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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Dolmen du Bois de la Grosse Pierre, classified as a historical monument in 1993, is an iconic megalithic site of the Neolithic in Sainte-Radegonde, Charente-Maritime. This quadrangular tumulus, about 20 metres long by 15 metres wide, houses a rectangular sepulchral chamber preceded by a deported access corridor. The excavations conducted in 1998 by Jacques Gachina revealed anthropomorphic orthostats, one of which carries carved breasts, deliberately reversed, probably due to local beliefs.

The funeral chamber, now in ruins, was initially covered with a table more than a meter thick, broken into four pieces. The site, looted at an undetermined time, delivered human bones, arrow tips, neolithic pottery coats and ornament elements (pearls, shells), as well as fragments of medieval ceramics. These findings attest to prolonged occupation and complex ritual practices.

The dolmen, of the angoumoisin type, has an entrance in "furnace door", once closed by a stopper of stone or wood, similar to those of the covered alleys of the Val d的Oise. The orthostats, 2.20 meters high, were carefully covered. Their deliberate reversal suggests a rejection linked to local cults or superstitions, illustrating the evolution of beliefs around megalithic monuments.

Listed in the inventory of historical monuments since 1993, the site has been the subject of an in-depth study by Jacques Gachina, published in 1998. The research highlights its importance in the neolithic funeral landscape of the West Centre, while revealing traces of reuse or subsequent use, as evidenced by the medieval pottery found there.

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