History
article | Reading time5 min
Discover the history of these emblematic Neolithic sites!
"This region is undoubtedly privileged, and if it is privileged it is because it is sacred, and to me it seems to be a sort of immense necropolis where people came to perform ceremonies, to bury some of their own..."
Paleoanthropologist who supports the inscription of the site of Carnac in the world heritage of the Unesco.
A piece of history
A testimony of time
World famous, the standing stones of Carnac have not (yet) revealed all their secrets...discover their history!
Recent preventive excavations in the vicinity of Carnac have yielded dates that range for the most part between 4,800 and 3,500 B.C. But it is difficult to be precise within this long period of over a thousand years!
It is also impossible to say over what period of time their construction was spread out: a few months or years, assuming that a large number of people participated in a perfectly organized construction site, or over tens or even hundreds of years, by a much smaller group that would have erected stones only on particular occasions.
Séeberger Frères / Centre des monuments nationaux
Through the ages
The site is a real architecture, with a scheme structured according to the geography and the topography of the place, associating: megalithic enclosures, large steles on the high points, and decrease in the size of the menhirs according to the relief.
The ensemble forms a tangle of megalithic monuments, with constructions spread out over time. The alignments were sometimes built "over" a previous monument which was then either forgotten or no longer had a funerary function.
Thereafter, the places are occupied during the metal ages and the historical periods. The same observation is then confirmed within the funerary monuments: many of them were reused and some seem to have served as places of worship during the Gallo-Roman period.
The Middle Ages saw the installation of a first chapel on the Saint-Michel tumulus. Then, in the modern period, the low walls of the parcels of land that break up the alignments for grazing become denser.
auteur : Henrard, Roger, reproduction Philippe Berthé / CMN
From the XIXth century
It is in the second half of the XIXth century that the research on what is then newly perceived as a monument to be studied, restored and preserved is structured and intensified.
At first, it was the largest monuments and their tombs that were investigated, as they would yield objects that were sometimes spectacular.
At the same time, plans were drawn up which are now precious evidence of what the monument was like before the changes it underwent in the 20th century.
Indeed, it is in a state of ruin that it offers itself to the view of visitors: a majority of the stones have fallen over the centuries. The appearance of the site today is not that which knew the prehistoric populations.
Restoration campaigns aim at straightening the steles and restoring the lines. A good part of the stones was raised from the years 1880-1890. We owe to Zacharie Le Rouzic their signalling by the affixing, in the years 1920-1930, of a reddish mortar tablet.
The alignments of Ménec, Kermario and Kerlescan will be classified as historical monuments at this period and most of the land will be acquired by the State.
From the Second World War onwards, the preservation of the site is privileged. The excavations carried out by the German occupant, on and around the Kerlescan mound in 1941 and 1942, were the last large-scale archaeological work carried out in the alignments.
auteur : anonyme, reproduction Philippe Berthé / CMN
The alignments today
Thanks to this, the alignments of Carnac are now the largest megalithic site in the world.
An exceptional preservation due to the fact that Carnac became an intense area of archaeological activity in the nineteenth century, but also to the fact that these thousands of stones have been integrated into popular culture through tales, legends and stories . It is also fortunate that the land was not used as agricultural land, or was only used to a limited extent.
The marks of quarrymen's tools show, however, the reuse of menhirs in the construction of buildings or low walls in the area; the site has not ceased to be used, but without its overall perception disappearing.
The popular success of these astonishing large lines of standing stones contributed to the tourist development of the Morbihan coastline, which only became denser throughout the 20th century.
The alignments, such as one sees them today, are only the vestige of more extensive prehistoric constructions.
They became one of the symbols of the south Morbihan and even of Brittany and are known in the whole world.
The price of this success is that they have been subjected to a very high number of visitors, which has not ceased to increase, especially during the summer period.
It was therefore necessary to organize the preservation and maintenance of the site, at the risk of strongly accelerating the erosion of the archaeological soils and of threatening the stability of the standing stones again.
A drastic measure was taken between 1991 and 1993: to fence the part belonging to the State in order to control the access. Access is free in winter when there is little public and limited to guided tours during the high season, to protect what is also a fragile natural site.
DR, Centre des monuments nationaux
