Dolmen de la Boire de Champtocé

The Dolmen de la Boire de Champtocé is a dolmen at Champtocé-sur-Loire, in the French department of Maine-et-Loire. It lies immersed in the Loire near the right bank, close to the water's edge.

The monument has a trapezoidal chamber, slightly narrowing toward its eastern opening. Seven upright stones bound the chamber: three on each side to the north and south, and one closing stone at the far end. The whole structure measures 5 m long and 2 m wide and resembles a short covered passage in a V shape of the Armorican type. All the slabs are made of grès à sabals.

Most of the slabs remained submerged, and a rough plan was drawn by Michel Gruet and his team despite the difficult conditions. The stones project by 0,50 m to 1 m above the muddy bottom, but may originally have sunk equally deep beneath it. Five other submerged blocks were identified to the north and east of the structure; these may be remains of a peristalith.

The dolmen was discovered only in 1976, when drought had greatly lowered the level of the Loire. Its date is estimated at 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE by typology. Research was published by Michel Gruet, Guy Collin and Alain Braguier in the Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française in 1978, and described in Michel Gruet's book Mégalithes en Anjou.

Dolmens are single-chamber megalithic tombs with two or more upright stones carrying a great capstone. Most date to the Late Neolithic, about 4000 to 3000 BCE, and many were covered with earth or smaller stones to form a mound.

Dolmen de la Boire de Champtocé is a dolmen in Champtocé-sur-Loire, France. A typological estimate: 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the French article "Dolmen de la Boire de Champtocé", shown in the original language.