The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-05-11

buried in. the sub-soil beneath the sand
dunes on the shore, and every year for
centuries the Atlantic has been covering
BIT more and more deeply. a.
Il have known that there must be
some such place, because this region
is rich in prehistoric remains. ] have
been looking for it a large part of the
fifty years since man named Min,
a kindly Scotch scholar, settled in our
town and devoted bis life to historic
discovery here He. hired me, an, almost
unlettered small boy from. "a humble
Breton home, to help him in his dig
gipg and exploring. He educated me, and
when he died, left me the little nfu-
scum which he founded out Of his
private means.
s Storm Bsfters Coast n
have been studying and carrying
on his work all my life, recently with
the aid of my son, q grand mutiie,"
shattered by. the war. I wish Mr.. Min
could have been here to discover what
we discovered, several days after the
great storm and tidal waves which raw
aged the Brittany coast in January.
On January s Of this year, the most
severe tempest in years shattered the
west coast Of France from Bayohne to
Finisterre. At its height, three tidal
waves arose, flour metres high at least,
as high as the side Of my house, and
bearing more tons of water than I can
calculate, with the power of the At
lantic back Of them, crashed upon the
shore zas
They caused enormous losses among
the maritime folk of our neighborhood.
They wrecked wharves; they took small
fishing craft anchored in what were be-
|lieved to be secure harbors, and tossed
them up on dry land wreeking many
completely They ALTERED the coast line
in some places hotieeably, washing away
dunes aud pfling them up everywhere.
The waves brought real hardship and
suffering to some of my fishermen neigh
bors, but to me they brought what /
believe will be my greatest discovery.
In knocking the top offasome sand
dunes, and even burrowing into the sub
sell, they uncovered partially the re-
mains Of the little circle of stone huts,
built by European ,savages before, the
age of bronze, where ! am now en-
gagged in exeavating.
Prehistoric Village
After the storm had subsidized my
son and /. went along the coast view
ing the havoc. As we always dOson our
periodic bicycle ard walking trips we
carried stout canes, upon the ends of
which we have attached short, sharp
| iron picks, for digging into. such "tu-
null" or mounds as seem to us likely
to contain anything interesting.
We did not need our ticks to make
this discovery, but we aFe now using
shovels to dig it out completely. As
we walked along the barren shore we
literally stumbled over an agglomera-
ton Of little rough stones, arranged in
the form Of circle some three metres
in diameter A. few PAGES away we
saw another one, and then another.
Then we saw On oblong one.
My son reached down and picked up
a /, perfect, axe-blade, made of polished
fit, a substance quite foreign to the
soil Of Brittany, and similar to the
axe-blades I have discovered in the
rock built tonlbs called "dolmens," which
stand like tables of stone in many
sections Of Brittany. Then We found
arrow points, like those used by Ameri-
can Indians, spear points, knife blades,
Instruments of percussion such as pes
lies, and collections of polished little
round stones Of varying. colors,. which
could be nothing else than prehistoric
jewelry. S.
-, Egg-Shaped Graves ~
At first / Thought these little cir
cies az stones were burial places, but
they are far too large. and several
Of them are oblong We have since
found the remains of hearths within
them. so they can be but one thing,
k,.&o An0khAP Faa aOu II
am sure they are not burial places is
the fact that / have discovered several
miles from this spots enough sbur1al
mounds 10 make me sure that the late
stone age Bretons. always buried their
dead IN 4 stone enclosure shaped like
an egg. In one little egg-like chamber,
entirely walled with stone, i once found
4 skeleton. which 1 now have in my
museum. which indicates that burial
DC the body Of dead person included
placine It lin the same posture TO 60
from this world that it had. during the
months lust before it entered 1T ItWaH
a kind Of superstitious envisaging Of
Mother Earth, from, the womb, of
whom ali men spring, and to whom they
must return.
But these stone circles were too large
for this sort of thing, and wrongly
shaped. We were very excited when
we found them, and we hammered away
at their sides with our picks long enough
to find some fragments OF crudely
baked pottery, and long enough to find
that the circles of stone were truly
the tops of walls, perpendicular rather
than slanting like the walls Of tombs.
They were the remains of homes.
Flint Instruments
rs We placed their date by the instru-
rnents found. within thems and about
them, OF polished flint and stone. Cop
per and bronze were known in Europe
generally about two thousand years be-
fore Christ. This was a village previous
to that date.
Since that day we have begun to
dig. We have not gone far, because
there is only the hand labor Of my SON
and myself, an old man though a yigor-
Gus one, and young man inyalided by
fighting for our country.
BY comparing objects1already found,
usually close to the hearth, with OBJ
jects already discovered among the dol.
mems. hope to be able to shed:a new
light on important points concerning
this stage of civilization. the polished
stone age in France.
The position of this long buried viii
lage, and the soil which covered it and
surrounds it today, indicate what tre-
mendeus changes the sea has made from
century to century In the coast fOf
France. Directly over the ruins and
within them is sand. But above that
meters in thickness is stratum Of
stratum of sand, thirty to fifty cent?
fertile soil caused by the decomposi-
tion of a thick vegetation. Above that
stratum Is sand again, and above that