[Illustration:  FIG. 10. Allee couverte, called La Pierre aux Fees,
               Oise, France. (Compte rendu du Congres Prehistorique
               de France.)]

In the north of France the allee is often merely cut out in the surface of the ground and has no roof at all.  It is sometimes paved with slabs and divided into two partitions by an upright with a hole in its centre.  Tombs of this kind often contain from forty to eighty skeletons, some of which are in the contracted position.  The skulls are in some cases trepanned, i.e. small round pieces of the bone have been cut out of them; such pieces are sometimes found separate in the graves.  No objects of metal occur in these North French tombs.

There are many fine examples in Brittany of the corridor-tomb with distinct chamber.  The best known lies on the island of Gavr’inis (Morbihan).  It is covered by a tumulus nearly 200 feet in diameter.  The circular chamber, 6 feet in height, is roofed by a huge block measuring 13 feet by 10.  The corridor which leads out to the edge of the mound is 40 feet in length.  Twenty-two of the upright blocks used in this tomb are almost entirely covered with engraved designs.  These are massed together with very little order, the main object having been apparently to cover the whole surface of the stone with ornament.  The designs consist of spirals, concentric circles and semicircles, chevrons, rows of strokes, and triangles, and bear a considerable resemblance to those of Lough Crew and New Grange in Ireland.

Another tomb in the same district, that of Mane-er-Hroeck, was intact when discovered in 1863.  It contained within its chamber a hoard of 101 axes of fibrolite and jadeite, 50 pebbles of a kind of turquoise known as callais, pieces of pottery, flints, and a peculiarly fine celt of jadeite together with a flat ring-shaped club-head of the same stone.  The tomb was concealed by a huge oval mound more than 100 yards in length.  The famous Mont S. Michel is an artificial mound containing a central megalithic chamber and several smaller cists, some of which held cremated bodies.

[Illustration:  FIG. 11.  Chambered mound at Fontenay-le-Marmion,
               Normandy. (After Montelius, Orient und Europa.)]

A very remarkable mound in Calvados (Fig. 11) was found to contain no less than twelve circular corbelled chambers, each with a separate entrance passage.  The megalithic tombs of Brittany all belong to the late neolithic period, and contain tools and arrow-heads of flint, small ornaments of gold, callais, and pottery which includes among its forms the bell-shaped cup.