Menhir de Montaberlet
DatedEst. 2800–1800 BCE
Photo Sebleouf · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
Le menhir de Montaberlet est un menhir situé en France, sur la commune de Décines-Charpieu dans le département du Rhône en région Rhône-Alpes.
Le menhir est classé au titre des monuments historiques depuis 1889.
Article in FrenchRead on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
The full article
Menhir de Montaberlet: the whole story
In briefSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de MontaberletCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de MontaberletCC BY-SA 4.0
Menhir de Montaberlet is a standing stone, or menhir, in Décines-Charpieu in the Rhône department of the Rhône-Alpes region of France.
The stone has been listed as a historic monument since 1889. The available information does not describe its height, shape, material, setting, or present condition.
Typological estimates place the Menhir de Montaberlet between 2800 BCE and 1800 BCE. No specific excavation findings, research history, or more precise dating are given here.
Menhirs are large upright stones placed by people. The word comes from the Breton maen and hir, meaning "long stone," and entered archaeology through French antiquarians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Such monuments are most numerous in Western Europe, with about 1,200 in north-western France alone.
No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the French article "Menhir de Montaberlet", shown in the original language.
Summary in EnglishSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de MontaberletCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de MontaberletCC BY-SA 4.0
Menhir de Montaberlet is a menhir (standing stone) in Décines-Charpieu, France. Wikidata describes it as: menhir in Décines-Charpieu, France. A typological estimate: 2800 BCE to 1800 BCE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the French article "Menhir de Montaberlet", shown in the original language.
How this page was madeSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de MontaberletCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de MontaberletCC BY-SA 4.0
The summary at the top of this page was written by MiniMax-M3 (2026-11-08) from the cited Wikipedia article “Menhir de Montaberlet”, translated from French. The numbers in it were checked automatically against the source text. The rest of the page is the article itself, the structured records and computed distances.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Breton and French menhirs
A menhir is a large upright stone placed by humans. The word comes from the Breton maen and hir, "long stone", and entered archaeology through French antiquarians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; in modern Breton the word for such a stone is peulvan. Menhirs are most numerous in Western Europe, with about 1,200 in north-western France alone, and Brittany stands out for both the density of monuments and the variety of types.
The largest known menhir is the Grand Menhir Brisé at Locmariaquer. It once stood nearly 20.6 metres high, and now lies fractured in four pieces; whole, it would have weighed some 330 tonnes. Stones in the Carnac area were hewn from local granite by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany. At Carnac more than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones form the largest such collection in the world, arranged in groups of alignments that stretch for four kilometres. The stones were erected at some point in the Neolithic, probably around 3300 BCE, with some perhaps as early as 4500 BCE. Elsewhere, the Cham des Bondons in the Cévennes is the second largest concentration in France, and a menhir 4.5 metres tall stands against Le Mans Cathedral, moved there in 1778 when its dolmen was destroyed.
Dating a menhir is difficult, because standing stones are usually hard to date and were put up in many different periods.
Folklore: a Christian legend held that the stones of Carnac were pagan soldiers who had pursued Pope Cornelius and were turned to stone by him. Modern beliefs link the stones with Roman and Christian occupation, even though they date from 4500 to 3300 BCE.
When visiting, look at how the stones taper towards the top and at how the alignments run across the slope.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: Carnac stones, Wikipedia: Locmariaquer megaliths, Wikipedia: List of menhirs · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1889
Le menhir est classé au titre des monuments historiques depuis 1889.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2800–1800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for menhirs in France; this site has not been dated itself. Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
France
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 45°46′06″ N, 4°56′18″ EFor a GPS or map app: 45.76832, 4.93825
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q15961431wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- stèle (cippe) à Lyon9.2 km W
- Borne milliaire de Solaize16 km SW
- Pierre à cupules de La Verpillère22 km SE
- stèle Georges Helmstteter53 km N
- stèle (cippe) à Néronde54 km W
- Bagneux cup-marked stone61 km E
- Rosset cup-marked stone62 km E
- Pierre Fiche menhir64 km NE
- Roche Péréandre64 km S
- borne milliaire d'Arras-sur-Rhône78 km S
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Text from the Wikipedia article "Menhir de Montaberlet" (French), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de MontaberletCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q15961431CC0