Real and ideal European maritime transfers along the Atlantic coast during the Neolithic

Abstract

The history of research on the Neolithic of the Atlantic façade shows how speculation about prehistoric mobility, especially across the sea, is mainly based on three types of archaeological evidence: megalithic monuments, rare stones, and pottery decoration. With the aim of approaching the issue from other perspectives, we have focused on the Morbihan area, a focal point of the European Neolithic during the mid-5th millennium BC. The analysis of this area has allowed us to grasp which objects, ideas and beliefs may have been desired, adopted and imitated at the time. We shall begin with an architectural concept, the standing stone. These were sometimes engraved with signs that can be directly compared between Brittany, Galicia (NW Spain) and Portugal, but for which there are no intermediate parallels in other areas of the French or Spanish coast. The unique accumulation and transformation of polished blades made of Alpine rocks and found inside tombs or in other sort of depositions in the Carnac region allowed us to establish a second link with Galicia and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where certain types of the axes were imitated using a set of different rocks (sillimanite, amphibolite). Finally, the variscites and turquoises from different Spanish regions were used for the manufacture of beads and pendants at the Carnacean tombs, without it being possible – once again – to retrieve similar objects in the intermediate areas. The mastery ofdirect Atlantic sea routes is posed as an explanation for this geographical distribution. But, beyond the information drawn from specific artefacts – whose presence/absence should not be used in excess as an argument to endorse or underrate such movements across the ocean – we will return to a more poetic and universal phenomenon: the spell of the sea. Therefore, we will focus on the depictions of boats on the stelae of Morbihan to open such a debate.

A Hypothesis on the Pillars of Hercules and their True Location

“…The Gulf of Morbihan with its narrow entrance corresponds very well to Plato's description of the port from which ships headed towards the American continent set sail in prehistoric times. Furthermore, it is "a focal point of the European Neolithic during the mid-5th millennium BC" [21]. This was also the arrival point of the first swimming crossing of the Atlantic, completed in 1998 by Benoît Lecomte starting from Massachusetts, confirming that this choice is completely natural to cross the North Atlantic.…”

“…In turn Plato, whose absolute certainty of the existence of a continent beyond the ocean is striking, focuses on the haven of departure of the transatlantic route, characterized by its narrow entrance and the Pillars of Hercules. At this point, making use of a recent study on European megalithism, whose Author argues "for the transfer of the megalithic concept over sea routes emanating from northwest France, and for advanced maritime technology and seafaring in the megalithic Age" [20], it is natural to identify this haven with the Gulf of Morbihan, "a focal point of the European Neolithic during the mid-5th millennium BC" [21] near the megalithic site of Carnac. This identification in turn is confirmed by the imposing alignment of nineteen menhirs, all in a row starting from the Broken Menhir of Er Grah, the largest European menhir, near the narrow entrance of the Gulf.…”

A prehistoric jade axe from Galicia (Northwestern Iberia): Researching its origin

“…The presence of a Tumiac axe in Northwestern Spain has been repeatedly mentioned as an evidence of the existence of links between the French and Iberian western outposts, starting at least from the early 4 th Millennium BCE (Cassen et al 2012;Pétrequin et al 2012b), an hypothesis that is also supported by the presence of other Iberian artefacts (namely variscite beads from Palazuelo de las Cuevas and Encinasola) amidst the grave-goods at several sepultures of Western France, most of them found in the gigantic Carnacean tumuli around the Morbihan gulf -Tumiac in Arzon, Mané er Hroëck in Locmariaquer, and Saint-Michel in Carnac- (Cassen et al 2012;Querré et al 2008Querré et al , 2012Querré et al , 2015. Recent approaches (Cassen et al 2019) have added Tumiac axes made on calcium amphibole/actinolite to the possible list of artefacts exchanged between these two regions.…”

“…The peculiar spatial distribution of some of these objects, with few or no examples in regions between Brittany and Galicia (Figure 2), has led several authors to point out the possibility of direct contacts by sea between these two areas, which would provide interesting insights on the possible development of relatively advanced seafaring techniques in Southwest Europe as early as in the 5 th millennium BCE (Cassen et al 2019).…”