Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Ville-Pichard cairn
DatedEst. 5000–3000 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
Overview
The cairn de la Ville-Pichard is a dolmenic cairn at the place called la Ville-Pichard, in the north of the commune of Pléneuf-Val-André, in the département of Côtes-d'Armor, France. It overlooks the coast and is dated by typological estimate to about 5000 to 3000 BCE.
It has been classified as a historic monument since 15 April 1965. Three circular chambers, each with its own passage, lay within an elliptical mound.
Read 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.
Article
Ville-Pichard cairn
It was originally a rather imposing elliptical monument, 10 m wide on the north-south axis and 25 m long on the east-west axis, about 5 m high.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Cairn de la Ville-PichardCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Cairn de la Ville-PichardCC BY-SA 4.0
The cairn is now barely visible under vegetation. It was originally a rather imposing elliptical monument, 10 m wide on the north-south axis and 25 m long on the east-west axis, about 5 m high. It contained three circular chambers set in parallel, each extended by a passage opening to the south. The chambers were roofed with a corbelled vault of dry stone. The construction as a whole is of the same type as the Cairn de l'île Carn at Ploudalmézeau.
Chamber no. 1 is preceded by an access passage 2.50 m long and 0.60 m wide. Its walls are formed of orthostates between 0.80 m and 1.20 m high, and its floor was covered with small slabs, 3 cm to 4 cm thick, of Erquy sandstone.
Chamber no. 2 is preceded by a passage 3.60 m long and 0.60 m wide, and its walls are formed of sixteen orthostates.
Chamber no. 3 is preceded by a passage 4.40 m long and 0.58 m wide, and its walls are formed of eighteen orthostates.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Cairn de la Ville-PichardCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Cairn de la Ville-PichardCC BY-SA 4.0
M. Fornier excavated the cairn in 1887. Only in chamber no. 3 did he collect finds: sixteen pebbles, flints (three blades, two points and a scraper) and sherds of at least seven vases. The assemblage has been dated to the Armorican Middle Neolithic.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Low Countries and French barrows
Round barrows are found across the Low Countries and France. Many were raised in the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The Bell Beaker phenomenon of the late third millennium BCE brought a new burial rite to western Europe: individual burials, often under a tumulus and with weapons, in contrast to the collective, weaponless burials of the earlier Neolithic. The Dutch hunebedden, the megalithic tombs of the north, belong to the earlier tradition and are described in their own article.
Round barrows are hemispherical mounds raised over a central burial, which may be an inhumation or a cremation placed in a vessel. Barrows were often reused: later graves were cut into the mound, sometimes long after the first burial, and many attract satellite burials. In France and Belgium, tumuli of the Hallstatt period belong to the early Iron Age, from about 800 BCE; from phase B of the Hallstatt sequence, tumulus burial becomes common and cremation predominates.
Dating relies on pottery and metalwork, and on radiocarbon dating where a mound has been dug. Many have been ploughed down, so the Atlas map reflects where mounds survived and were recorded as much as where they were built.
When visiting, look for the surrounding ditch or kerb, and for a later disturbance at the centre where a later grave or an old digging has cut the mound.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Round barrow, Wikipedia: Bell Beaker culture, Wikipedia: Hallstatt culture, Wikipedia: Hunebed · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1887
Fornier[Qui ?] fouilla le cairn en 1887 et y recueillit, uniquement dans la chambre no 3, seize galets, des silex (trois lames, deux pointes et un grattoir) et des tessons de poterie d'au moins sept vases.
Source - 1965
Le monument fait l'objet d’un classement au titre des monuments historiques depuis le 15 avril 1965.
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. 5000–3000 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in France; this site has not been dated itself. The Neolithic Saint-Michel de Carnac tumulus was built between 5,000 and 3,400 BC and the Bougon tumuli between 4,500 and 3,000 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
France
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 48°35′49″ N, 2°32′39″ WFor a GPS or map app: 48.59686, -2.54414
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.
Dolmen de la Ville Hamon4000–3000 BCE
Allée couverte von Ville Bellanger4000–3000 BCE
menhir de Carquitté2800–1800 BCE- DolmenAllée couverte de La Roche Couverte4000–3000 BCE
Allée couverte du Chêne-Hut4500–3300 BCE
Menhir de Guihallon2800–1800 BCE
Allée couverte et alignement de menhirs indicateurs de Saint-André3300–2500 BCE
allée couverte du Tertre de l'église4000–3000 BCE
.jpg){kind=link}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q2933239wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Dolmen de la Ville Hamon8.3 km NE
- Allée couverte von Ville Bellanger11 km SE
- menhir de Carquitté12 km SW
- Allée couverte de La Roche Couverte13 km E
- Allée couverte du Chêne-Hut13 km SE
- Menhir de Guihallon16 km SE
- Allée couverte et alignement de menhirs indicateurs de Saint-André16 km SE
- allée couverte du Tertre de l'église17 km NE
- Site mégalithique de la Lande du Gras18 km S
- Doigt de Gargantua20 km E
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Cairn de la Ville-Pichard" (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