts two pairs of breasts; twomore are on an orthostat nearby. The breasts are apparently linked by anecklace, a feature that occurs on several tombs of this type inBrittany (L'Helgouac'h et al. 1970). The monument itself is arelatively large one. The covering mound was originally 20 m long andthe chambers extended for a length of at least 13 m. Towards the rearone group of orthostats had collapsed and here the roof was missing(FIGURE 1). [FIGURE 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is a complete mismatch between the clarity of the site plansby one of Collum's team and the poor quality of the sitephotographs, which she took herself. The excavation was carried out byworkmen from the Baron's estate, supplemented by professionalquarrymen. They were also responsible for rebuilding the monument.Collum's report has a wonderful period flavour and there was anobvious social barrier between the director of the excavation and herwork-force, who were not quite as pliable as she believed. This is clearwhen she describes how the site was reconstructed. The missingorthostats were to be replaced by large concrete blocks, carefullyselected for the purpose. A year later the monument had collapsed andCollum discovered that `the "concrete slabs" locally orderedturned out to be boards thinly coated with cement' (1935: 30). The filling of the monument posed some practical problems. The mostrecent occupant of the tomb seems to have been a wild animal, and thelatest context was defined mainly by its smell: `When we had got down tothe yellow tumulus tumulus(t`myələs), plural tumuli (–lī), in archaeology, a heap of earth or stones placed over a grave. debris beneath Capstone VIII, we were almostoverpowered by the stench of wolf' (Collum 1935: 18). Then the rainset in so that work inside the chambers took place beneath a largetarpaulin. It was difficult to see very much under these conditions andthe excavated soil was passed to the site foreman who searched it forartefacts. Parts of the original structure were removed by the workmenwhilst Collum's attention was distracted. Several stones of themegalithic chamber were leaning and a few had fallen over so that muchof the time was spent in levering them back into position. As a result,the floor was very badly disturbed. Although Collum goes into great detail on the contexts of theindividual finds, it is quite clear that, wolf or no wolf, the differentlevels inside the chamber were hard to distinguish from one another andthat all of them had been badly disturbed. Parts of the tomb hadapparently been floored by what Collum, with no hint of humour, refersto as `crazy paving'. As she tells us that `tree roots ... haveworked their way between the interstices of the pavement, ... heavingthem up in places' (1935: 16), there is little reason to suggestthat this level remained intact. The entire monument had also beendisturbed by burrowing animals and, to judge from the publishedphotographs, Collum's excavation was exceptionally untidy. It ishard to believe that the artefacts that she found at Tresse wereproperly stratified stratified/strat��i��fied/ (strat��i-fid) formed or arranged in layers. strat��i��fiedadj.Arranged in the form of layers or strata. at all, and yet these provide the entire basis forher interpretation. The material that she found was in two styles, the Neolithic andthe Roman. The Neolithic finds consisted of blades of Grand Pressignyflint, and a series of other artefacts including flint transversearrowheads and worked chert chert:see flint. . Some of the excavated pottery should datefrom the same period. This material was widely distributed Adj. 1. widely distributed - growing or occurring in many parts of the world; "a cosmopolitan herb"; "cosmopolitan in distribution"cosmopolitanbionomics, environmental science, ecology - the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms about thesite. The sherds were mainly towards the back of the structure but thefinds of flint and chert came from every part of the monument. The Roman artefacts had a more restricted distribution and thebeads were about 2 m from the remains of a crouched burial located onthe floor towards the back of the chamber. Apart from a quantity ofpottery, this material included a coin of Domitian found beneath theeastern part of the cairn cairn,pile of stones, usually conical in shape, raised as a landmark or a memorial. In prehistoric times it was usually erected over a burial. A barrow is sometimes called a cairn. . Pieces of iron were recognized in everysection of the monument and included one fragment which Collumidentified, very optimistically, as a sword and others that she claimedwere the tip of a knife and part of a fibula fibula(fĭb`yələ): see leg. . The Roman pottery camemainly from the northern and middle parts of the tomb and its externalcairn. It seems that some of it was in the vicinity of the burial. Itwas in the same area that the structure seems to have collapsed. Thismay have happened when the body was introduced. Collum went into the project well aware that Roman pottery had beenfound in a number of Breton megaliths, apparently associated withNeolithic artefacts, but she was also influenced by her knowledge ofmonuments in other parts of the world. As she says (Collum 1935: 10), Comparative research in the excavation literature of megalithicmonuments, and in the finds from them preserved in museums, indicatesthat the same mixture and the same uncertainty is general, except inNorth Africa, India, the Caucasus, Korea, Manchuria and Japan, wherethey have been proven to be of the Iron Age. This influenced her interpretation of Tresse. She argued that theRoman artefacts, which she associated with the native population ofGaul, were consistently found in the same contexts as thoseconventionally dated to the Neolithic period Neolithic periodor New Stone Age.The term neolithic is used, especially in archaeology and anthropology, to designate a stage of cultural evolution or technological development characterized by the use of stone tools, the existence of . Despite the amount ofdisturbance experienced by the monument at Tresse, she concluded thatboth groups of artefacts occurred in primary contexts. Rather thansupposing that the apparently younger material was intrusive, sheembarked on the bold interpretation that the two collections ofartefacts were deposited there at the same time. The allee couvertecould only be a Gallo-Roman monument. The crouched burial was a primarydeposit together with the metalwork and, in the absence of compellingevidence to the contrary, the `Neolithic' artefacts of Brittanywould have to be redated. The carvings of breasts on the tomb at Tressewere central to her argument because other Breton tombs containedpipe-clay figurines of Venus or the Matres. These were found near theentrance together with Roman pottery, whilst coins were incorporatedinto the covering mounds. Nothing stood in Vera Collum's way as shetracked down the symbols of a cosmic cult of the mother goddess. This far-reaching interpretation was based on a very literalreading of the stratification at a badly damaged site. We might be ableto say that the monument had been disturbed during the Roman period, buthad it really been re-used? If we were limited to the evidence from Tresse, it would bedifficult to go any further, but in fact the megalithic tombs found inother parts of Brittany show a rather similar pattern. That not onlyincludes the sites dug by Collum's mentor, Le Rouzic, but alsothose excavated to a much higher standard during recent years (Andre1961; Galliou 1989: 31, 151-3; Dark 1993; LeCornec 1994). It seems as ifthis evidence is of two kinds. First, there are other places wheremegalithic tombs were chosen as the sites of Roman burials. Tresse is onthe edge of their distribution, for most of the examples are found inthe Morbihan (Galliou 1989: figure 14), although it is worth rememberingthat more tombs have been investigated in that area. At the same time,Collum was right in reminding her readers that there were quite a numberof megaliths which contained figurines of Venus and the Matres, as wellas the customary collections of coins. These artefacts are sometimesfound with burials in France but more often they are associated with ashrine (Bemont et al. 1993). The clearest example of this pattern is LePetit-Mont, Arzon, a site which also included a Roman altar (LeCornec1994: 71-8). Why might this have been the case? One possibility is to invert in��vertv.1. To turn inside out or upside down.2. To reverse the position, order, or condition of.3. To subject to inversion.n.Something inverted. Collum's original argument. Perhaps it was the fact that the tombat Tresse had been decorated with breasts that encouraged anidentification with the cult of the mother goddess, but this did nothappen when the tomb was built but during the Roman period when the sitewas re-used. Could this explain the re-use of other megalithic monumentsin this area? The difficulty is that there are not very many tombs withsimilar carvings and they are not a major feature of the area in whichthe Roman burials are found (Shee Twohig 1981: 72-3; Galliou 1989: 31).It may be only part of the explanation. Another possibility is that for the Romans -- and that probablymeans for the native population of Gaul -- the remains of megalithictombs were thought of in the same terms as caves and unusual rockformations and were imbued with special powers (Galliou 1984: chapter11). This is why the figurines occur in rock-shelters as well asmegaliths (Bemont et al. 1993: 155-9; Ars 1997). These were numinous nu��mi��nous?adj.1. Of or relating to a numen; supernatural.2. Filled with or characterized by a sense of a supernatural presence: a numinous place.3. places and places of great antiquity, and people were not necessarilyable to distinguish between geological features and ruined buildings. It also seems likely that later deposits in megalithic tombs wereassociated with fertility as well as death. How might that equation havecome about? Perhaps it arose through their striking resemblance to theunderground storage structures known as souterrains, which had been amajor feature of Iron Age settlement sites until about 100 BC (Giot1990). Like the storage pits of southern England, these have usuallybeen considered in terms of food production, but this comparison mightsuggest a more sophisticated interpretation. This is not to suggest thatsuch structures were shrines, but their use as underground food storesrecalls the association between death and regeneration which is such afeature of other deposits in late prehistoric Europe This bulk of this article encompasses the time in Europe from c 900,000 years ago to 8th-7th century BCE. Pre-PleistoceneThrough most of Earth's history, various subcontinental land masses such as Baltica and Avalonia that would later be part of Europe moved about the globe (Barrett 1989).Perhaps souterrains, like storage pits, became associated with thefertility of the human population. Most of the Breton souterrains are rock-cut passages or chambersand do not resemble megalithic tombs, but this is not always the case,for occasionally these features were built in stone (Giot 1990). Forlater generations they would have been difficult to tell apart frommegalithic tombs. In fact, one of the largest deposits of pipe-clayfigures was actually found in the secondary levels of one suchsouterrain Sou´ter`rainn. 1. A grotto or cavern under ground. near Quimper (Le Men 1868). Here we may have yet anotherexplanation for the link between earlier prehistoric monuments to thedead and Roman shrines dedicated to Venus and the mother goddess. Inpractice these interpretations can often be combined. Taken together,they suggest why the remains of Neolithic tombs were reinterpretedduring the Roman period and how they came to be associated withfertility. It seems as if Vera Collum was wrong in her main conclusion, butnot absolutely wrong. There was no cosmic cult of the mother goddess tobe traced from India to France, nor were Breton megaliths built duringthe Roman period, but after a lengthy interval certain sites were usedin the ways that she envisaged. This article has suggested some reasonswhy they might have been selected, and there are probably others. Bymisunderstanding the stratigraphy stratigraphy,branch of geology specifically concerned with the arrangement of layered rocks (see stratification). Stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which states that in a normal sequence of rock layers the youngest is on top and the oldest on the at Tresse she turned Frencharchaeology upside down and her excavation has been ignored as a result.After 60 years it is time to put the pieces back together. Acknowledgements. This paper was first presented at the 1998meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group, in a session on the re-useof ancient monuments organised by Richard Hingley and Howard Williams. Imust thank Mel Costello for the figure drawing and an anonymous refereefor some particularly helpful observations. References ANDRE, J. 1961. Les dolmens Morbihanais remployes a l'epoqueromaine. Ogam og��am?n.Variant of ogham.ogham, ogam1. an alphabetical script originally used for inscriptions in the Irish language from the 5th to the 10th centuries.2. 74-5: 248-54. ARS, E. 1997. Les figurines gallo-romains en terre cuite duMorbihan. Bulletin et Memoires de la Societe Polymathique du Morbihan123: 41-54. BEMONT, C., M. JEANLIN & C. LAHANIER. 1993. Les figurines enterre cuite gallo-romaines. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences del'Homme. BARRETT, J. 1989. Food, gender and metal: aspects of socialreproduction, in M.L.S. Sorensen & R. Thomas (ed.), The BronzeAge-Iron Age transition in Europe: Aspects of continuity and change inEuropean societies c. 1200 to 1500 B.C.: 127-40. Oxford: BritishArchaeological Reports. BAR International series S483. COLLUM, V.C.C. 1927. The Dance of Civa: life's unity andrhythm. London: Kegan Paul & Trench. 1933a. The music of growth.London: Scholar's Press. 1933b. The re-excavation of the Dehuschambered mound at Paradis, Vale, Guernsey Vale (Guern��siais: L�� Vale; French: Le Valle) is one of the ten parishes of Guernsey.Until 1806 the parish occupied territory on the mainland of Guernsey as well as the whole of Le Clos du Valle, a tidal island forming the northern extremity of Guernsey , St Peter Port: SocieteGuernesiaise. 1935. The Tresse Iron-Age megalithic monument. Oxford:Oxford University Press. 1938. L'allee couverte de Tresse (classeMonument Historique Monument historique is a State procedure in France by which heritage protection is extended to a building or a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings or an entire neighborhood, or gardens, bridges, and other structures, because of their architectural and historical ), Ille-et-Vilaine. Paris: Leroux. 1939. Dieschopferische Mutter - Gotten der Volker keltischer Sprache, ihrWeltzeig, das mystische `Wort', ihr Kult und ihre Kult-Symbole.Zurich: Rhein Verlag. 1940. Manifold unity: man's perception of thedivine pattern of harmony and compassion. London: John Murray Not to be confused with John Murry.There have been several important people by the name of John Murray (roughly in chronological order): John Murray of Falahill, a Scottish outlaw John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl (1660-1724) . DARK, K. 1993. Roman period activity at prehistoric ritualmonuments in Britain and in the Armorican peninsula. in E. Scott (ed.),Theoretical Roman archaeology: First conference proceedings: 133-46.Aldershot: Avebury. GALLIOU, P. 1984. L'Armorique romaine. Braspars: Lesbibliophiles de Bretagne. 1987. Les tombes romaines d'Armorique.Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. GIOT, P.-R. 1990. Sonterrains et habitats a l'Age du Per enArmorique, in Les Gaulois d'Armorique: 53-61. Rennes: Archeologiede l'Ouest. Supplement 3. 1993. Chronique de prehistoire et deprotohistoire finisteriennes et des archeosciences pour 1992, Bulletinde la societe archeologique du Finistere 122: 11-37. LECORNEC, J. 1994. Le Petit-Mont, Arzon (Morbihan). Rennes:Documents Archeologiques de l'Ouest, L'HELGOUAC'H, J., G. BALLANCOURT, C. GALLAIS & J.LECORNEC. 1970, Sepultures et gravures nouvellement decouvertes sur desmegalithes de l'Armorique, Bulletin de la Societe PrehistoriqueFrancaise 67: 513-21. LE MEN, R.F. 1868. Subterranean chambers at La Tourelle, nearQuimper, Brittany, Archaeologia Cambrensis (3rd series) 14: 293-311. SHEE TWOHIG, E. 1981. The megalithic art Megalithic art refers to the use of large stones as an artistic medium. Although some modern artists and sculptors make use of large stones in their work, the term is more generally used to describe art carved onto megaliths in prehistoric Europe. of western Europe Western EuropeThe countries of western Europe, especially those that are allied with the United States and Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (established 1949 and usually known as NATO). . Oxford:Clarendon Press. RICHARD BRADLEY, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading,Reading RG5 2AH, England. Received 4 January 1999, accepted 19 June 1999, revised 18 November1999.