Among the rock-hewn tombs of the valley of the Petit Morin in the department of Marne, France, were seven which contained engravings on one of the walls.  Several of these represent human figures (Fig. 13).  The eyes are not marked, but the hair and nose are clear.  In some the breasts are shown, in others they are omitted.  On each figure is represented what appears to be a collar or necklace.  Similar figures occur on the slabs of some of the allees couvertes of Seine et Oise, and on certain blocks found in and near megalithic burials in the South of France.  Moreover, in the departments of Aveyron, Tarn, and Herault have been found what are known as menhir-statues, upright pillars of stone roughly shaped into human semblance at the top; they are of two types, the one clearly female and the other with no breasts, but always with a collar or baldric.

It has been argued that these figures represent a deity or deities of the megalithic people.  Dechelette, comparing what are apparently tattoo marks on a menhir-statue at Saint Sermin (Aveyron) with similar marks on a figure cut on a schist plaque at Idanha a Nova (Portugal) and on a marble idol from the island of Seriphos in the AEgean, seems inclined to argue that in France and Portugal we have the same deity as in the AEgean.  This seems rather a hazardous conjecture, for we know that many primitive peoples practised tattooing, and, moreover, it is not certain that the French figures represent deities at all.  It is quite as likely, if not more so, that they represent the deceased, and take the place of a grave-stone:  this would account for the occurrence of both male and female types.  This was almost certainly the purpose of six stones that remain of a line that ran parallel to a now destroyed tomb at Tamuli (Sardinia).  Three have breasts as if to distinguish the sex of three of those buried in the tomb.  We must not therefore assume that any of the French figures represents a ‘dolmen-deity.’

The method of burial observed in the megalithic tombs is almost universally inhumation.  Cremation seems to occur only in France, but there it is beyond all doubt.  The known examples are found in the departments of Finistere, Marne, and Aisne, and in the neighbourhood of Paris.  In Finistere out of 92 megalithic burials examined 61 were cremations, 26 were inhumations, and 5 were uncertain.  It is extremely curious that this small portion of France should be the only part of the megalithic area where cremation was practised.  It is generally held that cremation was brought into Europe by the broad-headed ‘Alpine’ people, who seem to have invaded the centre of the continent at some period in the neolithic age.  It is possible that in parts of France a mixture took place between the megalithic builders and the Alpine race.  Intermarriage would no doubt lead to confusion in many cases between the two rites.