Pierre Fiche menhir
Also known asPierrefiche · Pierre Fiche · Pierre fiche
DatedEst. 2800–1800 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
Le menhir de Pierre Fiche est un menhir situé sur la commune de Simandre-sur-Suran dans le département de l'Ain en France.
Article in FrenchRead on Wikipedia3 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
Pierre Fiche menhir: the whole story
In briefSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
The Pierre Fiche menhir stands in Simandre-sur-Suran, in the département of the Ain in France. It is also known as Pierrefiche, Pierre Fiche and Pierre fiche. It is the only known menhir in the Ain and one of the department’s rare attested megalithic monuments.
No direct dating has established when the stone was erected. Its form resembles Burgundian examples from the Middle Neolithic, dated to 4200-3600 av. J.-C., giving a typological estimate of 2800 BCE to 1800 BCE. Older sources mention two nearby standing stones that were uprooted in the eighteenth century, so Pierre Fiche may originally have belonged to a larger group rather than standing alone.
The surviving monument has been classified as a monument historique since 6 mars 1888. Its present form can be compared with examples from Burgundy, although no direct evidence fixes its age. The possible disappearance of two neighbouring stones leaves Pierre Fiche as the only one of the three still known in the area.
According to a local legend, Pierre Fiche and its two vanished neighbours were the distaffs planted by three fairies as they passed by. One of the projections was said to make couples who rubbed against it fertile. More generally, menhirs are large upright stones set by people; the word entered archaeology through French antiquarians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the French article "Menhir de Pierre Fiche", shown in the original language.
Summary in EnglishSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Pierre Fiche menhir is a menhir (standing stone) in Simandre-sur-Suran, France. Wikidata describes it as: standing stone in Simandre-sur-Suran, France. A typological estimate: 2800 BCE to 1800 BCE. Elevation: 308 m. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the French article "Menhir de Pierre Fiche", shown in the original language.
HistoriqueSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Aucune datation directe n'a permis de donner l'âge de l'érection du menhir. Cependant sa forme le rapproche d'exemplaires bourguignons du Néolithique moyen (4200-3600 av. J.-C.). Des sources anciennes mentionnent deux autres pierres dressées voisines, arrachées au XVIIIe siècle. Il pourrait donc s'agir à l’origine, non pas d'une pierre isolée, mais d'un ensemble plus complexe. Il s'agit néanmoins du seul menhir connu de l'Ain, et un des rares monuments mégalithiques attestés du département.
L'édifice est classé au titre des monuments historiques depuis le 6 mars 1888
.
LégendesSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Selon une légende locale, le menhir ainsi que ses deux voisins disparus seraient les quenouilles que trois fées auraient plantées en passant par là.
L'une des saillies était réputée rendre féconds les couples qui s'y frottaient.
How this page was madeSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Menhir de Pierre FicheCC 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 Pierre Fiche”, 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
- 1888
L'édifice est classé au titre des monuments historiques depuis le 6 mars 1888 .
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.
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
- 46°13′57″ N, 5°25′18″ EFor a GPS or map app: 46.23250, 5.42170
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 Q3305887wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Lore, kept apart
Legends and claims
These are stories and claims reported by the sources. They are not evidence, and they never stand in for the dating above.
- Tradition
Selon une légende locale, le menhir ainsi que ses deux voisins disparus seraient les quenouilles que trois fées auraient plantées en passant par là.
Selon une légende locale, le menhir ainsi que ses deux voisins disparus seraient les quenouilles que trois fées auraient plantées en passant par là. L'une des saillies était réputée rendre féconds les couples qui s'y frottaient.
Source - Tradition
According to a local legend, Pierre Fiche and its two vanished neighbours were the distaffs planted by three fairies as they passed by.
According to a local legend, Pierre Fiche and its two vanished neighbours were the distaffs planted by three fairies as they passed by. One of the projections was said to make couples who rubbed against it fertile. More generally, menhirs are large upright stones set by people; the word entered archaeology through French antiquarians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Source
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- stèle Georges Helmstteter35 km W
- Tumulus de Lons-le-Saunier49 km N
- Pierre de Matafin53 km NW
- Nécropole des Près-de-l'Eau53 km NW
- Riant Mont glacial erratic54 km E
- Pierre Fiche56 km NW
- menhirs at La Grange, Geneva58 km E
- Bagneux cup-marked stone59 km SE
- Rosset cup-marked stone59 km SE
- Pierre Levée du champ de la Fa60 km NW
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Text from the Wikipedia article "Menhir de Pierre Fiche" (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 Pierre FicheCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q3305887CC0