Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Dolmens of Mané-Bras, also known as the Dolmens of Lann-Mané-Bras, form a set of five corridor dolmens located on a small natural hill about 30 m above sea level in Erdeven, Morbihan. The name Mané-Bras means "the moor of the great mountain" in Breton. The site consists of a dolmen isolated to the southeast, a group of three dolmen included in a cairn unique to the northwest, and a dolmen very ruined to the northeast. At 70 m south, remains of a megalithic enclosure with seven erect slabs, difficult to interpret.

The site was studied by several archaeologists: W. C. Lukis in 1867, G. Chaplain-Duparc in 1877, and F. Gaillard in 1890, who discovered vases in one of the dolmens. Ranked a historic monument in 1921 and 1923, it was restored in 1923 by Zacharie Le Rouzic, who found fragments of pottery there, a polished axe, a point of arrow, and flint tools, now preserved at the Museum of Prehistory of Carnac. The dolmens have a variety of architectures, with straight or couded corridors, circular or rectangular chambers, and engraved slabs, such as a "cutson" pattern on one of the orthostats.

The most imposing south-east dolmen opens east/south-east and has a four-cell compartment similar to the nearby dolmen of Mané-Groh. The other dolmens, open to the south-west, incorporate corridors 3 to 8 m long and rooms of elongated or trapezoidal forms, sometimes covered with slabs. The main cairn, built in alternating vertical slabs and dry stone walls, houses three of these dolmens. Ancient explorations have delivered little furniture, with the exception of the discoveries of Gaillard and Le Rouzic, reflecting a funeral and ritual occupation in the Neolithic.

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