History
article | Reading time5 min
Discover the history of these emblematic Neolithic sites!
"This region is unquestionably privileged, and if it's privileged it's because it's sacred, and it seems to me to be a sort of immense necropolis where people came to perform ceremonies, to bury some of their own..."
Palaeoanthropologist who supports the inclusion of the Carnac site on Unesco's World Heritage List.
A piece of history
A testimony to time
The world-famous standing stones of Carnac have not (yet) revealed all their secrets... discover their history!
Recent preventive excavations in the area around Carnac have yielded dates that range, for the most part, between 4,800 and 3,500 BC. But it's hard to be precise within this long period of more than a thousand years!
Nor is it possible to say how long they were built: a few months or years, assuming that a large number of people took part in a perfectly organised project, or tens or even hundreds of years, by a much smaller group who erected the stones only on special occasions.
Séeberger Frères / Centre des monuments nationaux
Through the ages
The site is a veritable architectural structure, with a layout structured according to the geography and topography of the area, combining megalithic enclosures, large stelae on high points, and menhirs that diminish in size with the relief.
Together, they form a tangle of megalithic monuments, with construction spread out over time. In some places, the alignments were built "on top" of an earlier monument, which was either forgotten or no longer had a funerary function.
Subsequently, the sites were occupied during the metal ages and historical periods. The same is true of the funerary monuments: many of them were reused, and some appear to have been used as places of worship during the Gallo-Roman period.
The Middle Ages saw the construction of the first chapel on the Saint-Michel burial mound. Then, in the modern era, the low walls dividing the grazing rows became denser.
auteur : Henrard, Roger, reproduction Philippe Berthé / CMN
From the 19th century onwards
It was in the second half of the 19th century that research into what was then newly perceived as a monument to be studied, restored and preserved began to be structured and intensified.
Initially, it was the largest monuments and their tombs in particular that were investigated, as they yielded objects that were sometimes spectacular. At the same time, plans were drawn up, providing invaluable evidence of what the monument looked like before the changes it underwent in the 20th century.
Indeed, visitors can see it as a ruin: most of the stones have fallen away over the centuries. The appearance of the site today is not what prehistoric populations knew it to be.
Restoration campaigns aim to straighten the stelae and restore the rows of stones. Many of the stones were removed between 1880 and 1890. Zacharie Le Rouzic was responsible for identifying them by affixing a reddish mortar tablet in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Ménec, Kermario and Kerlescan alignments were listed as historic monuments during this period, and most of the land was acquired by the State.
From the Second World War onwards, the focus was on preserving the site. The excavations carried out by the German occupying forces on and around the Kerlescan mound in 1941 and 1942 were the last major archaeological work to be carried out on the alignments.
auteur : anonyme, reproduction Philippe Berthé / CMN
The alignments today
As a result, the Carnac alignments are now the largest megalithic site in the world.
This exceptional preservation is due not only to the fact that Carnac became an area of intense archaeological activity in the 19th century, but also to the fact that these thousands of stones have been integrated into popular culture through tales, legends and stories. It's also fortunate that the land was little or never used for farming.
However, the marks of quarrymen's tools show that the menhirs were reused in the construction of buildings and low walls in the surrounding area; the site has been used constantly, but without losing its overall perception.
The popular success of these astonishing rows of standing stones contributed to the development of tourism along the Morbihan coast, which only increased in density throughout the 20th century.
The alignments, as we see them today, are merely the remains of more extensive prehistoric constructions.
They have become one of the symbols of southern Morbihan, and indeed of Brittany, and are known the world over.
The price of this success is that they have been subjected to an ever-increasing number of visitors, particularly during the summer months.
It was therefore necessary to organise the preservation and maintenance of the site, at the risk of accelerating the erosion of the archaeological soils and once again threatening the stability of the standing stones.
A drastic measure was taken between 1991 and 1993: fencing off the part of the site belonging to the State in order to control access. Access is free in winter when there are few visitors, and limited to guided tours during the high season, to protect what is also a fragile natural site.
DR, Centre des monuments nationaux
