The history of the Megaliths of Brittany is very ancient. The people of the Neolithic Era, of which little is known, began building monuments to their dead as far back as 4800 B.C.

Over the months that I biked around Brittany I found many superb examples of the handiwork of Early Man. Beginning with solitary Menhirs, or cap stones, that early settlers to Brittany erected as territorial markers.

Next came the passage graves, long stone passages capped by immense flag stones and terminating in a circular chamber where the dead were placed. These graves where covered with layer upon layer of dry stone walls to forma Carn.

Variations of the passage grave evolved over the centuries to include the allée couverte, common in the Côte d'Armor region and the allé-coudée, of which a fine example is found near Carnac.(See Allée Couverte Page).

 By the Late Neolithic period, around the middle of the 3rd Millennium B.C., the passage grave gave way to the stark stone construction of the Dolmen.
These were single chamber tombs with large cumbersome capstones. To this category belongs the Dolmen of Essé (La Roche-aux-Fées), the Rock of the Fairies, certainly one of the most excellent examples of Megalithic construction in all of Brittany. The capstone to the portal of this 15m long chamber weighs over 25 tons!

After several millennium the passage grave and dolmen were being replaced by the cromlech, literally "curved stones", that are reminiscent of the stone rings of Britain. These rings appear to be used as a place of assembly being no less than
50m wide.

Of this same period came the alignments or stone rows. The rows are often associated with a cromlech. It has been suggested that some rows were intended for rites of death or even in relation to astronomical events.

The megalithic tradition faded by the middle of the second millennium B.C. in Brittany. Some of the more" recent" construction took place in the Carnac region.