Neolithic sites

Before I get to the ancient and medieval stuff, we have to go back several thousand years to the Neolithic, and we have to start off outside of Nantes, in some of the nearby towns.

Long before France was French, long before the Romans and even before the Celts, there were people living here who didn't leave any written records but left lots of evidence that they were there. I'm not an archaeologist, and I hardly know anything about prehistoric France, but it's an interesting period I wish I knew more about. Normally I get excited about ancient and medieval remains because we don't have anything like that in Canada. In this case though, it's similar to the archaeological sites I know of in southern Ontario. Essentially, there was a native population, which was then replaced/conquered by another population.

I don't know of any Neolithic sites in Nantes itself, but Brittany has hundreds of sites full of menhirs, dolmens, standing stones, etc. Nothing like Stonehenge in England, but they're the same idea, and probably made by the same or a similar culture. They're basically some large stones that were placed in specific spots by unknown people for unknown reasons. The really famous ones like the Carnac Stones were too far from Nantes for me to see, but I visited two other closer sites:

Menhir de la pierre blanche

Location: 47° 21′ 17″ N, 1° 19′ 04″ W To the east of Nantes, further up the Loire, is the little town of Oudon. I went there to see some medieval sites that I'll post about later, but while looking for things to visit, I found that there is a menhir there, just one single standing stone, the "pierre blanche." 

The stone is about 3 kilometres outside of Oudon itself, which I didn't realize when I added it to my list of things to see there. Three kilometres is not too far, but it's all uphill, and I'm not in the best of shape. At the moment it's in the middle of someone's vineyard, but you can walk right up to the stone. It's a big chunk of quartz, about 4 and a half metres high (about 14 feet). It's amazing to me that people just dragged this huge stone and set up in a field. Who were they? Why did they do that? Why here?

I don't know, but after walking all that way, I thought I should go right up to it and touch it and take several dozen pictures of it. It's weird but now I feel kind of connected to whomever it was who put it there.

As seen from the road.

A closeup.

Dolmen de la pierre couvretière

Location: 47° 22′ 07″ N, 1° 10′ 22″ W

This stone is located in Ancenis, also further up the Loire to the east of Nantes and just east of Oudon. This one isn't a menhir, a standing stone like the Pierre blanche; it's a dolmen, a stone to cover a tomb.

It used to be a typical Neolithic tomb, and this was the top stone, with several other stones below it forming the tomb itself. As you can see, the tomb has long since collapsed, and the dolmen has fallen over and sunk into the swamp. I guess the other stones are still there, below the water.

Fortunately this site is right inside the town of Ancenis so it was much easier to find. As with Oudon, I was in Ancenis to see some medieval sites, which I will also post about later.

Next: Roman sites in Nantes.